A Drive Around Los Angeles in the BMW i3

But whether you love or hate its looks, it’s difficult not to enjoy driving the i3. A tall, boxy, snub-nose body; tall, narrow tires; and a short wheelbase do not seem to be good ingredients for an ultimate driving machine, but all that custom electric-only-vehicle engineering seems to have paid off in the final product.

First off, it’s a good idea to point out how — other than it is all electric — the i3 is different from most cars on the road. Unlike the majority of the vehicles in the urban and suburban commuters’ fleet, the i3 features body-on-frame construction. An aluminum frame carries the electric motor, batteries and suspension components, and a bubblelike carbon-fiber body shell bolts on top. The result is a car that is light and small, but has a lot of interior room and a low center of gravity.

Oliver Walter, head of product management for the i3, said that BMW wanted to make a car that was short to make city driving easier, but also roomy inside for greater comfort and utility.

“It’s a city car, so it needs to be agile, easier to park,” he said in an interview. “The interior space is supposed to be a relaxing place where you can stretch out.”

So aside from building the car with a cavernous interior, BMW outfitted it with materials Mr. Walter said were meant to soothe: seats clad in fine leather, sustainably harvested bamboo across the dashboard and recycled bottles on the door panels. The owner of an i3 will have reminders that the car is — or is supposed to be, at any rate — less taxing to the environment than the 20-mile-per-gallon S.U.V. he or she has been driving for the last 10 years.

But that soothing feeling can disappear simply by mashing the accelerator pedal to the floor. On a test drive from downtown Los Angeles to the Griffith Observatory in the low mountains to the north, the i3 proved an agile performer, with quick acceleration and lightning-fast steering. At 80 miles per hour on the freeway — a speed the i3 reached and maintained smoothly and without struggle — the car held its tack firmly, slicing easily into the next lane with a slight flick of the steering wheel.

Mr. Walter said the steering was meant to be quick so that motorists driving in a city’s tight quarters could get into and out of tight spots easily. Accordingly, the i3’s turning circle feels tiny. It is one of those cars that can make U-turns on the most impossibly narrow roads. On the narrow, twisty road up to the observatory, the steering system came in handy for flinging the car around turns, while its low center of gravity kept all four wheels planted on the road. The car was able to do that despite its tall, relatively skinny tires, made that way to reduce rolling resistance.

One of the more interesting features on the i3 is its single-pedal driving, which will throw off many drivers (this one included) at first. As with many electric and hybrid cars, the i3 uses electricity generation to slow the car during deceleration. The resistance from power generation slows the car when the driver lets off the accelerator pedal, so there is no coasting. It’s not uncommon for a beginner to stop 30 feet short of a traffic light, but once you get used to the way it works, using one pedal to slow the car comes in handy, particularly on roads with tight curves. There are still a brake pedal and conventional brakes, but you do not have to use them nearly as often as in a typical car.

According to BMW, the i3 will shoot from 0 to 60 miles per hour in about 7 seconds (an impressive feat considering that the 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454, one of the more formidable entries of the muscle-car era, posted a 0 to 60 time of 6.1 seconds). Mr. Walter said it would go from 0 to 35 in 3.5 to 4 seconds, or “the acceleration you need to go from one traffic light to the next one.”

BMW says that the i3’s electric motor produces 170 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque, and that the car’s battery will charge fully in about three hours. Its range is 80 to 100 miles, depending on driving style, and an optional gasoline-powered range extender — a 650-cubic-centimeter 2-cylinder BMW motorcycle engine that includes a two-gallon gasoline tank mounted in the front of the car — adds another 100 miles or so to that, Mr. Walter said. The small engine is tucked next to the electric motor at the rear of the car.

In short, the i3 seems like a perfectly capable car to use in most urban and suburban areas, particularly those that already have charging infrastructure. With the range extender, even trips into the hinterland will probably go down without incident, and the car’s huge display screens and easy-to-use navigation system will help make sure a driver does not get too lost while looking for a place to plug in when the battery is low. The only thing it seems to need to make it a more fun, practical city car is a front bench seat option, so a driver can slide, ‘50s movie-style, across the front seat and out the passenger-side door when parallel-parked on a busy street.

The i3 is expected to show up in North American dealerships sometime next year, for a starting price of $41,350. That price does not factor in the destination charge, and it also leaves out E.V. tax credits, which vary from state to state.