2014 BMW i3: Is Range Extended Version Outselling Battery Only?

The 2014 BMW i3 electric car has a unique feature offered by no other vehicle in the world: Buyers can choose to have it as a battery-electric vehicle, or add an optional range-extending engine that roughly doubles its rated electric range of 81 miles.

With the i3 on sale now for two months, a mix of the two variants has been delivered.

So you might ask, how many of each?

Unfortunate, BMW of North America isn't releasing those figures.

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In response to a request for a breakdown of May and June BMW i3 sales (336 and 358, respectively), BMW's product and technology communications manager Matthew Russell declined to provide the data.

"For the time being, we are treating the i3 as one model series, with the Range Extender treated as an optional extra," he told Green Car Reports.

"In sales reporting, as you noticed, we only report the model series, not the sales of the individual models within the series."

That's not strictly true--BMW has provided data on sales of its diesel models, for instance--but the company is, for the moment, intransigent.