Hellish Depreciation Makes BMW i3s And i8s Incredible Bargains

Depreciation is a bitch. It looks like it’s hitting the two BMW i-cars pretty hard, too. A quick trip around the classifieds turns up some terrifying numbers for owners of the interesting i3 and enthralling i8 (neither of which BMW is directly replacing, we learned this week).

Anyone who bought a £33,000 electric i3 new will need to sit down before reading that four-year-old ones with nominal mileage are now being sold for less than half that. You can imagine what trade-in values are like…

This one, for sale in the English North East, even has £4000 of options. For argument’s sake let’s call this a £37,000 BMW with just 14,000 miles, being sold for £15,490. Wowzers. It has fast-charge preparation, rear-parking sensors, automatic windscreen wipers and Bluetooth on its spec sheet, among quite a bit more. It also has ‘BARGAIN’ written all over it.

With 170bhp and a whole lot of torque on demand, it’ll launch to 62mph in a brisk 7.2 seconds, but it feels rapid up to 30-40mph. You’d hope to get about 90 miles per charge in the real world. And with the latest breed of electric cars about £10,000 or more pricier than this barely-used i3, we think it’s a relative steal.

It looks like i8 values are continuing to crash, too. We covered the £112,000 sports car when prices dropped below £60,000. Just three months later, a relatively leggy (for an i8) example has appeared for £47,995. Comparable examples mileage-wise have still dropped about £1000 every month since we covered it last time.

Our pick has 55,000 miles, so still hardly a lot, even if it has been covered in just two and a half years. The seller claims most of it is motorway mileage. Like the i3 above, this i8 has been treated to options. It apparently has the Pure Impulse Full Equipment Pack. Which is literally every option bundled into one pack.

That covers the likes of 360-degree cameras, a head-up display and exterior design tweaks. The car has had two owners and has the balance of the BMW warranty. For the same price as a mildly-optioned 430d, why wouldn’t you have this magnificent i8?