BMW Created the Most Efficient Electric Car In the US

cartechboy (2660665) writes "You think of efficient electric car and you probably think of the Tesla Model S, right? Well, you'd be wrong as the Model S is only rated at 89 MPGe. As of today, BMW now has the most efficient electric car sold in the U.S., the 2014 i3. The ratings were just posted to the Internet via a window sticker, and at 124 MPGe combined (138 MPGe city, 111 MPGe highway), the i3 is currently king of the efficiency race. The nearest competitor? The 2013 Scion iQ-EV with a 38 mile range and 121 MPGe rating, but it's not even available to the general public. Other competitors are mostly compliance cars such as the Chevrolet Spark EV and Fiat 500e. So where does that leave us? Well, BMW just won the race, for now. But how long until a competitor takes away that top spot?"

Comments

Thank you summary guy

[avandesande]

for mentioning the range of the scion and none of the other vehicles

Re:Thank you summary guy

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you just buy the one that looks the coolest and use the numbers to rationalize your choice.

Re:Thank you summary guy

[mlts]

MPGe is like MPG... It is cool for advertising, but in the real world... doesn't mean that much. What really counts is both gpm (or l/km) or even more generally, cost per unit distance. For example, new diesel vehicles are touted as great for mileage. However, if one factors in the repair costs, and the need to use DEF as a second fuel, the gap can close between a TDI vehicle versus a hybrid or even a plain old gasser.

This can vary for a person. For example, one cow-orker I work with lives fairly close. So, the relatively small range of a Leaf is good enough, since he never really taxes it. However, if the EV was an only vehicle, it might be that the greater CPM of a gasser might be a better fit.

Re:Thank you summary guy

[mrchaotica]

For example, new diesel vehicles are touted as great for mileage. However, if one factors in the repair costs, and the need to use DEF as a second fuel, the gap can close between a TDI vehicle versus a hybrid or even a plain old gasser.

Quit spreading lies and FUD. First of all, most diesels, including many new "clean diesels" (e.g. the VW Golf/Jetta/Beetle) do not use diesel exhaust fluid (DEF)*. Second, there's nothing inherent to diesels that make them have higher repair costs than "plain old gassers" other than the turbo (and lots of new gassers these days -- like the Ford Ecoboost -- have turbos too).

The real reason why diesels have an undeserved reputation for being expensive to repair is that most of them in the US have been made by VW or Mercedes, but they're expensive to repair because they're German, not because they're diesel!

(*Even some of the "bluetec" engines do not, in fact, use DEF even though they're named after it.)

Re:Thank you summary guy

[aztracker1]

That's why I drive a V8 Challenger R/T ... If I didn't do it, how could the Prius drivers feel good about saving the world?

Re:Thank you summary guy

[ericloewe]

As much as I am a fan of Tesla, there is no way in hell that the superchargers get most of their power from their solar panels (unless they only charge a car per day).

Range is the issue

[stewsters]

Most of the power is going to hauling a battery around.

Tesla s has 265 mile range
i3 has 81 mile range
Scion iQ-EV has 38 mile range

I would be curious to see how the numbers hold up if they all were designed for the same range.

Re:Range is the issue

[macpacheco]

You can start by comparing the i3 with a more equivalent Tesla:
85 kWh = 265 mile range (3.11 miles / kWh)
60 kWh = 208 mile range (3.47 miles / kWh)
40 kWh = 160 mile range (4 miles / kWh) should be around 114 mpge
the 40 kWh Tesla was never produced, too little demand, people want a real electric car, not an expensive toy.

Re:Range is the issue

[timeOday]

The Tesla is a much larger car all around, not just the battery.

A better comparison to the BMW i3 might be the Fiat 500e (sold only in California). It's even a bit smaller than the BMW, and gets "only" 122/108 MPGe vs the 138/111 for the BMW. So, I do find the BMW impressive. However the Fiat starts at $32K which almost $10K less than the BMW. Making a car light without other sacrifices does require more expensive materials, so I would expect more from the BMW than the Fiat, and evidently it delivers.

