Your first few 100 kilomters?

So... the first 500km are under the tires... and i must say... it grows on you. I really, really like this car... I stil own a 3.0 csi '72 and when i drive that car it makes me smile. You can drive that car trough red lights, in the wrong direction, pass a trafic jam in reverse and everyone smiles at you and gives you the thum-up.
The i3 gives you that same feeling only in a slightly different way, it actualy makes me feel a better person. Never thought that a car would give me that feeling. It's not the looks, i still think it's a bit ugly but in a very cool way! It really is the driving experience and the idea that it's green (the car is partly powerd by solar panels on the roof of the building).
Few days ago however, i was not so happy... really dissapointed about the potential driving distance. It started at 112 km fully charged. When i got the car the igenius told me that it was a conservative estimation, because the car did not know my driving style. Today i woke up and there was 145 km fully charged, (with pre-heating). Efficiency of the previous drive was 51%.
I went kitesurfing in Wijk aan Zee (from Amsterdam) which is a 35km (eco route)drive and when i returned, batteries where half full and 75km to go. I think i was still the fasted at most trafficlights but i did not put the pedal to the ground. If you learn to sail the car (that's what BMW calls the uptimal driving style) it will reward you with high milage... i hope
Going to experiment the coming weeks and i will try to set a maximum driving distance on one load...
I think it will continuing to grow one me...

BTW range is now back to 124km but that's because i had my petrolhead friend going for a testdrive... he managed a 20% effeciency run... 28,8 kwh/100 km... but was blown away by the accelaration!

Burdi3 said:

I stil own a 3.0 csi '72 and when i drive that car it makes me smile. You can drive that car trough red lights, in the wrong direction, pass a trafic jam in reverse and everyone smiles at you and gives you the thum-up.

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:lol:

It's good to start seeing first hand experiences like this.

How are you getting on with finding the 'coasting mode' inbetween the acceleration and regen zones of the throttle travel ? That was the only thing I didn't really gel with on my test drive. I'm hoping it's going to be something that will be quite straightforward to get used to.

Burdi3 said:

So...

BTW range is now back to 124km but that's because i had my petrolhead friend going for a testdrive... he managed a 20% effeciency run... 28,8 kwh/100 km... but was blown away by the accelaration!

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Hello Burdi3,

What is the realistic and real world range after your experience so far?
?60 miles on full charge or is it more than that.

regards,
ken

kentheteaman said:

Hello Burdi3,

What is the realistic and real world range after your experience so far?
?60 miles on full charge or is it more than that.

regards,
ken

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Ken, yesterday i drove from Amsterdam to Schellinkhout, which is a 50 km drive. The car was fully loaded and i started off in Eco Pro, because i didnot know if i could recharge. I also took the Eco pro route. when i arrived i counted 48 km and there was 91 km to go. Weather conditions where 6 deg, and quite windy, a bit of rain also. Airco was on 19 deg. and we used seat heating.. very comfy!

I made my best effeciency run so far i must say....


What realy makes the difference are the routes choosen... i got 3 routes, one fast, one eco pro, and one alternative. The fast route was rated like 45% higher in energy consumption... (later on i will try to get a picture of it) than the eco pro route.

BTW the eco pro modus (if your not chasing the wind) is still comfortable and responsive, no problems there.

Plug said:

It's good to start seeing first hand experiences like this.

How are you getting on with finding the 'coasting mode' inbetween the acceleration and regen zones of the throttle travel ? That was the only thing I didn't really gel with on my test drive. I'm hoping it's going to be something that will be quite straightforward to get used to.

Click to expand...

Plug, riding and finding the coasting mode is very intuitive... it's like riding a motorcycle, with a hard engine brake (like a ducati), it needs a day or two but then it gets easy...

Best regards... an happy new electric year for everbody!

As stated in an other post, I've driven my i3 on a trip of 113 km one way and my experience was very similar to motoring in the '40's I think!
I'll elaborate a bit more here, as this is where the first few hundred km's are to be evaluated!

