 This is Chris from The Verge and we are in the driver's seat of a BMW i3 today. This is the company's first mass-produced practical all-electric sedan. It's part of BMW's new iRanger vehicles, the other being the i8, which is a hybrid supercar. So you have the full spectrum. On one end you have the exotic supercar, on this end you have the practical family car. Let's see what this thing can do. So the i3 doesn't really have the pickup of a $100,000 Tesla Model S, but then again this car starts around $40,000. So all things considered, it's pretty quick, as a lot of EVs are. The interior is really unique. If you've ever been in a BMW, don't expect this to feel familiar. They have this really cool natural-looking bamboo in the dash, and then you have these sort of exposed fiber accents that kind of indicate that the car is very ecologically friendly. When you open the door, the frame of the car itself is all carbon fiber. BMW has been working for a long time on sort of figuring out how to mass-produce carbon fiber, which is typically a really expensive material. They've done it, and this car is all carbon fiber, which reduces the weight of it quite a bit, and so that extends the range. The car is equipped with iDrive, as most BMWs are these days, and it works pretty well here. You have the knob in the center console with a touchpad on top of it that you can use to spell letters. The car has a few different modes, depending on how much range you want to try to squeeze out of it. There's a comfort mode, an Eco Pro mode, and Eco Pro Plus, in order of least efficient to most efficient. The car is available in two different versions. There's an all-electric, which is what we're driving, and then there's also an electric with a range-extender engine in it, and it's just a little tiny two-cylinder engine, and its only job is to keep the battery charged enough to allow the electric motors to run. Any time that you need to go, you can just put gas in the tank and you have about 100 miles, even if you have nothing in the battery. Whereas with the all-electric version, it's just like any other EV, you've got to charge it up. With this particular charger, you can get up to 80% in about 45 minutes to an hour, which is not bad, all things considered. If you remember back to our Tesla shoot from last year, where we almost got stuck out on the road, we plugged into a standard charger, EV charger that we found in Morro Bay, California, and it took all night to get to about the same level of charge, so really not bad at all. This car is not on sale yet. It's going on presale this week. This is actually the launch, the grand launch here at CES, will be available in spring.
 This is Chris from The Verge and we are in the driver's seat of a BMW i3 today.
 This is the company's first mass-produced practical all-electric sedan.
 It's part of BMW's new iRanger vehicles, the other being the i8, which is a hybrid
 supercar.
 So you have the full spectrum.
 On one end you have the exotic supercar, on this end you have the practical family car.
 Let's see what this thing can do.
 So the i3 doesn't really have the pickup of a $100,000 Tesla Model S, but then again this
 car starts around $40,000.
 So all things considered, it's pretty quick, as a lot of EVs are.
 The interior is really unique.
 If you've ever been in a BMW, don't expect this to feel familiar.
 They have this really cool natural-looking bamboo in the dash, and then you have these
 sort of exposed fiber accents that kind of indicate that the car is very ecologically
 friendly.
 When you open the door, the frame of the car itself is all carbon fiber.
 BMW has been working for a long time on sort of figuring out how to mass-produce carbon
 fiber, which is typically a really expensive material.
 They've done it, and this car is all carbon fiber, which reduces the weight of it quite
 a bit, and so that extends the range.
 The car is equipped with iDrive, as most BMWs are these days, and it works pretty well here.
 You have the knob in the center console with a touchpad on top of it that you can use to
 spell letters.
 The car has a few different modes, depending on how much range you want to try to squeeze
 out of it.
 There's a comfort mode, an Eco Pro mode, and Eco Pro Plus, in order of least efficient
 to most efficient.
 The car is available in two different versions.
 There's an all-electric, which is what we're driving, and then there's also an electric
 with a range-extender engine in it, and it's just a little tiny two-cylinder engine, and
 its only job is to keep the battery charged enough to allow the electric motors to run.
 Any time that you need to go, you can just put gas in the tank and you have about 100
 miles, even if you have nothing in the battery.
 Whereas with the all-electric version, it's just like any other EV, you've got to charge
 it up.
 With this particular charger, you can get up to 80% in about 45 minutes to an hour,
 which is not bad, all things considered.
 If you remember back to our Tesla shoot from last year, where we almost got stuck out on
 the road, we plugged into a standard charger, EV charger that we found in Morro Bay, California,
 and it took all night to get to about the same level of charge, so really not bad at
 all.
 This car is not on sale yet.
 It's going on presale this week.
 This is actually the launch, the grand launch here at CES, will be available in spring.