BMW unveils its first electric offering i3

BMW i3 yesterday displayed the i3, its first electric vehicle due to go into full production. The hatchback has much of the ''green cred'' of Toyota's Prius, combined with a promise of BMW-like driving that would be greatly appreciated by those who would not like to forego performance to get there.

However, since the car also comes with an option of a small gasoline engine for the extension of range up to 160+ miles, the i3 ends up in the league of both the Chevrolet Volt as also some of the ground Tesla Motors was seeking to conquer.

The specifics of the i3 have been carefully worked out with BMW spending €2 billion developing electric vehicles, running pilot programmes where a number of Mini Coopers and 1-series sedans were leased to real-world customers.

The company said, it had learned most people drove 30 miles a day. Like Nissan's Leaf, the i3 would travel 80-100 miles on a single charge, though according to BMW its Eco Pro and Eco Pro+ modes would add 12 and 24 per cent, respectively to that.

With the car set to ship in spring of 2014, it would benefit from the latest in charging technology, which was both a plus and minus, according to commentators. The SAE DC Combo charger would allow a 20 minute recharge to 80 per cent of a full battery (a Leaf can achieve a similar result on a comparable charger).

BMW said it was targeting a "meaningful" chunk of the electric-car market and expected demand to be driven up as urban populations rose, its sales chief said yesterday as he unveiled the company's battery-powered i3 model.

The world's biggest luxury carmaker though had not offered sales or production goals for the four-seater i3, which would be followed next year by a battery-powered i8 sports car.

The company though saw good sales potential for its first all-electric vehicle in affluent urban regions of California, Europe and Asia, according to sales chief Ian Robertson. Around 92,000 people have shown interest in test-driving the i3 online.

"We're not entering to be a niche player," Robertson told reporters at the i3's launch event in London, also staged simultaneously in New York and Beijing.

"We're targeting meaningful sales," he said, in an electric-car market which BMW expects to grow to between 150,000 and 160,000 vehicles globally this year, from 7,000 in 2010.