Now for the most intriguing part of this. The i3 has been designed around the philosophy of weight savings whenever possible. Many of these features will add weight which reduces efficiency. Plus, the more powerful drivetrain will likely use more energy than the stock set-up does. If someone were to drive the car hard (like it should be driven) then the range may only be 40 or 50 miles, and that's just not enough. So I asked if the ///M i3 would be available with the range extender, and was told definitely not; it will only be available in BEV form. Pressing further about the likely limited range of what will be a very expensive 40 mile electric car he replied, "The ///M i3 will have a greater electric range then the standard i3. It will also charge faster and offer technology unavailable in any other electric vehicle on the market." Now this is indeed getting interesting. There are really only two possibilities here that make any sense. It either has a larger battery pack, perhaps utilizing the space where the range extender goes, or BMW is using the higher density batteries that they have been testing in MINI-E mules for a couple years now. These cells are reported to have about a 30% greater energy density than the stock i3 batteries that come from Samsung have, so that would seem to work here.