They could be, but aren’t necessarily. Environmental report cards for automakers, just like EPEAT standards for appliances, could help ensure that EVs are actually being more eco-friendly.

This is a great point I hadn’t considered. I guess I would think that BMW’s massive infrastructure and R&D departments would be able to make something today that’s both popular like Tesla (as opposed to, say, the Nissan Leaf), but also managing to be profitable. If they could use their current economies of scale and…

It doesn’t just come down to money, though. There are many people, including many young people, who want something more environmentally friendly, and as time goes on and gas does start to increase in price with less supply, EVs are bound to gain market share. It makes sense for a company to invest in the future, and…

Both the Smart Car and the Chevy Spark are available in EV models, along with the regular gasoline-powered versions.

Have you tried using one? I agree that the styling is polarizing, but inside they’re actually incredibly spacious and practical. The carry the same price premium as other BMWs, but with much more usable space in a package that still has a relatively small footprint.

Definitely a point worth considering, but if you look at the number of preorders and the general hype the public has about “Tesla is making an affordable electric car!,” I think that how an EV is executed is more important than the fact that it is an EV. If BMW could make an EV (or REX EV) with 3-Series size and…

Speaking from experience, it does really well. As M73 V12 noted, it’s not going to act like an M car, but it’s better than you’d expect. I think the low center of gravity really helps the handling.

The Tesla Model S hasn’t had disappointing sales, and I’m sure the Model 3 will be popular too because it’s appealing to an even larger audience. Tesla’s financial and software woes aside, they have proven that they can make a very popular car that brings in more orders than they can fulfill. If the VW E-Golf were…

There’s more to the feeling of driving a BMW than just tracking it. Yes, the i3 cannot be tracked, but “spirited” driving is still very much possible with it.

For what it’s worth, an i3 handles very similarly to other BMWs. It might not look like them (at all, even a little bit), but the steering weight and the feedback from the road is absolutely perfect. It really does feel like they put a lot of thought and work into it.

Totally agreed that it doesn’t look like a “proper” BMW. The word that comes to mind when describing it to people is “frumpy” - yes, it’s practical, but it’s not exactly pretty, and definitely not something people who buy BMW for the status/badge will be buying.

The idea of executives “unwilling to plough more resources into electric cars until i3 sales improve and there is a clearer business case for such investment” strikes me as pretty...well, stupid.

They build tech and cars, rolled into one. It’s not a case of one or the other, it can be and IS both. Highly technology cars that need vastly more computational power than a traditional internal combustion vehicle, but far more moving parts and mechanical engineering than most technology we think of.

I may come across as jaded, but it’s not because I expect a “luxury” interior, it’s because I expect a car company to do basic usability testing of their designs with laymen users, not technicians and engineers. Many of the things Tesla has done seem to be ideas that sounded neat on paper, but when you look at them in…

I definitely agree that other manufacturers make mistakes as well, and mistakes that should have been caught in testing no less. That’s just as bad as Tesla’s mistakes, frankly. BMW’s weird new automatic shifter is one example - watching my dad try to use it is just painful - but that’s one small part of the overall…

Listening to customer feedback is good.

So honored to be nominated. I’m currently amped up to see if I win.

Is it possible for a corporation to be emotionally abusive?

Was the driver charged? They should have kept a better ion where they were going.

So...it’s an autonomous, fat BMW i3?