Noob Buying Questions (some technical)

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themace

Member
Joined
May 17, 2017
Messages
5
Hi all, totally new here and new to the i3. I just started looking at possibly buying a used i3 for local errands/running around. I won't need it for long road trips and have another car to use when range would be an issue. So I'm looking for something reliable, green and fun to drive within a short range of home and the i3 seems a fairly good fit and seems to have decent reviews, but I wanted to check with the owners/experts here.

I'm a bit of a geek and would like to get into the metrics of the car and track the range etc. automatically if possible. I saw there's an unofficial API to the car (https://github.com/edent/BMW-i-Remote/) and that seems like a good fit.

I'm looking at a 2014 non-REX version in the $18K price range.

So a few questions:

1) What's the real-world range in regular 72F type weather for running around (city)?
2) What's the real-world range in the winter (say 20F) for running around (city)?
3) I have an RV outlet at home (NEMA 14-50) can I use that to charge it?
4) Can anyone confirm that that API (https://github.com/edent/BMW-i-Remote/) works with the 2014 i3 and there are no real issues in using it?
5) Is the price (BMW CPO) reasonable?
6) What else should I know before jumping into it?

Thanks in advance.
 
I can answer some of your questions based on my usage which is primarily running around my small city.

1) What's the real-world range in regular 72F type weather for running around (city)?
At those temperatures, you might see 90-miles...it all depends on your driving style. Faster speeds will use more battery capacity. The community average is 4-miles/Kw. I get less in the winter and more in the summer.
2) What's the real-world range in the winter (say 20F) for running around (city)?
It really depends on whether you can precondition it while attached to an EVSE before you go out. But, maybe the bigger issue is how many short trips you take where it can cool off and needs to reheat the cabin each time. One longer trip will be more efficient than numerous short ones with a gap in between. Note, the REx version heats the cabin entirely with resistance heaters, so one watt in heat takes one watt out of the battery. The BEV has a heat pump, and depending on the outside temperature, you might get over 3W of heat out of one watt input. That can be a significant difference. I've seen the computer report in the low 50-mile range, but also have seen it stay at that number for as much as 10-miles of driving. The estimate the car makes is based on the last 18-miles or so of your driving. Unless you're driving under exactly the same conditions, it will not be correct.
3) I have an RV outlet at home (NEMA 14-50) can I use that to charge it?
Yes, if you get an EVSE with a compatible plug.
6) What else should I know before jumping into it?
I love mine...it's fun to drive, easy to maneuver and park, and much more suited to my typical short trips when my ICE doesn't even get fully warmed up. The regional mall is only a mile away, grocery stores less, most other things maybe 3-miles or a bit more. Not having to worry about oil changes, ignition, muffler, etc. makes it quite good in comparison to any ICE.
 
jadnashuanh said:
I can answer some of your questions based on my usage which is primarily running around my small city.

1) What's the real-world range in regular 72F type weather for running around (city)?
At those temperatures, you might see 90-miles...it all depends on your driving style. Faster speeds will use more battery capacity. The community average is 4-miles/Kw. I get less in the winter and more in the summer.
2) What's the real-world range in the winter (say 20F) for running around (city)?
It really depends on whether you can precondition it while attached to an EVSE before you go out. But, maybe the bigger issue is how many short trips you take where it can cool off and needs to reheat the cabin each time. One longer trip will be more efficient than numerous short ones with a gap in between. Note, the REx version heats the cabin entirely with resistance heaters, so one watt in heat takes one watt out of the battery. The BEV has a heat pump, and depending on the outside temperature, you might get over 3W of heat out of one watt input. That can be a significant difference. I've seen the computer report in the low 50-mile range, but also have seen it stay at that number for as much as 10-miles of driving. The estimate the car makes is based on the last 18-miles or so of your driving. Unless you're driving under exactly the same conditions, it will not be correct.
3) I have an RV outlet at home (NEMA 14-50) can I use that to charge it?
Yes, if you get an EVSE with a compatible plug.
6) What else should I know before jumping into it?
I love mine...it's fun to drive, easy to maneuver and park, and much more suited to my typical short trips when my ICE doesn't even get fully warmed up. The regional mall is only a mile away, grocery stores less, most other things maybe 3-miles or a bit more. Not having to worry about oil changes, ignition, muffler, etc. makes it quite good in comparison to any ICE.

Great information, thanks! A couple follow-up questions if you don't mind:

1) It sounds like i'd need an EVSE system on top of the car? They don't come with a cable to plug into a NEMA 14-50? What cable(s)/adapters come with it?
2) What has maintenance been like other than tire type stuff? Do you need to do anything? Once a year visit or something?