Re:Range is the issue

[timeOday]

The Scion shouldn't even be mentioned, because it's not a real product:

Even dedicated Scion iQ fans are unlikely to see the little electric iQ version; that's because it will only be offered to fleets that can use a very short-distance electric car. Its EPA-rated range of just 38 miles isn't likely to appeal to many buyers, so Toyota's zero-emission "compliance car" will instead be the Toyota RAV4 EV with a range of 103 miles from its Tesla-engineered electric powertrain.

Re:Range is the issue

[mattack2]

My smart electric is an expensive toy? About $26500 out the door, but I got $10K back in federal tax rebate (not deduction) and state rebate (not actually a tax rebate, a separate project that simply sent me a check).

Even without those, it's great not having to go to gas stations, or do oil changes, etc. Plus, I happen to get free charging at work, but I'd buy it even without that.

Re:Range is the issue

[hey!]

Sure, but why does every vehicle have to work for *everybody*?

I've always liked small cars, but when I had kid tiny cars didn't work for me any more. It doesn't mean that small cars are *stupid*, they're not right for me at this particular phase of my life.

Tesla still wins

[blueturffan]

This BMW is ugly as sin and only has half the range.

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame

Re:Tesla still wins

[tompaulco]

This BMW is ugly as sin and only has half the range.

Electric cars have to be ugly. If they looked like regular cars, then how would everyone else know how you are sacrificing yourself for the environment?

Full-size, heavy car

[Scowler]

We shouldn't really expect a full-size luxury car, with a huge range (ie heavy batteries) to hold this title in the first place.

Won what race?

[FF-Loucks]

The leaf is $6k less and 115 MPGe. 124 MPGe isn't going to save you $6k over the life of the car.

Re:Won what race?

[Ralph Wiggam]

It's not just a great electric car, it's a great car. But I'm a function over form kind of guy. The bug eye headlights push air out of the way so that at highway speeds the side view mirrors sit in a bubble of low pressure, greatly decreasing air resistance and improving range. The squared off shape allow the interior to seat 4 adults comfortably while leaving a good amount of cargo space.

You seriously don't know how obnoxious engine noise and gear changes are until you drive without them. It's like floating on a cloud.

Re:MPGe

[Ralph Wiggam]

For the last year, I have driven a Nissan Leaf with an 80-90 mile range. On only two occasions I was not able to make a trip I wanted to make because of my car's range. Manufacturers are clustering around that range number because it's good enough for most people a vast majority of the time.

Re:Efficiency doesn't matter...

[fnj]

Efficiency doesn't matter for an electric car that can be powered for FREE by the sun

Completely naive fail. Apparatus to convert that sunlight to electric power costs money and has to be depreciated. Not only is photovoltaic power not free; its cost ($130 / MWh) is higher than natural gas ($64 to $128 / MWh), coal ($96 / MWh) or advanced nuclear ($96 / MWh). Those estimates for systems coming on line in 2019, so they are not based on obsolete data. Solar thermal is even worse ($243 / nMWh).

Whatevs, yo

[garote]

I've been getting five or six times this efficiency for years!

"A person riding a bicycle at 15 miles per hour (24 km per hour) burns 0.049 calories per pound per minute. So a 175-pound (77-kg) person burns 515 calories in an hour, or about 34 calories per mile (about 21 calories per km). A gallon of gasoline (about 4 liters) contains about 31,000 calories. If a person could drink gasoline, then a person could ride about 912 miles on a gallon of gas (about 360 km per liter).
( Source: HowStuffWorks website )

Re:Whatevs, yo

[unrtst]

And this is relevant to people who drive cars how? Don't get me wrong, I love bikes, they're just not a realistic option for everyone and all situations.

Seems pretty relevant since so many comments are about what MPGe means, and we're (mostly) all geeks.
It's also relevant since the range of these things (38 miles for the Scion; 81 for the BMW) are less than my overweight ass can do on a bike in a day... especially on that low end, it's very relevant. If you can go no further than 38 miles without a recharge, then you're probably not trying to push that envelope and, in many cases, you'd be doing a round trip (go somewhere, do something, get home, probably shooting for less than 30 miles). That's well within the biking sweet spot.

