I looked at an i4, but found they come pretty stripped. To add enough to make it comparable it gets VERY pricey very quickly. Also heard bad things about reliability and service costs, but don't know if that applies to their EVs as much.

 

Hello. Hyundai competes on value for money measured as a feature set. BMW does not.

What you heard about i4 reliability was inaccurate. My former i4 eDrive40 Sport was great to drive and reliable. Albeit in under 5k miles so far, my current i5 eDrive40 M Sport is the same, and even better to drive.

Currently I am looking to downsize because of life events. As I look to replace my i5 with another EV, I cannot summon enough confidence in any non-Tesla alternatives on the basis of reliability (NB: I will not buy a Tesla).

12v battery, ICCU, ECU, and software problems plague most current production EVs in the US market. All the Hyundai Motor Group marques are prime examples of this, but it includes Ford, GM and VW, too.

I could sell or trade my i5 for real money today and lease a loaded ID.4 for $13k plus $4k factory and dealer discounts; or buy an IONIQ 5 or 6 Limited for $7500 plus $1500 factory and dealer discounts. I could take the rest of my workday off and do that today. Easy. But I can't bring myself to do it because of the very well-reported, widespread and persistent problems with those models.

My BMW EVs never exhibited critical problems. Nothing that did or could keep me from driving them or from operating them safely. That is my quality standard for a contemporary EV.

If the '25 model year IONIQ 5 and 6 prove to be free of the problems in earlier production, and I am still looking to switch by then, I would gladly consider them.

But if the '25 MINI Countryman SE ALL4 ships first, I will get one of those. Why? Because it is a BMW EV; indeed it is just a re-skinned iX2. As such, based on my personal experience owning current BMW EVs, I would be willing to give up range and features for money in order to get the solid platform.

 

BMW I4 is chassis designed for I6 ICE power plant that is retrofit as EV and is nothing more than compliance vehicle for them to keep fleet MPG down so they don't pay fees in some markets for not meeting requirements.

 

Have to disagree there. There was some FUD spread years ago that ONLY an EV designed solely as an EV could achieve excellence. It was the typical overstatement you frequently see on the enthusiast EV news sites. Since then we've seen several examples like the Smart, BMW i4 and Kona/Niro that do a perfectly fine job using multiple drivetrains. Turns out you don't necessarily need a platform to be exclusively designed for one drivetrain, only that it be designed from the start to properly accommodate all the drivetrains you have in mind for it.

There is ALWAYS compromise in ANY design. What matters is how you manage the compromises. For the topic at hand, making one platform serve multiple drivetrains typically has a minor impact on rear seating room and/or cargo space due to the space for the pack under the floor. That's pretty much it. Packaging will be minimally affected. Overall function will not.

I didn't see as much overall value in the BMW, but BMW is not a value brand. I really do like their drive system though, which is exceptionally efficient and flexible, due in part to their wound-rotor architecture with the rotor powered through slip rings. Better design, no rare earths

 

US News isn't exactly a dedicated car mag. If you look at Car and Driver's comparison, the I6 is number 1 and the I4 is number 2 (the 2024 Model 3 is 4th). But in reality the I6, I4, the M3, and the PS2, which comes in 3rd, are all great cars.

 

US News isn't exactly a dedicated car mag. If you look at Car and Driver's comparison, the I6 is number 1 and the I4 is number 2 (the 2024 Model 3 is 4th). But in reality the I6, I4, the M3, and the PS2, which comes in 2nd, are all great cars.

Yeah - I like where the US News article says there's more storage room in the BMW when the seats fold down... you know, the seats fold down in the Ioniq, too, right?

 

I drove an i4 before I bought my Ioniq 6. It felt really nice to drive but I couldn’t justify the extra cost to get comparable features.

 

I was really interested in the i4, but then I test drove the Ioniq6. It's a nice car, but, besides the BMW name, I didn't see any specific advantages to justify the increased cost. To bring it up to the ioniq 6 SEL AWD level of features (which I ended up buying), it would cost nearly 20k more.

 

It's interesting that German companies aren't committing to EV ground up design. I had heard that when HFC cars were being developed (which is an EV with Hydrogen as the "battery") automakers got a commitment for countries to build a Hydrogen infrastructure. Germany was one of those countries.

Of course, Hydrogen tanks are very different than batteries, so that design would have to be unique as well.

Interesting time to be an engineer as, for the first time in human history, we move from a high density energy/economy (fossil) to a lesser density one (Hydrogen, battery, kinetic).

 

Interesting time to be an engineer as, for the first time in human history, we move from a high density energy/economy (fossil) to a lesser density one (Hydrogen, battery, kinetic).

You can put it that way or you can say we are moving to a more efficient energy/economy, which is an improvement. Gas is, after all, a crude resource.

 

First, love the pun.

It's not a matter of efficiency or not - that's how the energy is used. It's a matter of how the energy is stored. Gasoline/Oil is a fantastic energy storage system - looking at it from a pure physics point of view. It is extremely high density. It stays in the same state at very low and very high temperatures and pressures, and it's easy to transport. Like it or not, oil saved our environment.

Or, rather, slowed the destruction of the environment over its predecessor.

Prior to our current oil energy/economy, we lived on coal. Coal is also high density, but not nearly as much as oil. It also stays in the same state regardless of the temperature and pressure. It's not as easy to transport as gas/oil and you have to convert the energy to steam to run a piston engine. It's also MUCH dirtier than oil. It was during this period that the theory of greenhouse gasses was proposed - which is the basis of the theory of Global Warming. If we had not moved up the energy density chain from coal, our environment would be much worse than it is today.

