Are Megacities Ready For The Megacity Car?

During the i3's development, BMW often used a large city as a backdrop for the concept i3 photo shoots. 

Megacity: A metropolitan area with a total population in excess of ten million people.

BMW has all along told us that the i3 was designed for urban transport, a glimpse at the future of personal mobility in the megacities of the world. Heck, the code name for it was even "The Megacity Car."  However now that the i3 has been available for over a year, BMW is realizing that the Megacity car is selling better outside the city limits.

I've never really accepted that the i3 would do well in the megacity markets, at least in the US, and I've voiced that opinion on many occasions. Having lived with electric cars for the past six years, I've had the experience of driving and charging in the both suburbs and in the city, so I'm intimately aware of the challenges of public charging. I live about 50 miles from New York City and go there frequently. Driving my electric cars to and around the city isn't a problem, however charging it there is. There just aren't enough places to charge your car there to make living with an EV in New York City palatable. There are public parking garages and a few lots that have EVSEs, but finding one that works is one problem. Then, if you're lucky enough to find a lot that has one which is working, you often have to fight with the attendant to make sure they plug you in once you've left your car there.

My car was unplugged after only about 45 minutes of charging. It was sitting right where I left it so they didn't need to move it, someone there just decided to unplug me. With only 28% state of charge, I needed the range extender to get me home. This is a typical EV charging experience in NYC

The last three times I've gone to the City I had nothing but problems getting my car charged. In fact, two of those times I had to drive home using my range extender because the car wasn't charged. Just last week I went to the New York Auto Show and parked at the 9th Avenue Edison Park Fast lot because it had a ChargePoint charging station. When I pulled in I told the attendant I needed to charge for a minimum of three hours and he seemed to understand what I was saying. He said "Oh this is electric? No problem I'll plug you in." I even gave the guy a $5 tip up front with the hopes that he'd take care of me. As I was walking to the Javits Center a few minutes later I checked my BMW i Remote app and saw my car was charging so I figured I was good. I left the car with only 10% state of charge and wanted to be at at least 90% for the trip home, and that would take about three hours of charging. No problem because I planned to be at the show for about six hours. As I was walking back to my car later that day I checked my app just to make sure I was charged and to my surprise I saw I was only at 28% SOC and the car wasn't charging. When I arrived I asked why my car wasn't charged and the attendant only said, "We charged it."  I figured maybe they had to move it for some reason, or maybe another EV came that needed to charge but no, someone just decided to unplug it after about 45 minutes of charging. The car was still parked in front of the EVSE, it wasn't blocking anyone so it hadn't been moved, it was just unplugged hours ago for no apparent reason.

This time in New York I was able to charge up at an underground parking garage, but only after 45 minuted on the phone with ChargePoint trying to get this unprovisioned station operational.

This has happened before to me in New York City, so I wasn't really surprised. I've even had the attendant promise to plug me in and never do it. I now either wait to watch them plug it in or check my app as I'm walking away to make sure someone plugs it in. Luckily I had the REx to bail me out or I'd have been in a real jam, as I needed to be somewhere else in about an hour.

Electric range insufficient. Not what you want to see when you return to your car after leaving it in a public parking lot to charge. Luckily I had the range extender to fall back on. 

I could go on and on about previous difficulties I've had trying to charge in the city, but I think I'll dedicate an entire post to that sometime soon. The point here is charging an EV in the city is difficult at best. Yes, if you live there it is possible to make arrangements with the garage where you keep your car, and install an EVSE for your personal use, but many of the garages don't have the additional electrical capacity for a dedicated 40 amp circuit even if you're willing to pay for the installation and the electric, so the owners are stuck plugging into a simple 120v outlet and slow charging all of the time. Beam Charging network in New York has stations in various parking garages and offers a $98 per month unlimited charging plan, but you still have to find accessible stations and pay the regular parking fee which can be very expensive. It's definitely doable, but not very convenient or inexpensive.

