Hellish Depreciation Makes BMW i3s And i8s Incredible Bargains

With just a few years and not many miles under their wheels, BMW's two i-cars are showing the kind of depreciation that would make a millionaire weep

Matt Kimberley

Updated: 10 Oct 2024

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?

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Comments

How could it be ‘Hellish Depreciation’ for us when it gives us ‘Incredible Bargains’?

£60,000 is what the i8 should have cost from factory

Why am I now looking at second hand i8s got dammit

To be honest, I’m not very surprised. The BMW i3 and i8 were pilot projects, which was a blessing and a curse for them at the same time. These cars were bought by people who want the latest, the most modern tech and features. Now, as quickly as the technology advances, you can easily find cars that drive better, have more range and look better (better than the i3 at least) for cheaper. As a result, the thing that made these cars interesting - the modern technology - becomes irrelevant.
Think of it like the same reason as to why flagship smartphones are phased out after a year or two, and the same reason as to why really expensive luxury cars depreciate the way they do. After a couple of years, it’s not the most modern, the best, the greatest anymore and the people who bought it because of these reasons move on to other cars.

Looks like my gf might be getting her dream i8 after all lol

What’s hilarious is that you can lease an i8 for just over £1,000 per month. Lease is supposed to be worse in the long run than buying outright, but in this case it’s still cheaper than the depreciation on a new car!