114 Miles = 2017 BMW i3 Official US EPA-Certified Range

August 16th, 2016 by James Ayre

The official US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has certified the single-charge range for the refreshed BMW i3 — falling just a bit lower than previous speculation.

The official EPA-certified range for the new 2017 BMW i3 is 114 miles per full charge rather than 130 (as leaked to CleanTechnica one year ago) or 124 (as claimed a few months ago).

Considering the size of the newly upgraded battery pack (now a 94-amp-hour battery), that’s still more or less what people were speculating for the EPA-certified range. This marks an increase of around 33 miles per charge — a pretty substantial increase, and one that’ll probably increase the model’s sales to a fair degree.

It should probably be remembered here, though, when speculating on future sales that BMW actually went ahead and increased the price of the BMW i3 with the battery pack upgrade — meaning that the already quite expensive model is now $1,200 more expensive. The base price for the model is now $44,595. Considering that the 200-mile Chevy Bolt is supposed to start at $37,500 and the 215-mile Tesla Model 3 at $35,000, any boost in sales may be modest and short lived.

Autoblog provides more, noting that “last month, i3 sales in the US jumped 58% from a year earlier to almost 1,500 units after being down 35% through June….And July’s global sales of the i3 jumped 34%.”

So, a fair bump in sales. I’m curious to see if it holds up though the launch of the Chevy Bolt later this year though. In addition to a much more substantial range, it should be remembered that the Bolt will be considerably cheaper. Less luxurious as well though of course, which is a deal breaker for some.

The launch of the Tesla Model 3 is less of an unknown, though. Once the Model 3 launches, BMW i3 sales in the US are likely to fall through the floor without a major change to pricing and/or range.











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