The i3 is one of the best interpretations of the electric car, although it I guess it has been surpassed by now by the likes of the Renault Zoe and Nissan Leaf.

The i3 is what you get when you build an electric car that is optimized towards what an electric drive is good at _right now_. Given the range problem of the current battery technology, a short range city car with minimized energy consumption is where the electric drive is best at showing off it's benefits.

The Tesla on the other hand is what you get when you brutally try to hammer the electric drive towards matching the range that people are used to. It's a heavy machine that uses most of it's energy to hauling around it's battery.

And while, as you can grasp from what I wrote, I really like the idea behind the i3, it's obvious that the Tesla approach turned out to be better. It leads to a more practical and competitive car that is easier to sell.

The story if BMW i is a bit sad, as things didn't turn out that well. The idea was to make purely electric vehicles and built them sustainably (the interior of the i3 is largely made from some kind tree leaves if memory serves me right) - but BMW quickly figured out that they can't sell enough of them. Which is why they switched their approach towards developing vehicles that can either be built with an electrical drive train or with a combustion engine.

They basically have Teslas problem in reverse: Tesla can't build their factories fast enough to meet the demand for their cars, BMW can't build demand for electric cars fast enough to fill the production capacity they have (3 million cars per year).

(This reads more pro BMW as I mean it - I don't wanna say what they do is the best they could, I don't know that - it's more meant to try to see their point of view to understand why they do what they do.)

The i3 is a really good car, I never said it's bad. It is (or was) also one of the very few proper electric city cars. Tesla has yet to make a decent small size city car. So I fully agree with your post.

It's just that I don't understand why BMW won't make their current lineup of luxury saloons and SUV's available in an all-electric version. It feels like they are missing the boat.

I really hope for them that the next-gen cars will have an electric version, or else they will stand to lose a large portion of the market they currently own.

I don't know their specific plans, but the strategy I know of is to build a platform that can support combustion, hybrid and electric. But they seem to take their time with that ... .

Yes, the i3 is a remarkable car on many counts including how it is manufactured. But it really is a niche vehicle that is only ever going to appeal to a small segment of the market.

I drove 2 Nissan LEAFs for 5 years. They are solid cars, and this year's iteration moved out of the "early adopter" segment and is being marketed as a mainstream car.

Their roadmap in 2022 calls for 4 EVs plus 2 more under the Infiniti brand. Unlike GM, Nissan has 8 years of experience with EVs so I think their roadmap is believable.

Also, the nissan leaf could be the kind of car that fetches the low end of the market.

All the people driving cheap tiny cars like the toyota aygo, these people are usually also those who don't drive long distances.

A nissan leaf would be a perfect car for my Mother in law for instance, she drives very little, and the distances she drives are usually >50km.

This is something that also always boggled my mind. One of the most expensive parts on an electric car are the batteries. No matter how cheap you try to make your car, you'll be set back about 20k just with the batteries.

At this point, why even bother trying to go for the lower end.

You can still go for the lower end if you sell based on the total monthly car costs. Many people see what they can afford based on the monthly loan payments rather than the total cost, and if they save more on fuel than what they pay extra on the loan, it's a good trade. But that doesn't work if the extra niceties push the loan value over that line.

>For some reason all car manufacturers (except tsla) build really lame, goofy, small electric cars, why can't we just have a traditional luxury saloon?

Because maybe high-quality saloons with expensive batteries are way to expensive for most consumers?

And yet expensive cars sell. Additionally the margins can be higher if the selling price is higher (and the product more about emotion), so there is more budget to fit in a good battery.

This is the entire reason the Model S was built the way it was.

Depends on the market. I live in the Netherlands (next to Germany) and even though NL is one of the most expensive countries to own a car, luxury german cars are very common here. So are Tesla's by the way.

I've never been to NL and never knew that it was expensive to own a car there. However, having learned that, I am certainly not surprised to also learn that many of the cars there are fancy and expensive. Wealthy people have more fancy and expensive cars than poor people. If none of the poor have cars, a greater portion of existing cars will be fancy and expensive. Singapore was the same, when I lived there. That isn't to say that all vehicles were luxury. Workmen still need work trucks, after all.

And yet, Tesla has the third highest average selling price of all manufacturers. Clearly there is an expectations mismatch.

Just bought a new Model S 100D. Sat in other cars just for giggles (BMW 5 series, Mercedes E Class, Audi RS 3). Where else am I getting an electric car that holds two large Clek Fllo car seats, two adults, a full trunk of luggage, has 330 miles of range, does 0-60 in 3.6 seconds, and I can travel cross country effortlessly in? It doesn't exist besides a Tesla.

Tesla is valued appropriately based on the market.