Our first long distance Rex trip

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redbarn

Active member
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Jun 21, 2015
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33
Location
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We have 2 homes that are 500 miles apart and have been reticent to use the I3 to do the journey between them. Yesterday, my wife did the trip and it went surprisingly well.
I have coded our Rex to Euro spec, as a necessity for this journey.

She started off by going Bev down to 20 miles left or 1 bar left on the Guessometer. Then the Rex was used to hold the charge at that. Running at 70 / 75 mph in Eco Pro, gas stops were then every 80 miles or so ($5 fills).

At circa 290 miles is one of the rare CCS chargers on the East Coast. She had somehow touched something, clicked off the Rex hold and got the SOC down to 10% before noticing. So the charger was needed. There was some drama as she selected the Chademo option by mistake and could not cancel or reset the charger. After much phoning with Greenlots, the CCS charged the I3 back to 90%.
On continuing, Bev down to 20 miles and Rex hold after that.
495 miles total with 114 miles in Bev. Total travel cost was way less than any of our other vehicles.

The I3 runs on battery at each end of the trip and we have been leary of Rexing it all the way between. The Rex I3 is actually a quite usable car.
 
redbarn said:
We have 2 homes that are 500 miles apart and have been reticent to use the I3 to do the journey between them. Yesterday, my wife did the trip and it went surprisingly well.
I have coded our Rex to Euro spec, as a necessity for this journey.

She started off by going Bev down to 20 miles left or 1 bar left on the Guessometer. Then the Rex was used to hold the charge at that. Running at 70 / 75 mph in Eco Pro, gas stops were then every 80 miles or so ($5 fills).

At circa 290 miles is one of the rare CCS chargers on the East Coast. She had somehow touched something, clicked off the Rex hold and got the SOC down to 10% before noticing. So the charger was needed. There was some drama as she selected the Chademo option by mistake and could not cancel or reset the charger. After much phoning with Greenlots, the CCS charged the I3 back to 90%.
On continuing, Bev down to 20 miles and Rex hold after that.
495 miles total with 114 miles in Bev. Total travel cost was way less than any of our other vehicles.

The I3 runs on battery at each end of the trip and we have been leary of Rexing it all the way between. The Rex I3 is actually a quite usable car.
Click to expand...

Cool, I would like to make a 500 mile trip myself, but I am in Ohio and want to go to virginia, problem is mountains and not much charging in between here and the east coast where I might find a CCS would be at the end of the trip. (2014 i3Rex) Still thinking about trying it
 
Thanks for the great trip report! You're a true Electronaut.

Another DC Fast Charger was recently installed at the Whole Foods nearby ...

giving me a better chance against all those perky Leafs



20150911_103028-XL.jpg


:lol:
 
mindmachine said:
Cool, I would like to make a 500 mile trip myself, but I am in Ohio and want to go to virginia, problem is mountains and not much charging in between here and the east coast where I might find a CCS would be at the end of the trip. (2014 i3Rex) Still thinking about trying it
Click to expand...

If you code your REx and turn it on at 75% rather than letting it get low, you should find that you can climb any type of hill/mountain pass and recover your charge on the other side (provided you have enough gas once you clear the pass). I took my REx up into the CO mountains, climbing a total of more than 10,000 ft on the way up (4,000 downhill to reach destination). Turned on REx at 75%, arrived at destination with 72%. SOC got down as low as 32%, but built back up during the descent from the pass. Made the 95 mile 1 way trip on ~1.5 gallons, with 72% battery left at destination. Made the return (without a charge in the middle) and REx only came on for last 15 miles home. Total trip was 190 miles, 2.1 gallons used. I could have charged on the way up or the way back, but only L2 available here, so didn't want to spend the hours charging.

If you have to stop for gas, you can also use the trick that Woodland Hills tried - keep the car "on" and exit via the the passenger door. That way you preserve the HSOC setting and the REx can recover to that set point. Empirically, the REx can recover your SOC back to the set point if you are going less than 60 mph (and not climbing). Its slow to recover, but it does happen.
 
