Halfway (outside the) house

Reading and Wycombe are close enough; I just can't picture where the dealers are. Basingstoke Road sort of area? We're doing our VW and BMW shopping in Maidenhead and Taplow, which are no closer but offer an excellent B-road test loop past Cliveden and Hedsor. The i3 was more fun to drive round there than the Golf GTE.

Ah, Prospect Park. We've visited the Škoda dealer out that way; bit of a pain to get to from here - but then I went to Solihull and Brooklands in pursuit of a CLS, so I suppose it's no big deal really. Certainly not as big a deal as the Wife Factor anyway.

Well, we have an i3 BEV for 48 hours. I won't be here for most of that, but MrsB1 is going to fit it into her routine - is already doing so, in fact, as it's taken her the mile into town for her choir rehearsal this evening. She was making remarkably happy noises on the way home from Taplow - especially if you're used to the noises she usually makes when driving. We can have a piebald one as soon as next week, if we don't mind a Loft (look it up!) interior (we don't) a Harman Kardon audio (bit unnecessary but no problem) and 20in wheels (hmm...)

She was concerned that she might not cope with the i3's roll-forward-twist-back 'gear' selector, but I waited outside while she eased the car out of its space and she had no trouble at all. Spot of bother on the way back with the return-to-centre indicator switch, which feels to me exactly like the one in the 325 - which, of course, she seldom drove. She'll be used to that in a week.

I don't quite get the significance of the little white dot that swings left and right along a blue arc below the speed readout. Something to do with draining or charging the battery, I think, but I don't suppose it tells me anything I wouldn't get from driving smoothly. The lights are good, space is adequate (it is less than 4m long after all) and it rides better than the 325 but less well than the CLS - as you'd expect.

With due consideration to CD, a Golf GTE would feel like a boring compromise after this.

Maybe, but aren't you generating that electrical energy from kinetic energy you've gained by converting electrical energy (losing some as heat in the process) and will have to regain by converting more electrical energy (losing some more as heat in the process)? As with a fossil engine, smooth driving with the minimum of braking, whether regenerative or frictional, has to be the route to minimal energy use.

Incidentally, if you think an i3 is 'blingy', you've not looked inside one. It's the closest thing I've seen to a minimalist car since - well, the Mini, I suppose. There's really very little going on in there, and the outside looks the way it does because the designers were free to develop it as an electric vehicle, rather than adapting a design intended for a fossil engine. And if a lightweight, fit-for-purpose structure and a simple, airy interior furnished with natural and recycled materials is 'making a statement' then it's one I don't mind adding my name to.
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"With due consideration to CD, a Golf GTE would feel like a boring compromise after this."

If it suits your needs that's great, the pure electric vehicle with an onboard petrol generator is an interesting approach and the i3 is certainly different. I am long past the stage when making "boring" choices bothers me.

The conversion of kinetic energy back into electrical will always be limited, but it's better than losing excess energy altogether which is what happens in any "normal" ICE car now.

Nearly there. Put a deposit this morning on a rare, ready-made white i3 REx. It has prettier 'Turbine' wheels - still narrow 19-inchers - the Loft 'interior world' with some sustainable European eucalyptus wood, a reversing camera in case we want to see what we can pretty well reach out and touch, and an HK audio upgrade - bit superfluous in a short-journey car but no doubt it'll get some use.

The demo car we borrowed for two nights this week did its job well. MrsB1 drove it on several routine local trips and reported that the more she did, the more she enjoyed it. This is hugely encouraging, given her reluctance to embrace the larger German cars we've had (and contrasting with her lukewarm "it's a car" reaction to the Golf GTE.) We plugged it in here only to check that we could; it gained 4 miles in indicated range in the space of about 20 minutes while we messed about with loading options. She probably drove it about 100 miles in total.

It's not a 100% solution to her kit-carrying needs. Her teaching kit has grown to fill the space available in an E220 estate, which means some ingenuity and compromise are necessary to fit it into anything smaller. Most weeks she doesn't need it all, but she's got into the habit of taking it all anyway, boasting that she's never been caught out by a question from an assessor for lack of material or equipment. But she can learn to be selective - and there's always the CLS on the odd occasion when she really does need to take everything.

The rest of the time, if it's just her or with one or occasionally two passengers, it'll be just fine. And it's so easy to manoeuvre, as the front wheels do nothing but steer and have nothing to fight for space to turn it. It can't quite turn in its own length but it's not far off.

I really like it too, and only partly because it feels like the future. I like its simplicity and focus on locomotion, and that it manages to be a little sitty-uppy without going the full mummy-crossover, while the low-down battery weight keeps it planted on the road; despite the thin tyres, it's a very reassuring car to drive quickly on a twisty road.

And yes, I do like it being The Future, that it's made in a factory that requires half the energy input of any other BMW model, and that all that energy is captured from the wind. Part of me would prefer it not to have the Range Extender gubbins, but I realise that I'd never even have got it considered without that. In any case, if I can demonstrate after a couple of years that we're not really using it, it wouldn't be hard to jump to a new one without - and probably with an uprated battery by then.

Now, about that BMW inductive charging pad, due next year apparently...

Oh yes. You'll probably be able to hear it sustaining in Reading. It's a £300 option we don't need, but there isn't a car without it that still qualifies for the £1,900 bung from BMW, so it's helping to sustain us too.

I know I'm going to get into trouble for wanting to drive it too much. It really is a little jewel of a car, and the white-black combination suits it perfectly.