I test drove the ActiveE this afternoon at Irvine BMW. Here are my impressions. Note that I drove a 2008 BMW 3 Series coupe for 3 years, ending a year ago, and I've been driving a LEAF for almost 10 months.
I found the interior comfortable for my 6 foot, 205lb bulk. The seats are manually adjusted, I assume to save both weight and cost of power seats, but I was able to find a comfortable position easily. Note that having the seats adjusted for two 6 foot or taller front seat occupants reduces the rear leg room to essentially zero. You could put child seats on the rear seats, but I wouldn't want to struggle back there to actually "insert" the children and buckle them in. The small trunk has its capacity further reduced by the intrusion of the motor and other drive components, so that the trunk space is small and awkwardly shaped. There is no pass-through that I could detect. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that.
As others have mentioned, (EDIT: except for the white plastic with blue "circuit" trim) the interior materials are high quality and "Germanic" feeling, which is a good thing, IMHO. The leather wrapped steering wheel alone is worth the price of admission to me. I'm not positive that the seats are leather. BMW does a really good job with "leatherette". I didn't check the sticker to see if they are real leather. Either way, the seat material is good stuff. The seats are firm and held me in place well for cornering. The shifter is similar to an automatic trans shifter, but with only three settings, R, D and N. There is an "Eco Pro" button on the shifter housing that puts the car into a similar mode to the LEAF's ECO setting, e.g. reduces acceleration at normal accelerator positions, increases regen, and probably reduces AC output.
The driving experience was really pretty exciting. I'd differ with Tony on his opinion of the relative quickness of the LEAF and the BMW. I'd say that the acceleration of the BMW is noticeably more aggressive and takes that car firmly into the fun to drive category. I mean I really had a grin on my face with the way this thing took off from a stop. I drove the same roads immediately afterward in my LEAF and the difference was significant. I think that I read that the BMW goes from 0-62 in something under 8 seconds, which would be more than a second quicker than the LEAF, and I believe it. I drove with the windows down, and the whine from the drivetrain was seriously more noticeable than that from the LEAF. Along with the extra wind noise that I think slovak mentioned, the driveline whine made the car sound like a jet engine. It was exciting, if you like that kind of thing, but certainly not relaxing. Some people think that sporty cars should make noise, and this one does, just not ICE noise. :lol:
The adjective that kept coming to mind when I drove the BMW was "tight". The handling was tight and very predictable. The steering was direct and the car goes where you point it "right now!". The suspension was tight and fairly stiff, but only in the way that all BMW sports models are, even without the Sport suspension option.
The one surprising thing, though, was that I found the strong regen to be bothersome. If you're accelerating strongly, as soon as you lift off the accelerator, you're thrown forward in your seat by the regen. I actually started to feel a bit nauseous. It wasn't as bad if you weren't driving as aggressively. I found that the secret is not to back off completely, but to hold the accelerator at just the point below where acceleration would begin. Frankly, I thought that it would be too much of a bother to drive that way, but I MIGHT get used to it. I'd really have to take several test drives and make sure that I could handle that much regen. I was even looking for a setting that would reduce the regen, but there apparently isn't one.
All in all, if the ActivE had been available a year ago, and I had to choose between it and the LEAF, I'd have chosen the BMW because it is more of a sports car and similar to my 328i. But now that I have the LEAF and I see how usable the four doors and the hatch are for family outings, it's clear that the BMW would have gotten less use than the LEAF is getting. So for me, the two represent a choice between a personal electric sports car for two people and not much luggage, or a very usable family car. And in terms of energy savings, because it gets used more than a 2 seater would, the LEAF meets my energy goals better.
EDIT: I wanted to add that I find it really hard to believe that the BMW is more energy efficient than the LEAF, just based on weight alone. I am going to be REALLY interested in seeing what real world range and energy efficiency turn out to be in the hands of drivers.
A couple other details: The BMW doesn't have a "smart fob". You have to insert the fob into a recess in the dash and then push the Start button. Also, the BMW has rear parking sensors instead of a rear monitor. I had these sensors on my BMW and I loved them. They are like radar and they show in color on the Nav screen how close you are to any obstacle. Given my experience in backing into stuff in parking lots, I need BOTH devices.
