With the ZOE we had before getting the i3 I used to enjoy the challenge of seeing how far I could get on a charge. While it was exciting when our ZOE first promised 100 mile range, such a distance should be no challenge for the ‘94Ah’ (longer-range) version of the i3.

When I collected it and first switched it on it very encouragingly promised 120 miles of range – a very good start, I thought. However, I did a lot of ‘testing of its performance’ on that first day and, as previously described, showed it off in the same vein to a number of colleagues at work. Later that day I went to another office and repeated the exercise.

Furthermore, that evening after work, I went out with friends and, partly to show off the new car, volunteered to drive. Again I couldn’t resist the urge to demonstrate its fast acceleration at every opportunity. The end result was that afterwards I was barely able to coax the car home – which served me right of course – having achieved just 100 miles range on that first day’s charge.

The following week I decided to attempt instead to see what range it was capable of. I commuted to work in a more relaxed manner over the next couple of days, keeping the car in Comfort Mode – and achieved 130 miles before putting the car on to charge. A much more respectable result!

According to the dashboard the consumption was 4.0mi/kWh over that long distance. On the ZOE it was possible fairly easily to get 4.5mpkWh (and I once achieved 6mpkWh, 142 miles) so I’m sure there’s more range to be had from the i3 yet.