ROAD TEST
BMW i3 charged for longer drive time
With its more useful 200km range, BMW’s electric i3 is not just a suburb-hopper
The utopian ideal of not having to pay for petrol should, in theory, have electric cars like the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3 zooming out of showrooms like smartphones.
The fact that sales have instead been a trickle is due to two things: short range and long charging times. But all that is changing now that the automotive world, rather than treating electric cars as a nice-to-have niche, is committed to throwing many of its future eggs into the electric-car basket. There’s been a surge of technological development in this field and, if we’re to believe motor company claims, the battery-powered cars twirling on motor show stands are promising petrol-equivalent ranges of up to 500km, while charging times are getting ever shorter. The BMW i3 isn’t quite at this point yet, but, as Motor News discovered over a week-long test, it has become a far more practical and easier-to-live-with car now that the driving range has been hiked since the i3 was launched in 2015...
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