So it was no surprise when I read an article this week by Diana Kurylko of the Automotive News quoting BMW NA CEO Ludwig Willisch saying i3 sales have been weaker than expected in large cities like New York: "The strongholds in this country are parts of California, Texas and southern Florida, rather than large cities, he said" The article further says: "The big urban centers in the Northeast, especially New York City, haven't embraced the i3, Willisch said. Unlike Californians, he said, New Yorkers apparently don't have sustainability and the environment "at the top of minds." I don't think it's a lack of a desire to be sustainable as much as it's difficulty charging the car there. California has a much more mature public charging infrastructure, and most people there live in private residences, unlike New York City. Overall, BMW is pleased with US i3 sales, and they are on pace to sell about 12,000 i3s per year here, they just seem to be a little surprised where the sales are coming from. I'm certainly not surprised, and I even wrote a post about a year ago that said the i3 was better suited for suburban and country life than life in the city, and I listed the reasons why I believe that to be true.

My i3 lives about 50 miles west of New York City... and fits in perfectly

Living in the suburbs or the country means you are usually in control of your energy supply, because most people live in single family homes there. There can be issues if you live in an apartment or condo complex, but you also have the choice to move to another location close by if charging is prohibited in the complex you live in. Living in a private residence allows you to install the home charging equipment you need, so you're not relying on public charging infrastructure as much.

Accessibility to charging is paramount for daily EV life, and in New York the public charging infrastructure has a very long way to go before it becomes convenient enough for many more people to consider an EV if they live there. Life in the big city is tough enough, and fighting on a daily basis for somewhere to charge your car is probably something most New Yorkers aren't willing to deal with. However there is hope that things will get better. Last year New York City passed the "Charger Ready Bill" which requires all new construction in New York City to dedicate 20% of the new parking spaces for EV charging spaces. I actually was asked by Mayor Bloomberg's office to testify in front of the committees on buildings and transportation in favor of the bill, which I did. This law will dramatically increase the amount of public charging locations in New York City, but it will take years before the results are really seen.

So are megacities like New York ready for electric cars? Not really. Not yet, I'm afraid. 

What's The Delay?

On July 22nd, tucked nicely at the end of a press release for the i3, were the words,�It will arrive in US showrooms in the second quarter of 2014.�

That means US i3 customers will have to wait a bit longer than expected. Although BMW has never made an official announcement on when US sales would begin, about four months ago BMW's North American president Ludwig Willisch told the Automotive News that the first batch of i3s arriving in the US would have the range extender option and would arrive in the US late this year, but that significant numbers of them wouldn't be delivered until early 2014.

So somehow late 2013 to early 2014 has been moved to 2nd quarter of 2014. It's only a delay of a few months but it has people wondering what was the cause of the delay. To add to the mystery is the fact that the European launch seems to remain on schedule and is still set for November of this year.

There are a couple possible reasons that I can imagine:

1) BMW is having some last minute manufacturing issues so they will need longer than expected to ramp up to the volume they'll need for the US launch. Everything about the production process for the i3 is different than a conventional car so it wouldn't be surprising to find that they are discovering some manufacturing snafus that will need a little extra time to iron out. This happens with conventional cars so one would imagine BMW will certainly experience issues refining the assembly line for the i3.

2) The range extender isn't ready. BMW expects that as much as 80% of the US i3 orders will have the range extender option. What if it's not ready yet, and will take a few months longer? It's conceivable that they begin sales in Europe without the range extender option available and add it a few months later, right before the car launches in the US. A long shot, but possible. If the range extender is available for order at the European launch then this theory is proven wrong.

3) BMW has experienced a higher than expected interest in reservations in Europe, and won't be able to have an adequate supply for the European launch and still begin US deliveries only two months later. Perhaps they will need a couple of months to get the Leipzig plant up to full capacity and satisfy the initial European demand.

4) There really is no delay. Since BMW really never announced an official release date and the only reference ever made was from the Automotive News story where they interviewed Willisch. If you read the article (link above) you see the part where they talk about when the cars will start arriving in the US they aren't quoting Willisch, so it is possible they just used bad information and Willisch actually didn't tell them the car would launch then. Perhaps Willisch was referring to when i3s with range extenders would arrive in the US to be used for training and marketing purposes and the plan all along was to start selling them a couple of months later.