Prior to coal, we lived in a wood-based energy/economy. Wood has a much lower energy density than coal, and societies died out from deforestation since it's not practically renewable.

Now we have to move to a storage system that is yet to be determined. Wind & Solar are energy creation systems and they're great, but the energy must be used or stored immediately. Hydrogen from electrolysis is a good way to go, but the energy density is extremely low. A gallon of gas has the same energy as 1 kilogram of hydrogen, which sounds great, but Hydrogen is lighter than air, so there's a big volume trade off. It has to be stored under pressure, etc. It's hard to transport (Natural gas infrastructure can't be used since the molecule is so small).

As for batteries, a Lithium Ion Battery has an energy density of about 300 Wh per kilogram. Gasoline's energy density is about 12,800 Wh per kilogram. That's why our cars are so heavy.

Personally, I like Hydrogen and batteries for transport and, in the US, kinetic. Generally, kinetic storage has wind & solar plants pump water uphill when it makes more energy than is being used at the moment, then at night or when the wind doesn't blow, the water runs down hill through turbines. This is usually done in a circle. Living through droughts in Southern California, I'd love to see this done in a grid across the country. Pump water uphill from where water is plentiful and let it run downhill to where it isn't. Two birds, one stone.

So, yes, using energy more efficiently is a part of the whole system - which is also an engineering challenge - but the big problem is how we store the energy we make since the world will be out of oil very soon (Theory of Peek Oil).

Allow me to pick two nits (uhhh, make it three):

1) Pumped hydro is an example of gravitational potential energy (weight x height), not kinetic energy (velocity² x mass). Kinetic energy requires something to move. Gravitational potential energy (as embodied by pumped hydro) is there when a reservoir of water is just sitting there waiting to be used, by way of its weight at a higher height than where the energy is extracted. Kinetic energy used as storage would be something moving, like a flywheel.

2) Also, I don't think you were necessarily selling efficiency short, but it's important to emphasize it's pretty darn important. For example, the reason most EV haters can't get past the idea that EVs just move emissions to the power plant is that they don't understand (or don't WANT to understand) that EVs are still greener even when running on power from the nastiest coal-fired plant. Because they are over 4X more efficient in their use of energy. In an ICEV over 80% of the energy in the fuel is blown out the exhaust and radiators as noise and heat. (No, that's not a typo - over 80% is pure waste.) Less than 20% is used to move the vehicle, meaning they are less than 20% efficient.

In contrast, it's not hard to make an EV that's 80% efficient. So the efficiency of the EV is more than four times better.

Also, several years ago many utilities re-examined their projections for energy usage on the grid. It varies region to region, but overall they found that for as far as they could reasonably project into the future (2030 - 2050 depending on the analysis) consumption was predicted to be flat or declining - even accounting for a substantial increase in the use of EVs. So the transition to EVs IS NOT a threat to the grid.

This is a resounding testament to how effectively ever-increasing efficiency in our use of energy benefits all. All those Energy Star appliances, commercial/residential solar systems and LED bulbs (and people just wanting to save money) really do make a difference.

In fairness, these studies came out before there was such a strong emphasis to "electrify everything" (heat pump HVAC systems, induction cooktops, heat pump dryers and water heaters, etc.). Even if overall consumption was to remain flat or declining, there still would be a need to maintain, improve and re-shuffle how it's distributed. Assuming the "electrify everything" movement is a huge success (and I think it will be, I'm certainly on board), any increase in demand on the grid is perfectly manageable. (Further assisted by the diminished need for oil and gas processing/refining/transport.)

All thanks to working to improve efficiency.

3) And finally, oil may be more energy dense, but that does not mean it follows that it "slowed the destruction of the environment over its predecessor." Quite the opposite in fact - the ease of transport for both oil and gas enormously facilitated their use, making them FAR more extensively used than coal could ever have been. Oil and gas certainly INCREASED the rate of environmental destruction, to quite a dramatic, and today even existential degree. I will grant you that fossil fuels allowed humanity to advance to a great degree, but that came at great cost. Now we finally have the means to advance as far as we want without poisoning the shrinking rock we call home.

 

Also, several years ago many utilities re-examined their projections for energy usage on the grid. It varies region to region, but overall they found that for as far as they could reasonably project into the future (2030 - 2050 depending on the analysis) consumption was predicted to be flat or declining - even accounting for a substantial increase in the use of EVs. So the transition to EVs IS NOT a threat to the grid.

A lot can change in several years. Consumption growth has been flat for 20 years or so but things are changing. The anti-EV crowd will blame EV's, and to a point, they are correct. But essentially what is happening is the re-industrialization of the American economy, much of it based on the electrification of the American economy: batts and EVs.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/13/climate/electric-power-climate-change.html

 

I was curious because of this thread what would be my optioned out I4. I came up with the cost over 60k for the m35 variant. I did find several used in my area from 40-50k, which is better, but still expensive. My issue would still be all the options they hace out there and if I was looking to buy would a used model have the ones I want.

I said before and will say again. that I am not fond of my EV being the same as an ICE vehicle. I would like it to look different. The model 3, ioniq 6 and PS2 all have an EV only design. I do look forward to more entrants into the EV entry-level luxury sports sedans. Also, some mid-size at the Camry level would be nice.