What Range do you get with real world conditions?

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MikeS

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 16, 2014
Messages
713
Location
Brighton UK
I’ve seen a few post on here about the great ranges some people have been getting but I’m interested in what the general every day/week experience is.

I have had my i3 REX for 2 weeks and despite some careful driving, including using the last full charge in ECO PRO, the ranges achieved have been disappointing. When I collected the car with less than 3 miles on it, the range indicator gave 72 miles with a full charge. It pretty much achieved that but no more. The next time after a full charge it showed something like 69 miles and now as I have just plugged the car after just driving in ECO PRO it it only shows 67 miles for a full charge! The statistics on the iRemote show 4.6miles/kw for the last trip and the ‘community’ 3.9 miles/kw.

I was not expecting to get 100 miles on a full charge but I was expecting nearer 80 to 90. I’m in UK so although the temperatures are higher than average (24 deg C today) its not extreme!

What is your experience?

P.S. Other than this, I think the car is fantastic. :)
 
I've had my Rex for less than a fortnight, done over 900 miles, and loving very mile. I have found that the Rex mileage and battery mileage estimates are woefully pessimistic. On motorways, 70-75mph (indicated) I am getting 90-95 miles on Rex, despite it saying that I'll get only 72 miles! It's much the same on battery.
It's changed my strategy on long-range use of the car, which is much better than I'd dared hope.
I'm going to post report on a 700-mile Rex trip on this forum soon to explain.
 
Unless I drive like a maniac or leave the AC on all day long I can get at least 80 miles from the battery ever time.
 
I would say my average real world range when driving normally (not for economy) is 80 miles. This is on a mix of roads, driving at the speed limit. The range predictor is usually pessimistic - it normally predicts a 70 mile range for me in comfort.

PS if you are getting an indicated economy of 4.6 mi/kwh then that gives you a predicted range of 86 miles.
 
My range is about 70 miles +/- 5 miles, depending on speed and driving style. The other thing I have noticed is that the ReX seems to always kick in with 2-4 miles of range remaining, and I am including that in my estimate (deduct 2-3 miles from your extrapolated range).

I tell people that 65 miles is a rock solid, "take it to the bank" range, even for fast/aggressive drivers. I personally have never gotten more than 80 miles of range before ReX kicked in.

I always drive in comfort mode and do mostly freeway miles where speed limit is 65MPH.

As an aside, as the novelty/thrill of dipping into the car's power potential wears off, I am finding that my range is improving...
 
At least 80 miles. .. the predictor gets more accurate as the battery depletes...

I usually achieve 4.6 to 5.1 m/kwh on my daily commute. . A mix of roads and staying within speed limits. Ac normally on all the time cos that's the way the car starts.

Best I had is 96 miles with 3 remaining. Phew. Made it lol.
 
Thanks for your replies.

Strangely, the prediction in my car seems accurate and I have never got to drive more than about 70 miles before the REX kicks in. REX engaging at 6.5% is at best 6.5 km and more likely 5km so it seems I should get to drive about 75 to 90 miles given the replies so far.

Thanks specifically to amateurish for the comment about the indicated economy v range - I hadn’t thought of that!

I have a longer journey planned in a couple of weeks so Ill see how it performs then.
 
When fully charged mine, the dashboard shows 120 km (74 miles) range. I usually charge my car before dropping below 50%. The overall consumption rate is 13.2 kwh/100km (4.7 Mile / kwh).

This is all in comfort mode with mostly stop-and-go city traffic. My area has lot of slop, this impact the efficiency as well.
 
After preconditioning, consistently getting 76 miles of electric range using Comfort mode in a REx, 65% at 75 mph, 35% stop and go 0-55 mph. Temperature ~ 75 for half of it, ~ 85 deg for the return (after baking in the sun). Guessometer consistently underestimates range.
 
Interesting that we seem to be settling at a 75 to 80 mile range - a bit off from BMW’s claim! I wonder what we shall see in winter?
 
I can usually get 80-90 most town and and some main roads 50mph kinda speeds...

Max was 93 ... although I think I could do better if I really tried...
 
We make no effort on conservation. We always drive in Comfort mode, 60-70mph on the freeway, no preconditioning, etc. and the guess-o-meter is pretty consistent at about 75-80.

I think this analysis http://bmwi3owner.com/2014/05/range-for-speed-2/ analysis is very telling.

Drive mostly around town with EcoPro and you can probably get 100mi, drive on the freeway at 65mph in Comfort and it's probably closer to 70mi.
 
