**A Unique Approach to Electric Cars: The BMW i3**

I recently had the opportunity to test drive the BMW i3, a unique electric car that offers an interesting approach to sustainable transportation. As I sat down behind the wheel, I couldn't help but notice the peculiar doors on either side of me. Unlike most cars, which have sliding doors or hinged doors on one side, the i3 has doors that can only be closed by the driver who is sitting in the front seat.

As I began to drive, I was struck by how well-engineered this car feels. The electric motor provides a smooth and satisfying driving experience, with excellent visibility from the driver's seat. One of the most impressive features of the i3 is its ability to conserve energy. When running on electricity, the battery level remains at 45 miles even after driving for over an hour. It wasn't until I was cruising down the motorway that I realized I needed to start replenishing the battery.

To my surprise, the car uses very little petrol. In fact, it's almost as if the car doesn't use petrol at all. This is due to the clever design of the engine, which can be switched on and off as needed. When I stopped for a fill-up, I was shocked to find out that it had only used 1.59 gallons of petrol for an estimated 80 miles - that works out to a staggering 50.3 miles per gallon.

As I continued driving, I couldn't help but think about the implications of this technology on our transportation systems. With so many cars on the road, it's no secret that we're contributing to air pollution and climate change. But what if we could switch to more sustainable modes of transportation? The BMW i3 offers a glimpse into a future where electric cars are the norm.

One of the most interesting things about driving an electric car is the way you start to think differently about your daily commute. When you're cruising along, you realize how little petrol the car uses, and it's hard not to feel a sense of satisfaction knowing that you're doing your part for the environment. And yet, at the same time, I couldn't help but think about the absurdity of the situation - I was driving an electric car with no emissions, but still using petrol to fill up the tank.

As I continued to explore the features of the i3, I discovered that it's not just a car, but also a clever marketing tool. The company released a film showcasing the impact of cars on our roads and how we need to change the way we use them. It was an intriguing approach, and I couldn't help but feel that this car is part of something much bigger.

In conclusion, my experience with the BMW i3 has left me with mixed feelings. On one hand, I'm impressed by its performance, engineering, and commitment to sustainability. But on the other hand, I find it hard not to think about the absurdity of driving an electric car that still uses petrol. As we move forward in our quest for sustainable transportation, I hope that cars like the i3 will continue to inspire us to rethink our relationship with cars.

**The Engineering Behind the BMW i3**

One of the things that struck me most about the BMW i3 is its clever engineering. The electric motor provides a smooth and satisfying driving experience, and the car's ability to conserve energy is truly impressive. But what's even more impressive is the way the engineers at BMW have designed this car to work in harmony with the environment.

The i3's battery is made up of several layers, each designed to optimize energy storage and release. When you're driving, the battery absorbs electrical energy from the motor and stores it for later use. This means that even when you're cruising down the motorway, the battery level remains stable and efficient.

But what really sets the i3 apart is its ability to transition seamlessly between electric and petrol power. When the battery level gets too low, the engine kicks in and starts generating petrol for the car. And yet, even when the engine is running, it's still possible to drive the car using only electric power - a feature that I found both fascinating and convenient.

The i3's clever engineering is also reflected in its exterior design. The car's unique shape, with its large wheels and minimalist profile, allows for maximum aerodynamics and efficiency. And yet, despite its sleek appearance, the i3 still manages to feel surprisingly spacious inside.

**A Look at the Car's Features**

As I explored the features of the BMW i3, I was struck by how many clever details are hidden beneath the surface. One of the most interesting things I discovered is the car's advanced infotainment system, which includes everything from navigation and entertainment to safety features like lane departure warning.

But what really caught my eye was the unusual doors on either side of me. Unlike most cars, which have sliding doors or hinged doors on one side, the i3 has doors that can only be closed by the driver who is sitting in the front seat. It's a clever design feature that I found both fascinating and frustrating at times.

