Electric sedan hopes to find place in urban market

New York Times : BMW will begin sales of its new electric car in Europe in November and in the US in 2014. The i3 is a five-door sedan whose 93-mile range on a single charge can be lengthened to 120 miles in power-saving mode. An option for the car is a small gasoline engine that kicks in when the battery is low and takes the car’s range up to 186 miles. BMW’s goal is to make an electric vehicle for urban and suburban environments that doesn’t leave people worried about not having enough range on a single charge. In demonstrations, the car displayed handling comparable to other BMWs and benefited from automatic slowing by the power recovery system that activates when the accelerator is not pressed. The battery will fully charge in 6 to 8 hours when plugged into a wall outlet at home or in just 1 hour at special charging stations.