BMW’s Discontinued i3 Is Already an EV Cult Classic

tech.hindustantimes.com:

BMW wasn't trying to convince its core customers to abandon their sporty sedans and roomy SUVs — the goal was to entice early EV adopters to give the German automaker a try.

The plan worked perhaps too well. When the i3 started popping up on US dealership lots, BMW loyalists largely ignored it, while new customers came looking for the car. By 2021 the company was ready to refocus on its core customers, and set a goal of making 50% of all BMW sales EVs by 2030. In January 2022, BMW said it would stop production of the i3 entirely, instead leaning into larger, longer range EV options like the i4 and iX — cars meant to look like the brand's other models. Over the i3's nine years on the market in the US, slightly more than half of sales went to first-time BMW buyers. But it sold fewer than 50,000 units, according to data from Edmunds, often at steep discounts.

“Electrification became something different,” BMW design lead Domagoj Dukec told Bloomberg last year. “You don't reach just for these early adopters. You have to reach for the customer base that's been buying BMWs for generations.”

A similar dynamic is playing out across much of the industry. As legacy carmakers bring electric models to the mainstream, they are aiming to minimize the disruption for consumers by offering big, rangy vehicles. While the strategy is arguably a necessary step in moving US drivers away from combustion engines, it's an inefficient way to deploy the costly, heavy lithium-ion batteries that power EVs. It's also a bittersweet moment for those who've come to love some of the little, lightweight models that are disappearing from the market.

Few little EVs are as beloved as the i3. Over a production run of more than 250,000 vehicles globally,