The car also features a range of safety features, including automatic emergency braking and lane change assist. And yet, despite these advanced safety features, the i3 still manages to feel surprisingly agile and responsive on the road.

As I continued to explore the features of the i3, I couldn't help but think about how this car might fit into my own daily routine. Would I be able to use it for both short trips around town and long road trips? And would its unique design and features make it a standout in a crowded field?

**A Unique Approach to Sustainable Transportation**

The BMW i3 offers a glimpse into a future where electric cars are the norm. As we move forward in our quest for sustainable transportation, I hope that cars like the i3 will continue to inspire us to rethink our relationship with cars.

One of the most interesting things about the i3 is its commitment to sustainability. From its zero-emission design to its clever use of renewable energy sources, this car is a true pioneer in the field of electric vehicles. And yet, despite its eco-friendly credentials, the i3 still manages to feel surprisingly luxurious and comfortable on the road.

As I continued to explore the features of the i3, I couldn't help but think about the implications of this technology on our transportation systems. With so many cars on the road, it's no secret that we're contributing to air pollution and climate change. But what if we could switch to more sustainable modes of transportation? The BMW i3 offers a glimpse into a future where electric cars are not just feasible, but also desirable.

In conclusion, my experience with the BMW i3 has left me with mixed feelings. On one hand, I'm impressed by its performance, engineering, and commitment to sustainability. But on the other hand, I find it hard not to think about the absurdity of driving an electric car that still uses petrol. As we move forward in our quest for sustainable transportation, I hope that cars like the i3 will continue to inspire us to rethink our relationship with cars.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello and welcome to another episode of fully charged uh this episode is all about the BMW i3 now I we I have done a show about this before and that's when I got to drive on when it was launched but I only drove it for about an hour and you never really can tell really what it's like when you do that so it's great that I've got this for much longer now uh I've got 54 mil of charge it's not full it's about half empty uh and and I'm going to drive it now and see what happens and I've worked it out so I've got my foot on the brake it's on and I push this lever here and then that puts it in gear and then it starts to move and there we go it's that easy the handling is just Exquisite it's really really nice car to drive it it it goes where you steer all those things it's not wibbly wobbly this is a really tight little car it's fantastic very nice car to drive very comfortable brilliant visibility mirrors and everything all that stuff excellent uh it's nippy what am I in now 50 mph limit so I'm doing 36 and if I just go like that it's very very sort of solid push now this is an electric car with an electric motor with a big battery that you charge but this particular model there's two types of BMW i3 this particular model has uh what's called a range extend Ender so it's the BMW i3 Rex and there's a little petrol engine in the back what that does is extend the range of your battery so you can set it to hold the amount of charge you've got in your batteries so for instance at the moment I've got 54 mil in the in the battery and if I then apply for um to put the range extending thing on which I've took me a while to learn how to do that not forever because I'm going to say now the standard BMW interface is not my favorite thing I put the Range Extender on and I click hold state of charge so there we go it's a really it's a tiny engine that's what's amazing it's a little motorbike engine and what that does is run off petrol it runs a generator and it maintains the level of charge that you've got in the batteries it doesn't let the battery go down below that and what this can mean is many things one of the things it can mean is say you're driving quite a long distance and you're going to a city where you can't use a petrol engine which is going to be something that's uh being introduced into most European cities in the next few years then you drive with that running so that the battery maintains its level of charge and then you've got you know 70 Mi of electric range when you're in a city anyway so that as you can tell I mean I've driven this car very little and it's just absolutely automatic it it works really really well it's a very nice car to drive it it keeps up with the traffic without any effort at all you can easily break the speed limit in it if you want to do that um it's got cruise control it is literally that there we go it's on cruise control it's very easy to use you know no one showed me that I worked that out myself uh it's got uh lots of different audio inputs it's got Bluetooth it's got USB inputs you can play stuff on your phone all that stuff it's got all that stuff