We left home New Year's Eve at around 18.00 hours. The Remote Assistance had not been activated yet (why, why BMW??, no one had a clue at the i Agent or at the i Service Desk!!-Murphy's Law) so I got no assistance in planning the trip as to range limit or finding charging stations along the way if necessary. I didn't think it would be, because my then stated range was 135km (based on a total of 79km driven to then), the distance to destination 103km and I was driving the route in the EcoPro mode with Seat Heat on at planned speeds of between 100-117 km/u. The outside temperature was 6 C, there was a fairly brisk SW wind, occasional showers and it was dark of course. The baggage area was packed with light baggage and there were 3 adults on board, all not overweight!
The first 35km were completed with mostly tail-winds but my charge level had fallen to about 55% and the range had dropped to 65km! Alarmed at this, I decided to make a quick charge stop at a station along the highway I had identified earlier, to regain at least 10 % of charge for safety. Unfortunately we took the wrong exit and had to make a detour of an extra 10kms! (murphy again!). As it turned out, the charger didn't work correctly, so I ended up wasting about 45 min. in the cold and the rain and an extra 10km! The i3 interior had also gone from a toasty 20 C to the ambient 6 degrees, and I was extremely pissed off to say the least! Being the pioneers were are, we pushed on though. I put the car in the EcoPro+ mode and my range sprang to 81km (Yes!! enough to get to our destination) and had gotten an address of a charging station further along the route close to the highway from the (limitedly) helpful emergency agent I had called (ANWB, similar to AAA) while trying to charge at the broken station. Next to the EcoPro+ mode I set the Cruise at 80km/h and found a Mobile Home to slipstream behind because we now had head winds! This worked perfectly for economy because now I was using between 13-15 kWh/100km but my hands and feet had turned to ice and my nose was dripping. My passengers didn't speak to me any more.
With 7km to spare we arrived at our friends house for the New Years Eve Celebration at around 20.15, which made for a journey that took double the time and triple the effort we had to expend before entering the BEV age! I did reach an Economy of 100% though as reported by the i Remote app

You can correctly fault me for not first slowing down and immediately choosing the EcoPro+ mode when range became an issue. Had I done that we wouldn't have been half frozen and so late! But in my defense, I assumed that the charging grid was up and running and I wanted to retain a semblance of ICE driving behavior to show friends and family that the future had arrived in 2013!
Besides that, the i3 should have been able to drive this distance under these conditions without any problem what so ever!

When we drove back on New Years Day, we had predominantly tail-winds at 5-6 Beaufort, T:5.5 C no rain and just LED running lights. I decided to do the entire trip in EcoPro+ mode because we started off with a range of 85km in Comfort Mode (110 in EcoPro+) as we had demonstrated the car to family in the morning and didn't have enough time to charge up again. We did stop at a working "Quick Charge" station (22kW, ANWB recommended) just to try it out, but after 10 minutes it charged only 1%, so "quick" it certainly was not, even though the on-board charge speed was set (correctly) to "Max" for the AC cable! :twisted:
We were more prepared for the cold (coats on!) and took the shortest route home because in the mean time my Remote Assistance became activated (Miracles do happen!) and lead us along a working ANWB charging station which also worked. We thought it would be good to "practice" our charging skills again, but also at this station, only 1% increase in charge after 10 minutes. Murphy's Law again?
Well, we had enough charge to get home even in EcoPro mode, and the last km's I even drove at 100km/h just for the fun of it!

Here are some pictures:

And images from the i Remote:

Just for information:

Do you have the "4T9 Cold weather cabin preparation" option?

This is standard in Norway (its old here), and if your experience is with this installed, I will get a bit worried. If not, it is similar to other EV cars.

LMOR said:

Just for information:

Do you have the "4T9 Cold weather cabin preparation" option?

This is standard in Norway (its old here), and if your experience is with this installed, I will get a bit worried. If not, it is similar to other EV cars.

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There you go, bringing up a touchy subject!
NO, this car does NOT have the 4T9 option (aka the Heat Pump) unfortunately.
The car I originally ordered DID, however after a BMW muck-up, this is what I ended up with.

So for all other BMW aficionados (and BMW too for my part which should make the Heat Pump STANDARD), ALWAYS order 4T9!!

Unless they order the REX. One of the reasons that it is standard in Norway, is that we do not get an option to buy the REX version.

Gosh. There have been some strong winds, and this might be a factor too, you may need to consider wind speed/direction, heater use and amount of fast driving when pushing the limit of range.