I'm getting 80 miles easily although there is a sweet spot at the moment in the UK with nice temperatures for the battery but not too warm to need the AC (or too cold to need cabin heating). That is in Eco Pro mode and doing 3 pre warms.

Range on a single trip is a lot better, especially if I programme a destination in to the Nav system, when Eco Pro range approaches 100 miles at the moment. Curiously, setting a destination in the 60 to 70 mile range on and off toggles range by a huge amount in Eco Pro mode - it can increase predicted range by as 20 %. I end up with the odd situation where Eco Pro range > Eco Pro + range by about 20 miles!

My AC/climate setting stays set to whatever it was set to when the vehicle was turned off, which is confusing given what others have said. Weird.

Bill
 
:eek: Too new, and I have questions about driving range. My Prius Plug has a ten mile "all EV" range. With moderate driving, I can achieve at least ten miles. My previous two full i3 charges, showed a available range of 129 and 105 miles in EcoPro+. With fall weather, I've used EcoPro+ exclusively. My one way work commute is 9.6 miles. My round trip work commute is just under twenty miles, while yesterday, my EV range dropped about 35 miles. That was driving in EcoPro+ mode, cruise control set on 62mph, no heat or air, and mostly level ground.

I could understand some difference, but it isn't close. I'll try EcoPro mode and see if the range is more accurate. Time will tell.
 
Yeah... had an 80 mile round trip (40+40) and arrived home with 20 miles remaining... that's my first 100 ... its like an addiction lol... need more..
 
My average real world mileage driving it like a normal car and with lots of motorway (70mph) driving is around 75-80. If I use eco pro plus and just drive around town, being very careful with limited braking and acceleration then I get 100 - never more!
 
I'm interested in knowing how much power (in kW) the car consumes with the A/C at full blast while not moving. Sometimes I'm stuck waiting for folks in 100 degree weather for 30 minutes or more.
 
According to the High-voltage Components manual the EKK air conditioning compressor is driven by a three-phase synchronous motor that uses up to 4.5 kW of electrical power.

There is probably also some power draw by the fans and some loss in the AC inverter that feeds the motor. Hopefully that maximum power for the AC wouldn’t be needed for long. Otherwise your sitting with the AC on max for half an hour could use 1/8 of the battery.
 
MikeS said:
Interesting that we seem to be settling at a 75 to 80 mile range - a bit off from BMW’s claim! I wonder what we shall see in winter?

I don't think ANYONE has really driven this car in real world conditions in the winter. By winter, I mean -15C or less. I know some members think winter means 0C!
Here in Canada, and parts of the US, you can get winter temperatures of 0F.

From doing as much research on the topic as possible, and getting input from people like Tom, it seems like a drop in range of about 25% should be expected (at temps of 20-32F). Note that this is at 20-32F… not 0F.

It's anyone's guess what range you'll get at 0F with no preconditioning.
 
We have two i3's in the family - my father has had his for a month now. We picked up our (loaded) i3 Rex on Monday this week, apart from a big mistake on the build (standard Nav not the Professional as ordered) the car is very impressive indeed. My dad took is from Kent to Torquay this week and using the Ecotricity CCS d.c. Chargers en-route, our back seat passenger, Rex only sipped 3 litres of the hard stuff.

My wife made a round trip to from South London to MIlton Keynes this week; energy consumption was 240 Watts/Mile (4.1 Miles/kW). (The community does 3.9 Miles/kW as a comparison).

The energy contained within a gallon of petrol is about 44kW. So based on £6/gallon = 44kW of energy that is equivalent to paying 13.3p/unit of electricity, our electricity is 10.5p/unit so petrol is not that much more expensive than electricity is, but the efficiency of conversion into traction is very poor in a combustion engine and gearbox when compared to a modern digital synchronous electric motor.

So doing the maths, she did 188 MPG and when taking the lower cost of electricity into account she did the equivalent cost of 239MPG! On the M25 and M1 she used the intelligent cruise control.

In cost terms over 40 MPG of her old car that would be 1/6 of the cost of fuel or like paying 22p/litre for fuel assuming of course she had to pay for all the electricity of course! - I pay the electricity bill ;-)

That's a very cool saving indeed! Regarding the range - the car completed each half of the journey without the aid of our back-seat friend Rex and with 6 miles to spare on the return and 2 miles going there, all in eco-pro mode - 83.3 miles each way. Our Chargemaster 7kW unit recharged the car in 4 hours and used 21.6kWh. She pre-conditioned the car both ways.

Oh and her eco driver rating was 94% on the up and 100% on the return leg.

Justin.
 
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