The BMW i3 received a well-deserved upgrade this week, offering customers up to 50 percent more range thanks to a new battery. To celebrate the important update to the i3 family, BMW also put together a new launch film to showcase the new range of the car, in an appropriate way.
With the new battery, the BMW EV can now travel for up to 114 miles or more, depending on your driving style and whether you’re using auxiliary systems too (AC, heating and so on). Going from 60 Ah to 94 Ah, the new battery will also help out in range-extended models, they too receiving a significant boost.
The capacity of the new battery is 33 kWh which was achieved without increasing the size of the battery pack, the new one being exactly the same as the old model, therefore fitting perfectly inside the battery tray of previous-gen i3s. The high-voltage battery of the BMW i3 consists of eight modules with twelve storage cells each and was developed in collaboration with Samsung.
There is a trade-off though. The new pack is now heavier which, in turn, increased the weight of the i3 by a few hundred pounds. The EV now weighs 2,961 lbs (1,343 kg) compared to 2,635 lbs (1,195 kg) for the initial version, whereas the range-extended model went from 2,899 lbs (1,315 kg) to 3,234 lbs (1,467 kg). Even so, the i3 still remains the lightest car in its segment.
The electric consumption of the new BMW i3 has also been reduced by a large number of improvements, including a revised electric motor management as well as advanced low-resistance tires with optimized compound. Acceleration figures remained the same, and in this regard, the new i3 is close to much more powerful models. For example, going from 50 to 75 mph takes 5.1 seconds which is extremely close to what the 320 HP BMW 340i offers.
The launch film apparently focused on these figures as well as on the sporty character of the i3.
