MarkNo
Active member
I just took delivery of a 2017 BMW i3 REx 10 days ago, and I am greatly enjoying my entry into the EV world with this wonderful city car. I have learned a lot from this forum, and I thank you all for your collective expertise.
I went on a longer day trip beyond battery range yesterday and came home using the REx for the last 30km, and it thankfully kicked-in as it should have. Having to drain your battery to 6.5% before being able to engage the REx is a huge drawback, and I would especially love to keep the battery at a higher state of charge when taking longer drives. The REx was intended to be used to maintain state of charge on the highway between cities so you could revert to battery only driving when you reached your destination city - at least that's how it plays out in Europe, but alas not in North America. Thanks to a California regulation that does not apply to us, we Canadians also have the 'hold state of charge' feature disabled on our i3s. But there are work arounds...
Thanks to this forum I came across this simple and inexpensive USB patch for holding state of charge at 75% (or less):
http://dvdinmotion.com/bmw-i3-special
Is this still one of the best options to consider today in 2017?
I went on a longer day trip beyond battery range yesterday and came home using the REx for the last 30km, and it thankfully kicked-in as it should have. Having to drain your battery to 6.5% before being able to engage the REx is a huge drawback, and I would especially love to keep the battery at a higher state of charge when taking longer drives. The REx was intended to be used to maintain state of charge on the highway between cities so you could revert to battery only driving when you reached your destination city - at least that's how it plays out in Europe, but alas not in North America. Thanks to a California regulation that does not apply to us, we Canadians also have the 'hold state of charge' feature disabled on our i3s. But there are work arounds...
Thanks to this forum I came across this simple and inexpensive USB patch for holding state of charge at 75% (or less):
http://dvdinmotion.com/bmw-i3-special
Is this still one of the best options to consider today in 2017?