Thanks!
 
1) It sounds like i'd need an EVSE system on top of the car? They don't come with a cable to plug into a NEMA 14-50? What cable(s)/adapters come with it?
The car comes with (in the USA anyway) a level 1 EVSE...i.e., one that plugs into a 15A, 120vac circuit. Some people find that sufficient for their driving, but from a nearly discharged battery, could take upwards of 20-hours to fully recharge the battery. If you're only driving 20-miles or so, it should easily recharge the car overnight. The on-board charging circuit in the i3 can handle up to 7400W, or, at 240vac, a 30-32A (a common limit) EVSE. Numerous EVSE's are available with the plug of your choice, or you can hard-wire it.
2) What has maintenance been like other than tire type stuff? Do you need to do anything? Once a year visit or something?
The only prescribed maintenance on the BEV is every 2-years: flush the brake lines and change the cabin air filter and pretty much everything else is visual checks. There are more things to do on the REx, with its engine. Note, the brake fluid change is based on the build date, which may not coincide with the model year or when it first went into service. For example, mine was built in April, 2014, but I bought it in June...the flush service was in April 2016, not in June.
 
jadnashuanh said:
1) It sounds like i'd need an EVSE system on top of the car? They don't come with a cable to plug into a NEMA 14-50? What cable(s)/adapters come with it?
The car comes with (in the USA anyway) a level 1 EVSE...i.e., one that plugs into a 15A, 120vac circuit. Some people find that sufficient for their driving, but from a nearly discharged battery, could take upwards of 20-hours to fully recharge the battery. If you're only driving 20-miles or so, it should easily recharge the car overnight. The on-board charging circuit in the i3 can handle up to 7400W, or, at 240vac, a 30-32A (a common limit) EVSE. Numerous EVSE's are available with the plug of your choice, or you can hard-wire it.
2) What has maintenance been like other than tire type stuff? Do you need to do anything? Once a year visit or something?
The only prescribed maintenance on the BEV is every 2-years: flush the brake lines and change the cabin air filter and pretty much everything else is visual checks. There are more things to do on the REx, with its engine. Note, the brake fluid change is based on the build date, which may not coincide with the model year or when it first went into service. For example, mine was built in April, 2014, but I bought it in June...the flush service was in April 2016, not in June.

Thanks again. So the plug that goes into the i3 is a J1772 standard plug and the car comes with a cable from a standard US outlet to a J1772, is that all correct? So if I want higher power I need an EVSE type thing that would deliver more power over J1772?
 
The car comes with a level 1 EVSE. When charging with acv, they all use the same plug and protocol. If you want a unit capable of higher current, you need, preferably a level 2 EVSE (level 2, in the USA, says 240vac rather than 120vac - that definition is slightly different in other countries). Because power = volts * amps...if you raise either the volts or amps, you can get more power into the car. The differences in EVSE's power output is based on how big of a load the components are designed to support. To make everything work right, you must supply the EVSE with the power it is designed to support. In the USA, for this type of thing, the EVSE can't be sized to use more than 80% of the incoming power. So, if you want a 32A device, you need at least a 40A circuit feeding it. FWIW, a dryer circuit using a 50A plug, for whatever reason, is allowed to be wired with either a 40 or 50A circuit...make sure you don't overload it based on the 80% rule. The EVSE sends out a signal that says how much power it has, and then, the car adjusts itself to not draw more that it either can use, or the device can supply. IOW, a larger EVSE won't hurt anything, but at least on today's i3, if it's larger than 32A, won't charge the car any faster...now, a new one might be able to handle more. As I said, the charging circuit is in the car, the EVSE is a fancy on/off switch with a little smarts.

Now, if the car has a DC input (it's standard in the USA on current models, it was optional the first 2-years or so), that can give you up to about 80% in 30-minutes (if you can find one, and it is capable of the max the i3 can provide). Depending on where you live, those are much harder to find.
 
themace said:
4) Can anyone confirm that that API (https://github.com/edent/BMW-i-Remote/) works with the 2014 i3 and there are no real issues in using it?
I have no experience with this API, but it is unofficial and thus subject to change at any time. BMW's software competency doesn't seem particularly strong, so is this API well-designed and stable? I suppose only time will tell. The smartphone apps that use this API have not been among the best designed and suffer frequent server outages/malfunctions/whatever.

