openinverter forum

Hi there. I have just discovered a crashed 2017 94ah BMW i3 for sale here in South Africa. It is extremely rare to see salvage EVs for sale here, so I’m hoping the stars might align to save me some money by avoiding shipping batteries in from the EU.

The vehicle in question looks like it had a head on collision. All airbags were deployed. The windscreen is intact but the front crumple zone and wheels are completely crushed.

What I want to ask is - does anyone know of BMW has any sort of ‘disable the batteries in an accident’ design in these batteries? I am worried that I might buy it and then discover that the modules have been rendered inoperable.

The modules themselves will be fine.

However the BMS will almost certainly have some sort of crash lockout especially for airbag deployments. Many cars will have a pyrofuse inside the battery, and the BMS can often have a "locked down" state which requires dealer tools to clear.

If you plan to strip the battery down, and repurpose the modules, then you wont have a problem. At least excluding accident damage to the modules etc.

Thanks Aragorn, that was what I was hoping. Unfortunately the seller wants $150/kwh, so I need to wait for them to drift back down to reality.

there will be battery locked and you need EOS Tester