Thought I'd add the story of the return journey of the 500 mile Rex trip from home-2 to home-1 yesterday.
My wife chose a different, more rural route that would allow use of 2 of the rare East Coast CCS fast chargers.
She used the same technique as on the outward journey: use Bev to 25% ( 1 bar) and then use the Rex on hold. After the first fill at 140 miles, during the 2nd stint, the gas tank was down to circa 15 miles but there were no gas stations that she felt at all comfortable in using. I had bought a RotopaX 2 Gallon can for the frunk and so she pulled into a store parking lot and poured the 1+ galls into the tank and continued to "civilization".
The 1st CCS charger was an "almost fast" charger, taking 40 mins to get from 25% to 85%. The 2nd charger was better, taking 20 mins to get from 25% to 85%. After 1 more gas fill, she arrived home on 6% SOC and 15 miles of gas.
It has become obvious that Fast Charging rates vary significantly and that stopping every 70/80 miles can leave a poor choice of available gas stations in rural areas.

The I3 is proving to be a very useful car, certainly much more than an urban runabout.
505 miles total, 193 miles in Bev
 
Just like you can find EVSE's that can provide somewhere between 12A to more than the i3 can use, CCS units are not all created equal, either. One that BMW was promoting was a 25Kw unit (primarily because it was less expensive, so hopefully, more places would install them), but the i3 can handle up to about 50Kw+ versions. If you're lucky, the app will tell you what is available, so you'd have an idea of where to go, especially if there were choices.
 
Thats great, what is your plan if you have a flat? Or worse, if she is making the trip alone and has a flat?
 
Jeffj said:
mindmachine said:
Cool, I would like to make a 500 mile trip myself, but I am in Ohio and want to go to virginia, problem is mountains and not much charging in between here and the east coast where I might find a CCS would be at the end of the trip. (2014 i3Rex) Still thinking about trying it
Click to expand...

If you code your REx and turn it on at 75% rather than letting it get low, you should find that you can climb any type of hill/mountain pass and recover your charge on the other side (provided you have enough gas once you clear the pass). I took my REx up into the CO mountains, climbing a total of more than 10,000 ft on the way up (4,000 downhill to reach destination). Turned on REx at 75%, arrived at destination with 72%. SOC got down as low as 32%, but built back up during the descent from the pass. Made the 95 mile 1 way trip on ~1.5 gallons, with 72% battery left at destination. Made the return (without a charge in the middle) and REx only came on for last 15 miles home. Total trip was 190 miles, 2.1 gallons used. I could have charged on the way up or the way back, but only L2 available here, so didn't want to spend the hours charging.

If you have to stop for gas, you can also use the trick that Woodland Hills tried - keep the car "on" and exit via the the passenger door. That way you preserve the HSOC setting and the REx can recover to that set point. Empirically, the REx can recover your SOC back to the set point if you are going less than 60 mph (and not climbing). Its slow to recover, but it does happen.
Click to expand...

This is very impressive!
 
Brilliant. Thanks for the trip report.

I'm currently 600mi (out of 1k miles) into my second trip in continental Europe. I drove from Midlands (UK) to Amsterdam (440 mi), then Aachen (160 mi) and soon back to the UK (415 mi).

The Netherlands are very well-equipped as far as motorway CCS chargers are concerned (see image of me charging at a Fastned station in NL), yet I still used the REx for most of my travels, simply because of ease and convenience. On the way out to Amsterdam, 120 miles were covered using the REx. Amsterdam is literally littered with public chargers (I use a The New Motion RFID card), so finding a 2-day parking lot with charging bays was not difficult. However, I moved my vehicle once I reached 100% SOC.

Eurotunnel is now also offering free double-CCS stations at Calais and Folkestone, which means you can recharge your i3 whilst waiting to board "LeShuttle".

The thing I enjoy the most are the astonished looks on people's faces when they notice that I'm not only driving an electric car, but also drive around with the steering on "the wrong side", meaning I must have come a long way !

CVjiPd9UAAAN535.jpg
 
Winter is near and so we are switching back to usual SUV instead of our I3 for the monthly 500 mile each way trip South.
It is heartening that there are now 5 CCS fast chargers en route and we expect more by the time the I3 is used again in Spring. This has allowed our Rex to Bev miles balance to evolve from 380 /120 on our first journey to 180/320 now.

I can echo psquare's observation that people always come up and ask "What is it ?" but are flabergasted when they realize that it is an electric car with license plates from 5 states away !
One elderly Gentleman even asked how much it cost to ship it here and was dubious when my wife replied that she drove it both ways.
 

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