Yes that new one is not an i3, not even in spirit. The original i3 was super light, quirky, fun, innovative in so many ways. They just didn't sell enough. People wanted more boring cars.
It was also $50k for a car that only got 120-150mi of range. It was a joke car. The reason it didn’t sell well is because it was a compliance car, not because it didn’t innovative. If it had a reasonable range (say, Chevy Bolt 200-250ish) in all electric for the same price, I bet it would have sold much much better.
Sure, it’s useful for that, but its absolutely a horrendous deal compared to other EVs on the market at the same time. Anyone buying one for MSRP either loves BMW way too much or just was not aware of the market at the time.
A Chevy bolt, albeit not as nice inside, had nearly twice the range and cost half as much.
If you get one second hand for cheap, sure why not.