But my god does the i3 look terrible on the outside./..... it literally looks like all the attempts at an alternative vehicle from the past.
It's definitely a love/ hate thing. I happen to really like it. Nobody's looking at you like you're driving a super car but I don't think it's ugly. The odd proportions give it a lot of utility too.
As far as interior quality what are you looking for? From what I have heard the newer Model S's are a major improvement over the earlier VIN's. (No surprise here). Also the Model S has what 2 giant screens and 2 actual buttons in the interior? The rest is dashboard and trim. What did you like better on the BMW than on the Tesla that made you feel it was made so much better?
First off, the new Teslas are not built better than the old. This drives me mad when I see people on the forums say that. "Oh, I just traded my P85 in for a P90D and I can't believe how much better the new cars are". It's a load of crap. I sat in a new car just two days ago. It's the same stuff. What has changed is the seats which are much nicer now and they've finally added a real center console.
As far as what I'm expecting from the Tesla, it's not that it's bad. It really isn't. It's just not as good as any of the German offerings. Go sit in a 3 series. Even a bare bones 3 series with hard plastic surfaces feels like it's very well built. The Tesla does not give you that impression.
Question. Does this vehicle work like a volt where let's say I deplete the 80 miles of battery range and then use the engine until like 150miles, can I just too off the gas and be on my way? Or does it need another charge and the gas engine isn't really good to actually drive around. Thinking about what I'm gonna get after the volt and obviously a new volt and a bolt are on the list of cars to check out and I have a level 2 charger at home but the in laws in Iowa don't, so if I can't drive without a full charge it'll be a problem as 110v will take over 24 hours on a car like that
The 2 cylinder engine is a generator. In the US it's only function is to come on when you hit 6% state of charge and maintain that state. Around the city this works seamlessly and you won't notice it's on but if you're rolling out on the expressway at 75mph on a regular basis than no, not a good fit. From what I've read, the car is limited to about 70mph - 75mph with the extender on.
The good news is the entire reason the car works like this is so BMW could get carbon credits and a ZEV rating from California. So with $100 you can code the range extender to come on at any time under 75% state of charge which means it will keep the battery at it's current state and you'll never be limited on power. The other good news is that BMW software limits the amount of fuel you can use to 1.9 gallons in the US. And again they do this to appease California where if your vehicle has gas range equivalent or more than it's electric range it's not considered a zero emissions vehicle. And again, you can code that out and get that full 2.4 gallons for longer range.
So those two changes really offer drastic improvements if you plan on using the car in range extender mode for any reasonable amount of time.