A YouTuber Turned An Old BMW i3 Into A Tiny Pickup Truck For $8,000

Slate, Telo, and Ford’s electric pickups are still months away from hitting the market. This YouTuber beat them to the punch.

Photo by: Michael Pick / YouTube

By: Iulian Dnistran

Oct 28, at 5:37am ET

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An original BMW i3 was transformed into a range-extended electric pickup truck.
YouTuber Michael Pick wanted to escape rising gas prices while also keeping some of the practicality offered by his old Ford Ranger.
The budget, including the car, was set at $10,000.

Slate, Telo, and Ford are working on small and affordable electric pickup trucks, but they’re all months away from hitting the road as finished products. Meanwhile, gas prices are climbing across the country, with an average of $4.2/gallon, according to AAA.

For Michael Pick, a YouTuber with over 1.5 million subscribers and an old Ford Ranger as the work vehicle of choice, it was getting a little too much. So he set out to find a small, cheap, and affordable-to-run electric car that could also double as a pickup.

An old, 2017 BMW i3 bought at an auction sight unseen for just $5,598 was the winning vehicle. But there were two problems: the bug-eyed i3 hatchback didn’t even start, and it was obviously not a pickup.

With a new 12-volt battery under the hood, the first problem was sorted, leaving just the elephant in the room: turning a carbon fibre-bodied German hatchback into a truck. After cleaning the car inside and out, the sawzall and cutting discs came out of the toolbox.

Plywood, 2x4s, and plenty of silicone and adhesive were used throughout the build. The original infotainment screen was swapped for an aftermarket unit that’s bigger and also supports Apple CarPlay. The rear taillights were salvaged and integrated into a new pair of rear lights. The famous rear-hinged half doors were kept in place, but all of the rear windows were removed, as well as a big chunk of the roof, to make room for a rear bed.

One of the criteria for this project was to have a car that could travel at least 300 miles. The original i3 was never capable of going that far on a full charge, even when fitted with the optional gas range extender, like this particular model. With a full battery and a full tank of gas, the 2017 BMW i3 REX had an EPA-estimated total range of 180 miles. In fairness, refueling takes a couple of minutes, while DC charging from 10% to 80% takes over half an hour.

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That said, throwing a gas engine into the equation means one more thing to worry about. Pick had to change the oil and oil filter for the gas engine, which meant removing the custom-made bed to gain access to the motor.

A lot of work went into turning the i3 into a pickup, but it’s always cool to see a vehicle that was never designed to be a truck be transformed into one. Plus, the budget for the whole build was a smidge under $8,000, making it one of the most affordable fuel-sipping pickups out there.