If I had to put money on it, I'd probably go with dealing with manufacturing issues combined with heavier than planned demand in Europe. Perhaps we'll get some clarity on this at the i3 formal introduction on Monday.

I'll have the press conference streaming live here on this site, so tune in at 8:00am this Monday, July 29th.

BMW i's Ulrich Kranz Talks About How BMW i Started

Kranz stands in front of the CFRP passenger cell of an i3 used for crash testing.

BMW i Project manager Ulrich Kranz recently spoke with Automobilwoche about how BMW i came to be. Automobilwoche's sister publication Automotive News Europe then posted the following interview on their site:


How did Project i get started? Did BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer knock on your door one day and say: The two of us need to discuss the future of the automobile?
- It wasn't entirely like that. At that point, some management board workshops were under way and dealing with the future of BMW. A number of initiatives were developed to get BMW in shape for 2020. Project i was an initiative that we carried out as part of our Number One strategy.

Was it already called that?
- Its name was already Project i, and in 2007 I got the job of turning it into a reality.


What were you asked to do? 

- The job was to position BMW for the future -- and that was in all fields: from materials to production, from technologies to new vehicle architectures. The agenda included the development of sustainable mobility concepts, new sales channels and marketing concepts, along with acquiring new customers.


How great was your freedom?
- I had the freedom to assemble a team the way I wanted. The project was not tied to one of the company's brands so it could tackle any problem. We were allowed to completely break away from the existing structures.


How big was the team at the start?
- Besides myself, it was a team of seven at first: a designer; a vehicle architect; a purchaser; and three other specialists in production, marketing and finance; and then someone to keep the whole organization running. We call that individual a process steerer.


How big is your team now?
- Today several hundred people work on the development of the BMW i vehicle and the mobility services associated with it.


What criteria did you use to choose your people? Did you look for visionary types?
- I was allowed to obtain the right employees both internally and externally, and that is what I did. One issue was very important to me: I looked for people who had once been independent professionals or were operating their own businesses because they approach an issue holistically, consider the long term and think strategically. In addition, I brought a mix of young guns and veterans who had already brought a vehicle to volume production.


How did everything proceed after the team was established?
- At first, we launched an intensive research phase that dealt with mobility questions and customers' future needs. Where do we need to delve deeply into the issue of sustainability? How well will customers accept a new product and a new technology such as electric mobility? Urbanization was one of the identifiable trends. In 2007, more people already lived in cities than in the countryside. Based on forecasts, more than 60 percent of the world's population will live in an urban environment in 2030. We wanted to see what that meant concretely on site.


Where did your team travel?
- We traveled to a total of 20 mega-cities, including Los Angeles, Mexico City, London, Tokyo and Shanghai. We met people who live in metropolises and who indicated that they had a sustainable lifestyle. We lived with them, traveled with them to work and asked questions.


What did you ask them?
- We wanted to know the products that they would like from a car manufacturer, how their commute to work could be improved and how they imagined their mobility in the future. As a second step, we asked the mayors and city planners in each metropolis about their infrastructure problems, the regulations for internal combustion engines and the advantages of electric vehicles.


What findings did you reach?
- One finding was that there are great differences between the metropolises. For example, Barcelona is an old city with narrow streets that has grown over time. The demand for scooters is high there. In Mexico City, cars provide protection and a retreat to escape all the hectic activity there. In Tokyo, there is a good traffic control system; customers want to be well networked in their vehicles and get an overview of all the control systems. Some cultural circumstances surprised us as western Europeans. For example, a large portion of the Japanese living in Tokyo between the ages of 18 and 22 are not even interested in getting a driver's license.


Why has no special small car been developed for metropolises with little space for parking?
- That also occurred to us. But all our inquiries told something else: Customers do not want to do without comfort and safety. They are actually very sensitive to environmental issues, but they are not willing to put up with substantial limitations in their vehicles.


How do your respondents plan to travel in the future?
- Despite the traffic jams, many people do not want to do without a car of their own.