That said, if you buy an i3, I encourage you to investigate this API with the idea of using it to develop tools to monitor the i3's inner workings more comprehensively than what BMW provides in its apps or with the i3's instrumentation. I suspect that one would need to reverse-engineer the data packets on various i3 data busses to get the information that many might want to have and that the API does not reveal.

themace said:
6) What else should I know before jumping into it?
Realize that the i3 is a BMW which, among other things, means that parts and repairs are considerably more expensive and reliability seems to be worse compared with more reliable brands like Honda and Toyota. We have had two warranty repairs, one of which would have been quite expensive had the problems occurred after our warranty expired. Fortunately, we don't have a REx which seems to be considerably less reliable than a BEV (makes sense because a REx is more complex than a BEV).

We own our 2014 BEV and hope to keep it for at least 15 years as we tend to do with our cars. However, I fear that our i3 will be far more expensive to maintain than our 2000 Honda Insight hybrid which might cause us to sell it sooner than we'd like. But that, too, would be expensive due to the high depreciation rate of the i3.

So owning an i3 is a financial gamble. It is the most suitable EV for us, however, so it's a gamble that we chose to take.
 
alohart said:
themace said:
4) Can anyone confirm that that API (https://github.com/edent/BMW-i-Remote/) works with the 2014 i3 and there are no real issues in using it?
I have no experience with this API, but it is unofficial and thus subject to change at any time. BMW's software competency doesn't seem particularly strong, so is this API well-designed and stable? I suppose only time will tell. The smartphone apps that use this API have not been among the best designed and suffer frequent server outages/malfunctions/whatever.

That said, if you buy an i3, I encourage you to investigate this API with the idea of using it to develop tools to monitor the i3's inner workings more comprehensively than what BMW provides in its apps or with the i3's instrumentation. I suspect that one would need to reverse-engineer the data packets on various i3 data busses to get the information that many might want to have and that the API does not reveal.

themace said:
6) What else should I know before jumping into it?
Realize that the i3 is a BMW which, among other things, means that parts and repairs are considerably more expensive and reliability seems to be worse compared with more reliable brands like Honda and Toyota. We have had two warranty repairs, one of which would have been quite expensive had the problems occurred after our warranty expired. Fortunately, we don't have a REx which seems to be considerably less reliable than a BEV (makes sense because a REx is more complex than a BEV).

We own our 2014 BEV and hope to keep it for at least 15 years as we tend to do with our cars. However, I fear that our i3 will be far more expensive to maintain than our 2000 Honda Insight hybrid which might cause us to sell it sooner than we'd like. But that, too, would be expensive due to the high depreciation rate of the i3.

So owning an i3 is a financial gamble. It is the most suitable EV for us, however, so it's a gamble that we chose to take.

Thanks, great advice. I am worried a bit on the maintenance but with the 50K warranty and the limited range I figure it would take me a while to run out of that warranty. Also, at the used price of $16K, it seems like its not too big a bet.
 
themace said:
I am worried a bit on the maintenance but with the 50K warranty and the limited range I figure it would take me a while to run out of that warranty. Also, at the used price of $16K, it seems like its not too big a bet.
The original warranty is 4 years or 50k miles, whichever occurs first. So on a low-mileage 2014 i3, the warranty would expire in 2018, not too far in the future. However, CPO would extend the warranty to 2020 or 50k miles, whichever comes first. So you'd have ~3 years of warranty protection.
 
themace said:
6) What else should I know before jumping into it?

Do a bit of a research to determine if there is a sufficient charging network in your area.

If the range works for you, this car is a blessing to drive around town. Just remember it's a city commuter, not for long ranges. I have an ICE for longer range drives.

I use the i3 to commute daily between home and work, and run errands around town over the weekends.

My first maintenance is scheduled for this Sept, I haven't bring it back to BMW for any issues or problems, except for the one software recall last year. There is one pending, I have yet to find time to get that done. I will perhaps wait till Sept.
 
ASUN said:
themace said:
6) What else should I know before jumping into it?

Do a bit of a research to determine if there is a sufficient charging network in your area.

If the range works for you, this car is a blessing to drive around town. Just remember it's a city commuter, not for long ranges. I have an ICE for longer range drives.

I use the i3 to commute daily between home and work, and run errands around town over the weekends.

My first maintenance is scheduled for this Sept, I haven't bring it back to BMW for any issues or problems, except for the one software recall last year. There is one pending, I have yet to find time to get that done. I will perhaps wait till Sept.

Sounds great. I have charging at home and another car I can use for longer trips if needed.
 
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