2017 BMW i3 Electric Car: 100- To 110-Mile Range, Battery Pack Retrofit?

The BMW i3 electric car is due for a range boost in the near future, Harald Krüger--the company's CEO--said recently.

But BMW hasn't publicly discussed the matter further.

Now, a new report claims the range boost will come courtesy of a new battery pack, which could also be retrofitted to existing i3 hatchbacks.

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The new battery pack will take advantage of efficiency improvements realized since the car's launch, according to Autocar.

The range improvement will come from what's described as an "optimized driveline" that will retain the same 22-kilowatt-hour battery capacity as the lithium-ion pack in the current i3.

We think that may have been a misinterpretation on the part of the Autocar author, since the article also suggests that the longer range will come from "higher power density."

That's unlikely, since power density is the ability of the battery to deliver higher output at any given point. Longer range comes from higher energy density, or a rise in the total energy content of a cell of the same size.

Cells with higher energy density are able to hold more energy into the same form factor, so a longer-range battery pack is all but certain to hold more energy--meaning not the same 22 kWh, but likely between 26 and 30 kWh.

There will also reportedly be some efficiency-related improvements, including an "upgraded electronics package" with new software mapping for the battery-cooling system and electric motor.

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These changes will result in a range of "well over 124 miles," as measured on the European testing cycle, according to the report--higher than the 80-to-100-mile range of today's i3 on the same cycle.