the thing that I would be critical of it I think is then that's because I'm spoiled so I'm used to the Tesla's navigation system and all that stuff and this really does have uh uh what feels like quite an old school satnav and and you know input system you know that you have to spell things out by moving a knob and a dial and oh God so this car can also be charged in the same way as any electric car you could charge it from a 13 amp 3 pin plug it would take a long time you can charge it from a 7even uh 7 kilowatt uh output like I've got a home which is um 32 s and you can charge it on a rapid charger on the motorway which I will do in a bit just to have a go with it uh and they're fairly now fairly common on motorways can motoring manufacturers agree on a standard charger for the whole world where it's all where we can all use the same one no of course they can't like mobile phone uh companies they've all got to have their own special dibbly thing and eventually they work it out oh actually it's better if we all use the same one I reckon it takes 20 years so I reckon in 20 years time all electric cars will use the same wire but at the same time most electric cars will be charged using induction charging rather than cables cuz cables is a bit old school really here's one of the things I think is important really it's down to the two electric only manufacturers byd and Tesla they only make electric cars and out of the three big manufacturers that also produce electric cars I think BMWs in that top three so that's Nissan Renault and BMW because they make purpose-built only electric this car there isn't a petrol version of this car there isn't a diesel version of this car this car was designed and built as an electric car and that really makes a difference it's not converted it's not an adaption You could argue that the golf eolf is the closest of any of the other cars where the manufacturer has gone from the ground up redesigned the whole Bodywork so that it can be a diesel a petrol a plugin hybrid or a pure electric which the eolf is one of those cars so you can argue that and I have tried to argue that but still it's kind of there's some compromises made I think in terms of battery size um and this car is just it's just built in so well the the battery and the the drive system and the battery management system is very sophisticated very slick they built a factory to make this car uh this amazing Factory in Germany which is I don't know how much powered but enormously powered by Renewables so it's got a lot of solar a lot of wind and it's near a massive hydroelectric power plant which is one of the reasons they did it they built it there so it's a it this car I think will have arguably and I'm sure BMW would argue it the lowest carbon footprint of any electric car produced possibly of any car produced okay I'm driving along the M4 outside Bristol on my right is a massive solar farm I've Just Seen another one on the left back there and up on the hill is a wind turbine I've got a sneaking suspicion that something is happening in the world so driving this car today has really shown me one very important thing and that is that it's very hard to judge a car from a 1H hour test drive which is all I've ever done in this car when it was launched I got to drive it around br's Hatch Motor Racing circuit at brake neck speed I got to drive it about for about an hour on on the roads and yeah you could tell all the things that you need to tell the brakes work the indicators work you can do steering with it you know you know that but I've driven it far enough now and over a couple of days to work out how it all plays together and this one is the BMW i3 Rex with the range extended little petrol engine in the back that is almost impossible to hear when it's on you just don't know when it's on or off unless you're going at four miles an hour and then you can hear and it stops and it's just a little like a motorbike engine that's turning a generator that's generating enough power to keep the batteries at whatever level they're at when it turns on and that I think is an interesting transition it's like a transition drug if you like from people who are totally used to fossil fuel cars and then want to try an electric one but they go oh oh what happens if it runs out on a lane at night which that you could most more people run out of petrol than anyone knows there's been a big flurry of activity around that because there's all these signs on motorways that go check your fuel level because so many people are running out of of fuel on motorways all the time oh do they have range anxiety they do when they stall in the fast lane the brilliant picture of that the other day someone just stopped in the fast lane caused pandemonium on the motorway because they'd run out of gas how ridiculously stupid is that so this car allows you to to gently transition to understand how electric cars work and I've heard from so many people on Twitter we've got these cars today that say they never use the Rex there's someone I've spoke someone who left me a message who's done 25,000 miles in their BMW I3 and they've used 9 lers of Petrol in that time so they very rarely use it but it's there if