BMW i3 Review and Prices

The i3’s tall body and large front doors make it a doddle to jump in and there’s plenty of seat adjustment to help you stretch out. You can adjust the steering wheel for height and reach to quickly find your ideal driving position but the front seats’ slim design means there isn’t room to fit adjustable lumbar support to help reduce backache on long drives.

You can’t open just the back doors on their own (you have to open the front doors slightly first) but their clever rear-hinged design helps make it easy for your passengers to climb into the back seats. There’s no annoying pillar between the front and rear doors to worry about and there’s just enough legroom in the back for adults to get comfy thanks to the very thin front seats.

Rear headroom is reasonable for a car this size but you only get two rear seats. As a result, the larger Nissan Leaf will be more suitable if you regularly carry four passengers.

Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to fit a child seat in the i3. With the front and rear doors open there’s plenty of room to lift in a bulky child seat and the clearly-marked Isofix anchor points make it easy to secure the seat base. The BMW’s raised roofline means you don’t have to stoop down to strap in a child like in the Nissan Leaf, either

The i3’s front door bins are big enough to hold a 1.5-litre bottle each and there’s enough space for another one-litre bottle in the glovebox. You get a single fixed front cupholder with a second removable clip-on cupholder as standard and a shallow storage tray on the dashboard that’s big enough for your keys, a smartphone or some sunglasses.

Sadly, you can’t get a folding rear armrest for your back-seat passengers and the smaller rear doors don’t come with any handy storage bins. Thankfully, Atelier models come with two built-in cupholders where other cars feature a central rear seat.

The i3 isn’t the most practical electric car on sale – with all four seats in place its boot can carry 260 litres of luggage. That’s some way behind the 338-litre Renault Zoe and 435-litre Leaf but it’s still big enough for a few large suitcases.

Fitting a baby buggy is a tighter squeeze, however, and the i3’s narrow body means there isn’t enough space in the back to carry a golf bag. If you’re really stuck for space you can flip the back seats down in a two-way (50:50) split to carry some long luggage and up to two passengers at once.

With both back seats folded the i3’s boot grows to a more practical 1,100 litres. That’s more than in the 891-litre Kia Soul EV can manage but still slightly smaller than the 1,125-litre Renault Zoe. You’ll have to remove a bike’s front wheel before it’ll fit too.

Thankfully, there’s no annoying boot lip to lift heavy luggage over and the back seats fold flat so it’s easy to push heavy luggage right up behind the front seats. You also get some handy elasticated straps in the floor to help make sure smaller items don’t roll around as you drive along.

Unfortunately, the i3’s batteries take up all the available space under the boot floor so there’s no space to hide any valuables safely out of sight.