BMW, I3, Electric Hatchback, 2017, Range Extender, 5 doors, YD17AEM

My first, fantastic, electric car – but I now need the money tied up in it to finish my house, so reluctantly selling!

This is such a great, fun drive. If you’ve never driven electric then it’s a great experience I’d highly recommend. BMW decided to throw out some of the car design conventions with this design, so you will see that there are no ‘footwells’ but an open area right across before the front seats. The doors also open from the centre, so there is no pillar between front and back. It has sporty seats, with blue trim. Because the battery is in under the boot and rear seats the bottoms of the seats don’t move, however the upright part of the back seats folds forward and the parcel shelf removes, giving you a large area for transporting things. As you can see from the photos I live on a farm, and the chickens were helping me clean and photograph the car. Its muddy as anything here, so I shall have the upholstery cleaned ready for collection, but not till then.

The car is automatic – sounds obvious to me now, but I didn’t know that previously! The car doesn’t need the key inserted, so long as it is present. It starts on the button, with drive and reverse on the steering column stalk. It has impressive takeoff, and can leave anyone else standing at traffic lights. However it has three drive modes. Normal does not limit speed, or any of the features of the car; Eco Pro gives you greater range by limiting you to 70mph and reducing the ferocity of acceleration with a warning indicator; Eco Pro Plus gives you the greatest range possible by limiting you to 56mph and taking out all of the heating and air con functions, leaving you with just the fans, these functions are changed by a toggle button on the console. The range is good, I’ve been really pleased. Running on Eco Pro Plus it can do about 132 miles (work and back) in cold weather, but in summer when the battery is warm all the time, I would expect a third as much again, so 170-180, less than this on other settings. The regenerative braking keeps returning power to the battery, so the way you drive really affects the range. The car plugs in to either the CCS or the AC charge, and takes around 30-45mins to charge from empty to full at most chargers. A trickle charge will obviously take much longer, but allows for overnight charging. The car comes with an AC charge cable. The range extender is a wonderful thing! The charger network is growing, but Range Anxiety is real. The extender is fuelled with unleaded petrol, and gives another 80-100 miles. The charger port is the back flap, the fuel tank is at the front, both on the driver side.

The majority of functions are controlled by the computer, with a screen standing up on the dash. The buttons and selector wheel are on the console to the driver’s left. The entire manual is available on the computer, and you can search by picture of the bit of the car. There are so many things in here, including navigation, charging, media and bluetooth, engaging the range extender, seeing the pressure in the tyres and learning more about your driving style. The only thing I haven’t found helpful is the search for nearby charging stations – I much prefer to use the ZapMap. There are other little touches – like lift out, wipe clean, pads at the bottom of the cup holders, a rear view mirror that darkens if the following car’s headlights are dazzling, central locking which is automatic, but also manually controllable.

Within the last year the car has had four new tyres, and at the last service at a BMW garage new front brake pads and discs, and a new front windscreen (I loaded lengths of timber that were too long…). Car has one year’s MOT.