you want it and I've been driving today just to see what happens about the last 30 miles I've been driving with the little engine running and the battery level is is maintained at 45 miles range all that time doesn't go down uh if you go fast on the motorway it drops a little bit because the little motor can't keep up with the amount of electricity you're using but at normal driving speeds and at normal B roads a roads it's absolutely fine so you could drive literally I could drive from here I'm in Wilshire at the moment I could drive to Scotland in this car without ever plugging in just keep putting Petrol in it it uses quite a lot of petrol it took me a long time to work out how much petrol so when I was driving this morning the the petrol was very nearly empty so I stopped at a garage and I actually stopped and I bought petrol with a petrol pump and put it in £8.61 filled it that was an expensive petrol cuz I'd forgotten how expensive petrol is on a Motorway services and how much cheaper is elsewhere so it was so let's say 8 let's say 8 that's easy and that gives you about 80 M range in the car for £8 so then you work out that that is I did some calculations so should be really easy 80 80 miles for £8 that's like10 I initially worked out it cost 10 a mile I went God this uses loads of petrol no that would be that would be if it cost £8 and you couldn't even do a mile okay I worked it out wrong what I need is some help from a young person to explain how many miles to the gallon it does he brought 7.24 L of petrol for £8 61p 7.24 L is 1.59 gallons so a gallon costs £5 41 if you can drive £ 80 M on 1.59 gallons you were getting 50.3 m to the gallon it's not that hard Robert I can do it and I'm seven but anyway so you you'd be an idiot if you drove this car just using petrol that's not what it's for it it uses electricity very efficiently it's brilliantly engineered there's no question of that I love the engineering the BMW done on this the electric motor the way it drives is just really satisfying it's a really nice car to drive brilliant visibility quite bizarre doors we learned something today that if you're in the driver's seat there and you've got someone who wants to get in the back uh on the far side they can close this door but they can't they can't close that one which means that the driver has to get out and go and close it but very rarely when would you ever have someone in the back unless there was someone in the front so you know being a bit picky but there are quite bizarre some people love them some people hate them it's quite nice when it's like this you could cool it down on a hot day very quickly um and other than that it's just you know it does all the things that cars do and it's it's brilliant so I mean it's definitely in my list of of top five all-time best electric cars anyway that's all that's all for this week's fully charge thank you for watching uh you know the normal stuff I'll just say it quickly subscribe Patron that's it thanks a lot what you're watching here isn't some activist film about the impact of cars on the road and the impact of population and how the fact that the world is really in trouble no that's not what this is It's really intriguing when I first saw the BMW i3 being launched they showed this film this film is an advert by a car company about how ridiculous it is how many cars there are on the road and how we've all going to change the way we use cars and it's coming from a car company I just thought it was intriguing so I just wanted to show it just a bit of it at the end of this week's show anyway that's all have a good look at it let's go up on the horizon of thehello and welcome to another episode of fully charged uh this episode is all about the BMW i3 now I we I have done a show about this before and that's when I got to drive on when it was launched but I only drove it for about an hour and you never really can tell really what it's like when you do that so it's great that I've got this for much longer now uh I've got 54 mil of charge it's not full it's about half empty uh and and I'm going to drive it now and see what happens and I've worked it out so I've got my foot on the brake it's on and I push this lever here and then that puts it in gear and then it starts to move and there we go it's that easy the handling is just Exquisite it's really really nice car to drive it it it goes where you steer all those things it's not wibbly wobbly this is a really tight little car it's fantastic very nice car to drive very comfortable brilliant visibility mirrors and everything all that stuff excellent uh it's nippy what am I in now 50 mph limit so I'm doing 36 and if I just go like that it's very very sort of solid push now this is an electric car with an electric motor with a big battery that you charge but this particular model there's two types of BMW i3 this particular model has uh what's called a range extend Ender so it's the BMW i3 Rex and there's a little petrol engine in the back what that does is extend the range of your battery so you can set it to hold the amount of charge you've got in your batteries so for instance at the moment I've got 54 mil in the in the battery and if I then apply for