Boot Space in the BMW i3

Saturday 4th July 2015

How much space does my BMW i3 really have?

Now, this isn’t necessarily something that I particularly want to find out. I mean, I don’t mind helping out my children but, stuffing my i3 full of drawer units and vacuum cleaners and boxes of stuff to transport 72 miles to her apartment in Pennsylvania – Hmm, not so sure. I obviously did not want my car to get damaged, scratched or anything else so there would be many precautions taken. I am thinking a duvet might work – yes, of course, that’ll protect the car.

The BMW i3 looks rather small from the outside but it is quite surprising just how much space there is inside. It’s almost Tardis like – but not quite. As we all know the Tardis is huge inside and while the i3 definitely has more space than the outside suggests it isn’t quite on the scale of the Tardis.

With the seats folded down, the duvet in place and a towel across the rear bumper, I allowed my sidekick and child to carefully – read very carefully here – place a wooden drawer unit from my daughters bedroom inside the car. Once inside the car I brought the duvet up around the sides of the unit and squished it down the sides so, if the drawers should move around – and with my sidekick driving, who knows! – at least the car would be protected. The vacuum cleaner squeezed in too but the box did have to be left behind and the contents tucked behind the front seat. The box of items to go too also fitted, although not the actual box. I had to put all the items into bags which were then arranged around the drawers. Oh and don’t forget the yoga mat that squished in too! I am rather surprised at what you can fit in the back of the i3, although with all that stuff it was full and there was no more going in.

Before the journey I had wondered if the additional weight would affect the range of the i3. It appeared that, well, not so much, it does use a little bit extra but it’s negligible in the grand scheme of things. For our 72 mile journey to our destination we used 56% battery. The contents in the boot remained where they were put originally for the whole journey – so my sidekick was obviously driving nice and gently. There was the odd squeak every now and again and I did have to wonder if a chipmunk had hitched a ride. After we dropped off all the items, the i3 gave a sigh of relief before we drove 16 miles to BMW of Mount Laurel to charge up for our return journey. We rang BMW the day before to ask about being able to charge and to make sure that the charger would be available. They were really helpful and said yes we can charge even though they wouldn’t be open and told us where to find the charging station.

When we arrived at BMW of Mt. Laurel, we found the car park packed with new BMW’s however, one of the two charging parking spaces was open and available – the other occupied by an i3, though not charging. They were properly marked out as being for parking whilst charging only, so top marks but for the i3 hogging the other spot.

While the car was charging we sat back and got on with some work and writing blogettes! (I am adding that word to my personal dictionary that I am creating, adding to words like wibble.) We charged to 75% which took about 1 hour 55 minutes and used 10.8 kWh.

Plotting the route home, the car reported that we simply would’t make it – 69 miles to home but only 52 miles available range. It wasn’t until we got down to just 19 miles from home before the journey distance matched the miles remaining but, at 158 miles total distance travelled for the day, we arrived home with 9% to spare – it’s a good job that we understand what the percentage remaining means and don’t rely on the guesstimates.