Regarding the "22KW charger", this would only be charging at 7KW as that's all the i3 supports - single phase AC. It unfortunately means European i3 drivers can't take advantage of the many 1000's of 22/43KW 3-phase chargers that are already installed around UK/Germany/NL. Unfortunately BMW appear to have decided to put all their eggs in one basket with the new SAE DC CCS standard, and you can count the CCS DC chargers installed worldwide on one hand right now.... It will be limiting to have a BEV such as i3 with smaller batteries and lack of widespread fast charge infrastructure, as charging en route will not be viable.

i3cam said:

Regarding the "22KW charger", this would only be charging at 7KW as that's all the i3 supports - single phase AC. It unfortunately means European i3 drivers can't take advantage of the many 1000's of 22/43KW 3-phase chargers that are already installed around UK/Germany/NL. Unfortunately BMW appear to have decided to put all their eggs in one basket with the new SAE DC CCS standard, and you can count the CCS DC chargers installed worldwide on one hand right now.... It will be limiting to have a BEV such as i3 with smaller batteries and lack of widespread fast charge infrastructure, as charging en route will not be viable.

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Gasp.... single phase AC only??

Looking at the options list on my car, I see the Fast Charge Package (4U7) which includes Fast Charging AC (4U8). But does this mean only 7kW above 3kW slow charge? If so, than we'll have a long wait until we can charge quickly on the road.

i3me said:

Here are some pictures:

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Do you have the BMW i Pure wall box?

I was planning to run the cable under the garage door too - my garage is not exactly the most car friendly of places!

i3me said:

And images from the i Remote:

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So the first service for your i3 is in 12-2015, 2 years from delivery?

The fast charge you have is 7kW and that should be much faster than the 1% in 10mins. It should be nearer 5%. What cable were you using to connect to the charger?

i3me said:

i3cam said:

Regarding the "22KW charger", this would only be charging at 7KW as that's all the i3 supports - single phase AC. It unfortunately means European i3 drivers can't take advantage of the many 1000's of 22/43KW 3-phase chargers that are already installed around UK/Germany/NL. Unfortunately BMW appear to have decided to put all their eggs in one basket with the new SAE DC CCS standard, and you can count the CCS DC chargers installed worldwide on one hand right now.... It will be limiting to have a BEV such as i3 with smaller batteries and lack of widespread fast charge infrastructure, as charging en route will not be viable.

Click to expand...

Gasp.... single phase AC only??

Looking at the options list on my car, I see the Fast Charge Package (4U7) which includes Fast Charging AC (4U8). But does this mean 7kW instead of 3kW? If so, than we'll have a long wait until we can charge quickly on the road.

Click to expand...

Check this:
http://www.fastned.nl/1536/Locaties.html

it's a matter of time that the DC combo will be installed on every 40-50 kms. It's the standard of the European and US car manufacturers and supported by the EC

Until I have more certainty on the specifications of the WallBox, I'm using the standard charger which came with the car (3kW). The cable is long enough to reach the car outside as on the picture!

The cable I used to connect with the public Fast Chargers is the Fast Charge cable delivered with the car, fitted with Type 2 connectors at each end. Glad to hear that it should be charging at 7kW, but how do I make the car do what it should?!

Yep, the first service interval is planned for over 2 years, reason why BMW can offer a 5 year warranty/service pack for only €500!

Lets hope that FastNed can get their projected 200 DC charging stations up and running quickly! I've mailed them my email adress and expressed interest in buying some of their investment certificates to help fund the plans. Have others here done that too?

i3me said:

I set the Cruise at 80km/h and found a Mobile Home to slipstream behind because we now had head winds! This worked perfectly for economy because now I was using between 13-15 kWh/100km but my hands and feet had turned to ice and my nose was dripping. My passengers didn't speak to me any more.

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You made me laugh my pants off! Great story...
For sure something like that will happen to me sometime... and when it does i will remember your story...!

Burdi3 said:

i3me said:

I set the Cruise at 80km/h and found a Mobile Home to slipstream behind because we now had head winds! This worked perfectly for economy because now I was using between 13-15 kWh/100km but my hands and feet had turned to ice and my nose was dripping. My passengers didn't speak to me any more.

Click to expand...

You made me laugh my pants off! Great story...
For sure something like that will happen to me sometime... and when it does i will remember your story...!

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After nearly 5 years and over 130,000 all electric miles I can proudly admit I've had a few of those type of experiences. Too bad you had it so soon into your EV life. Baptism by fire I suppose. Carry on.

i3me said:

We left home New Year's Eve at around 18.00 hours. The Remote Assistance had not been activated yet.

... in the mean time my Remote Assistance became activated (Miracles do happen!)

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Ok ... let's be positive ... Does this mean that someone at BMW Netherlands has been working hard on New Year's Eve to get your Remote Assistance activated at last?!

Well, I guess this is "customer commitment", isn't it?