um to put the range extending thing on which I've took me a while to learn how to do that not forever because I'm going to say now the standard BMW interface is not my favorite thing I put the Range Extender on and I click hold state of charge so there we go it's a really it's a tiny engine that's what's amazing it's a little motorbike engine and what that does is run off petrol it runs a generator and it maintains the level of charge that you've got in the batteries it doesn't let the battery go down below that and what this can mean is many things one of the things it can mean is say you're driving quite a long distance and you're going to a city where you can't use a petrol engine which is going to be something that's uh being introduced into most European cities in the next few years then you drive with that running so that the battery maintains its level of charge and then you've got you know 70 Mi of electric range when you're in a city anyway so that as you can tell I mean I've driven this car very little and it's just absolutely automatic it it works really really well it's a very nice car to drive it it keeps up with the traffic without any effort at all you can easily break the speed limit in it if you want to do that um it's got cruise control it is literally that there we go it's on cruise control it's very easy to use you know no one showed me that I worked that out myself uh it's got uh lots of different audio inputs it's got Bluetooth it's got USB inputs you can play stuff on your phone all that stuff it's got all that stuff the thing that I would be critical of it I think is then that's because I'm spoiled so I'm used to the Tesla's navigation system and all that stuff and this really does have uh uh what feels like quite an old school satnav and and you know input system you know that you have to spell things out by moving a knob and a dial and oh God so this car can also be charged in the same way as any electric car you could charge it from a 13 amp 3 pin plug it would take a long time you can charge it from a 7even uh 7 kilowatt uh output like I've got a home which is um 32 s and you can charge it on a rapid charger on the motorway which I will do in a bit just to have a go with it uh and they're fairly now fairly common on motorways can motoring manufacturers agree on a standard charger for the whole world where it's all where we can all use the same one no of course they can't like mobile phone uh companies they've all got to have their own special dibbly thing and eventually they work it out oh actually it's better if we all use the same one I reckon it takes 20 years so I reckon in 20 years time all electric cars will use the same wire but at the same time most electric cars will be charged using induction charging rather than cables cuz cables is a bit old school really here's one of the things I think is important really it's down to the two electric only manufacturers byd and Tesla they only make electric cars and out of the three big manufacturers that also produce electric cars I think BMWs in that top three so that's Nissan Renault and BMW because they make purpose-built only electric this car there isn't a petrol version of this car there isn't a diesel version of this car this car was designed and built as an electric car and that really makes a difference it's not converted it's not an adaption You could argue that the golf eolf is the closest of any of the other cars where the manufacturer has gone from the ground up redesigned the whole Bodywork so that it can be a diesel a petrol a plugin hybrid or a pure electric which the eolf is one of those cars so you can argue that and I have tried to argue that but still it's kind of there's some compromises made I think in terms of battery size um and this car is just it's just built in so well the the battery and the the drive system and the battery management system is very sophisticated very slick they built a factory to make this car uh this amazing Factory in Germany which is I don't know how much powered but enormously powered by Renewables so it's got a lot of solar a lot of wind and it's near a massive hydroelectric power plant which is one of the reasons they did it they built it there so it's a it this car I think will have arguably and I'm sure BMW would argue it the lowest carbon footprint of any electric car produced possibly of any car produced okay I'm driving along the M4 outside Bristol on my right is a massive solar farm I've Just Seen another one on the left back there and up on the hill is a wind turbine I've got a sneaking suspicion that something is happening in the world so driving this car today has really shown me one very important thing and that is that it's very hard to judge a car from a 1H hour test drive which is all I've ever done in this car when it was launched I got to drive it around br's Hatch Motor Racing circuit at brake neck speed I got to drive it about for about an hour on on the roads and yeah you could tell all the things that you need to tell the brakes work the indicators work you can do steering with it you know you know that but I've driven it far enough now and over a couple of days to work out how it all plays together and