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BMW unveiled its new electric "city car," the i3, at simultaneous press conferences in New York City, London and Beijing Monday.

Unlike a lot of other plug-in cars, sales of the i3 won't be restricted to just a handful of U.S. states. BMW's already done small-volume electric car introductions with the MiniE electric Mini Cooper -- Mini is a subsidiary of BMW -- and the BMW ActiveE, an electric version of the 1-series subcompact. BMW's ultra-luxury Rolls-Royce brand even made its own one-off electric Electric Phantom, which never reached production.

All that experimentation and research helped with creating this, a vehicle that was designed from the beginning to be all-electric, BMW says.