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What 12 owners told NHTSA about the 2019 BMW I3 Bev

These are the actual owner complaints behind this car’s reliability verdict, filed with the federal government, unedited. They’re unverified reports, not confirmed defects: read them as leads for your pre-purchase inspection, not a diagnosis.

All (12)Crash / fire / injury (1)Electrical system (5)Steering (4)Fuel system (2)Transmission & drivetrain (2)Body & structure (1)Brakes (1)Engine (1)Hybrid Propulsion System (1)Seat belts (1)Speed control (1)

1 of 12 complaints match · crash/fire/injury only · clear filters

Jul 6, 2025Electrical systemBrakesCrash

We were sitting at a traffic light for a few minutes behind another vehicle. Suddenly, our car accelerated very quickly. My foot was on the brake when the car accelerated. I felt the brake pedal depress further as it accelerated. I initially thought a car had hit us from behind and propelled us forward, but there was no car behind us. We were moving as though we had just started a drag race - full acceleration - and the brakes did not respond. We crashed into the car in front of us at full acceleration despite me pumping the brakes at least twice. It was surreal. We drive a 2019 BMW i3. It’s an electric vehicle and I wondered if there was som electrical failure. The car stopped only because of the car we ran into.

NHTSA ODI 11671462

Working with the data? Download all 12 complaints as CSV · fetched from NHTSA July 21, 2026

How to use these: a complaint is one owner’s report, filed voluntarily and published unverified. Patterns matter more than any single story. If several owners describe the same failure at similar mileage, put that system at the top of your pre-purchase inspection list. Back to the full 2019 BMW I3 Bev verdict →