You can't carry as much luggage (though the scion really doesn't hold much either), and you can't easily have a passenger, and rain and other inclement situations suck a lot more, and it can be slightly more scary to ride one on the highway than the scion, but bikes have a much better MPG*, similar range, and significantly lower sticker price and TCO.

I'm glad garote posted that... I've always been a bit curious about that figure. My hunch, when I was riding a LOT, was that I wasn't really saving any money because my calories cost way more than a gallon of gas, and my intake went up significantly. This approaches an answer to that question... not exactly the same question, but interesting.

Re:What is MPGe supposed to mean?

[Noah Haders]

The exact opposite of true. It's just a measure of energy. 33.7 kWh is about 120mj, which is the same as a gallon if gas.

Re:Chevy Spark EV

[damnbunni]

The Spark is only sold in California and Oregon, according to GM's official page on it.

Oregon's ZEV/LEV legislation is based on California's.

Looks like a compliance car to me!

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world ...

[jamesl]

German auto brand Volkswagen's XL1, which it claims is the most fuel-efficient production car ever made, has been named the winner of the Transport category at Designs of the Year 2014.
http://www.dezeen.com/2014/05/...

You may have seen this advert in the Goodwood Festival of Speed programme and are wondering how we determined that the XL1 was the worldâ(TM)s most fuel-efficient hybrid production vehicle.
http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/ab...

And it's a looker.

More importantly...

[timeOday]

The BMW didn't win by chance, but because it is based on a totally different construction method to makes it lighter:

What makes the i3 different from every other car on the market is under the skin - it's almost entirely made out of plastic. This is no ordinary plastic, mind you - it's carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic. It's basically the same stuff used to make Formula One cars and stealth bombers. What's remarkable about the i3 is that it's the first mass-market car made out of carbon fiber. There's no metal in the car's body - all the bumpers, doors and skins are plastic as well. The only major metal parts are the drive unit and suspension components. The result is a four-seat, four-door city car that weighs only about 2,700 pounds - or nearly 500 pounds less than a BMW 1 Series.

This actually quite a bold and innovative new product. It's a shame they made it so ugly. I'm really curious to see crash test results.

Re:Efficiency doesn't matter...

[Anonymous Coward]

Efficiency doesn't matter for an electric car that can be powered for FREE by the sun

Completely naive fail. Apparatus to convert that sunlight to electric power costs money and has to be depreciated. Not only is photovoltaic power not free; its cost ($130 / MWh) is higher than natural gas ($64 to $128 / MWh), coal ($96 / MWh) or advanced nuclear ($96 / MWh). Those estimates for systems coming on line in 2019, so they are not based on obsolete data. Solar thermal is even worse ($243 / nMWh).

About $70/MWh in Texas. Just under $50/MWh aka 5 cents/kWh after the federal subsidy.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Cheapest-Solar-Ever-Austin-Energy-Buys-PV-From-SunEdison-at-5-Cents-Per-Ki

Prices have dropped rapidly so you really need to check quarterly and not use any source even slightly outdated. That EIA report uses 3 year old data, and further monkeys with the cost of money in weird ways costing "green" ones at 3.5% and fossil 6.5% - for no reason at all other than a hit job on fossil prices. It also uses $8/mmBTU price for natural gas without saying it, so overcosts natural gas. Kind of a load of crap.

http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm

BMW won nothing

[horza]

BMW won nothing. Tesla won the electric car race by creating a car that has the range of a normal car, is faster than a normal car, and looks as good as any normal car. This is why it is scoring so high in consumer reports that cover ALL cars, not just electric vehicles.

The BMW i3 has 1/3 of the range, does 0-60 in twice the time (7 seconds), and looks fugly. In my city we have dozens of public cars like this all over the city that anybody can jump into and use for €8/hour. I am sure lots of companies will buy it for staff than need to do local runs. Probably got a good market in local governments, councils and utility companies. Being one of the slowest production cars ever to hit the road will probably mean low insurance cost.

It's apples and oranges. A bicycle is more efficient than either. It doesn't do the same job though.

Phillip.