Parallel to your research, you promoted the pilot project for the electric Mini E. Why?
- It was clear to us relatively quickly that the first stage in development would be a car that operated as environmentally friendly as possible, meaning emission-free. The simplest, quickest way to see how an electric vehicle would go down with the public was to convert an existing car and send it into the market. A Project i team had customers test electric Minis in Europe, Asia and the U.S. The findings proved extremely valuable to us.

Where did you get the idea to construct the passenger compartment of carbon?
- We knew that we needed a lightweight vehicle and that we had years of expertise in carbon-fiber reinforced plastics and mixes of materials. We asked ourselves how we could reduce throughput times and the investment in manufacturing through the use of a new vehicle architecture.


Can you cite an example?
- One example is the paint shop: a large building involving high investment and long throughput times. If it were no longer needed, we could save a tidy sum of money. The desire for a completely corrosion-free vehicle emerged from the development department. Carbon-fiber reinforced plastic met these standards, but it had to be cost-effective -- or we had to compensate for the price somewhere else. A smaller vehicle could get by with a smaller battery, and the battery is considerably more expensive than carbon-fiber reinforced plastic. So one thing led to another.


When did it become clear that the Megacity Vehicle would be a carbon vehicle?
- We discussed the issue with the management board in 2008.


What was Project i's greatest challenge?
- This is a very comprehensive project. One is developing a technology separately within one team. Balancing out the entire Project i, considering all the aspects and keeping them all in view, that was each of the participants' true masterstroke.


Initially, did you think the job would be so wide-ranging?
- That was clear to me immediately. I saw it as a real opportunity. But you have to find good people who also see such a major undertaking as an opportunity. And we have these people.

Kranz gave Georg Kacher of Car Magazine a ride in a test i3 a few months ago. Kacher was very impressed and wrote a glowing article on his impressions.

BMW i3 Cost a Hot Topic

There are lot of unknowns with the i3. BMW has been very careful to only leak out small details, much to the chagrin of journalists and enthusiasts interested in the car. However the most sought after piece of information that everyone wants to know is how much will it cost?

It seemed like we finally got some clarity on that a couple days ago when Diana Kurylko of the Automotive News wrote a story that claimed the i3's would be "priced at about $40,000". The story was of course picked up by many other outlets and suddenly everywhere you looked on the internet you saw "BMW i3 to cost $40,000". I was skeptical of his from the start. While I have no official inside information on what the price will be I do not believe it will be as low as $40,000. I'm thinking $43,000 to $45,000 as the base price, with options like the range extender and premium electronics packages pushing the price up to and even over $50,000.

Willisch handing me the keys to my ActiveE

So after re-reading Kurylko's piece a few times, it became clear to me that she came up with the $40,000 figure herself, not from anyone BMW. During her interview with BMW NA CEO Ludwig Willisch, he told her the i3 would be priced "roughly the same as a well-equipped 3-series sedan" and Kurylko added the $40,000 herself, assuming that is what a well-equipped 3-series sedan costs. Only she was wrong. A well equipped 3-series costs closer to $45,000 depending on what you consider well equipped. Realizing this I posted my doubts on the BMW i3 Facebook group page and opened a thread for discussion. John Voelcker of High Gear Media, one of the leading journalists in the US covering electric vehicles, was the first to comment and I could see he was interested in getting the facts straight. He later posted that he contacted BMW spokesman Dave Buchko to follow up on the Automotive News piece and Buchko cleared things up a bit, reiterating that Willisch only said the i3 would be comparably priced to a well-equipped 3-series and didn't offer any specific price, and that such a car costs more than $40,000 He actually said a well equipped 3-series "falls more in the $45,000 to $50,000 range." Voelckers entire follow up story in GreenCarReports can be seen here.

So the hope of a $40,000 base i3 price was short lived. Personally I never thought the price would be that low. I believe it will be in the $43,000 to $45,000 range before any tax incentives so the final cost on a base i3 without options should be under $40,000 after the $7,500 federal tax rebate for those that qualify. Add a nice array of options and the range extender and you're probably talking $52,000 -$53,000, or about $45,000 after the federal tax credit. Final pricing probably won't be announced till after the i3's official debut at the Frankfurt Auto Show in September.