Home · 2019 BMW I3 Bev · Complaints

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 · Engine · clear filters

May 11, 2026SteeringTransmission & drivetrainEngine

This is an electric vehicle. I experienced a sudden loss of all power while traveling on the interstate in heavy traffic. I nearly lost control of the vehicle as it would not respond to my inputs. I had to cross two lanes of dense interstate traffic to get to a safe area to pull over and it was terrifying because the car just suddenly shut down while traveling at highway speeds. The dealership that I had the car towed to did some diagnostic work and said that "EME" had failed. The EME is the main processor that controls all electrical functions in the vehicle. My understanding is that 2019 BMW i3's were recalled due to failures of the EME due to corrosion. How my car was missed in that reacall, I can't ascertain. Perhaps because my particular car has an "S" designation, so it is called an "i3S" and it slipped through the cracks on the original recall. At any rate, the failure was catastrophic; it could have caused an accident and killed me. The car lost all power at highway speeds. Please look into why the i3S was overlooked in the original recall.

NHTSA ODI 11737149

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 →