this one is the BMW i3 Rex with the range extended little petrol engine in the back that is almost impossible to hear when it's on you just don't know when it's on or off unless you're going at four miles an hour and then you can hear and it stops and it's just a little like a motorbike engine that's turning a generator that's generating enough power to keep the batteries at whatever level they're at when it turns on and that I think is an interesting transition it's like a transition drug if you like from people who are totally used to fossil fuel cars and then want to try an electric one but they go oh oh what happens if it runs out on a lane at night which that you could most more people run out of petrol than anyone knows there's been a big flurry of activity around that because there's all these signs on motorways that go check your fuel level because so many people are running out of of fuel on motorways all the time oh do they have range anxiety they do when they stall in the fast lane the brilliant picture of that the other day someone just stopped in the fast lane caused pandemonium on the motorway because they'd run out of gas how ridiculously stupid is that so this car allows you to to gently transition to understand how electric cars work and I've heard from so many people on Twitter we've got these cars today that say they never use the Rex there's someone I've spoke someone who left me a message who's done 25,000 miles in their BMW I3 and they've used 9 lers of Petrol in that time so they very rarely use it but it's there if you want it and I've been driving today just to see what happens about the last 30 miles I've been driving with the little engine running and the battery level is is maintained at 45 miles range all that time doesn't go down uh if you go fast on the motorway it drops a little bit because the little motor can't keep up with the amount of electricity you're using but at normal driving speeds and at normal B roads a roads it's absolutely fine so you could drive literally I could drive from here I'm in Wilshire at the moment I could drive to Scotland in this car without ever plugging in just keep putting Petrol in it it uses quite a lot of petrol it took me a long time to work out how much petrol so when I was driving this morning the the petrol was very nearly empty so I stopped at a garage and I actually stopped and I bought petrol with a petrol pump and put it in £8.61 filled it that was an expensive petrol cuz I'd forgotten how expensive petrol is on a Motorway services and how much cheaper is elsewhere so it was so let's say 8 let's say 8 that's easy and that gives you about 80 M range in the car for £8 so then you work out that that is I did some calculations so should be really easy 80 80 miles for £8 that's like10 I initially worked out it cost 10 a mile I went God this uses loads of petrol no that would be that would be if it cost £8 and you couldn't even do a mile okay I worked it out wrong what I need is some help from a young person to explain how many miles to the gallon it does he brought 7.24 L of petrol for £8 61p 7.24 L is 1.59 gallons so a gallon costs £5 41 if you can drive £ 80 M on 1.59 gallons you were getting 50.3 m to the gallon it's not that hard Robert I can do it and I'm seven but anyway so you you'd be an idiot if you drove this car just using petrol that's not what it's for it it uses electricity very efficiently it's brilliantly engineered there's no question of that I love the engineering the BMW done on this the electric motor the way it drives is just really satisfying it's a really nice car to drive brilliant visibility quite bizarre doors we learned something today that if you're in the driver's seat there and you've got someone who wants to get in the back uh on the far side they can close this door but they can't they can't close that one which means that the driver has to get out and go and close it but very rarely when would you ever have someone in the back unless there was someone in the front so you know being a bit picky but there are quite bizarre some people love them some people hate them it's quite nice when it's like this you could cool it down on a hot day very quickly um and other than that it's just you know it does all the things that cars do and it's it's brilliant so I mean it's definitely in my list of of top five all-time best electric cars anyway that's all that's all for this week's fully charge thank you for watching uh you know the normal stuff I'll just say it quickly subscribe Patron that's it thanks a lot what you're watching here isn't some activist film about the impact of cars on the road and the impact of population and how the fact that the world is really in trouble no that's not what this is It's really intriguing when I first saw the BMW i3 being launched they showed this film this film is an advert by a car company about how ridiculous it is how many cars there are on the road and how we've all going to change the way we use cars and it's coming from a car company I just thought it was intriguing so I just wanted to show it just a bit of it at the end of this week's show anyway that's all have a good look at it let's go up on the horizon of the\n"