why no Rex hold charge mode in the US since no white sticker

So if the Rex didn't get qualification for the white sticker in California, why doesn't BMW just use the same settings as the rest of europe whereby you can turn on the rex motor to hold a charge anytime below 75% soc. The Volt has a mountain mode and qualifies for the green sticker in california just like the rex.

The reason I put this out there is because I live in Colorado and will likely do day trips into the mountains. If I cannot hold a charge using the rex, I don't think the car can reach Vail for a day trip from Denver (there are level 2 chargers in the public parking lot in vail). If they don't do this, it seriously harms the rex usefulness. I do agree that the rest of my driving around Denver/Boulder will not require the rex that often (but sometimes). I think the i3 will be popular in Colorado given that we have an extra $6000 state tax credit on top of the $7500 federal tax credit. However, without the ability to kick in the Rex before its depleted, many will not buy given our terrain.

here is the profile from Denver to Vail: 105 miles of highway driving
17 miles driving west on relatively flat terrain and then climbing up to the continental divide in 45 miles (elevation gain about 5500 feet). It is mostly an uphill climb but there is one downhill section (floyd hill) which is a drop of 600 feet over 2 miles. From the eisenhower tunnel/continental divide the freeway drops 2,250 feet in 10 miles (at the bottom of this drop is where Tesla has installed an 8 stall supercharger at Silverthorne). From here it is a 15 mile climb to the top of Vail pass with an elevation gain of 1900 feet. From the top of vail pass to the city of vail is all downhill for 15 miles and a loss of elevation of 2450 feet.

So in summary - 17 miles of flat, 27 miles of steep downhill, and 60 miles of steep uphill.

With a little bit of re-charge and coming home - there should be enough downhill sections to regenerate the battery.

There is a review of the i3 REx in Spanish at http://forococheselectricos.com/2014/01/prueba-del-bmw-i3-con-extensor-de-autonomia.html in which they drive using the REx after discharging the battery. In their first video on the page it is able to maintain 120 km/h = 75 mph on level highway but it drops to 91 km/h = 57 mph (starting at about 2:20 in the video) on what appears to be a fairly minor hill. The text below the video mentions the speed dropping to 70 km/h = 44 mph, presumably on a steeper or longer hill than the one in the video.

"So if the Rex didn't get qualification for the white sticker in California, why doesn't BMW just use the same settings as the rest of europe whereby you can turn on the rex motor to hold a charge anytime below 75% soc..."

The answer is very simple, it is because this IS NOT about the white sticker, even though so many people have speculated that this is the reason.

BMW's goal for the REx was to be designated a "BEVx" vehicle - they absolutely never intended it to get a white sticker, believe me, I know a little about this. Of course if CARB wanted to give them a white sticker, they would take it but it was not designed to get a white sticker - it stores and burns gasoline. There are no cars that burn gasoline under any conditions that have qualified for a white sticker.

The BEVx designation is important for BMW because the i3 REx then gets BMW the maximum amount of "gold credits" they need for CARB compliance. Each i3 REx they sell gets them the same amount of credits as a BEV i3 does, which is more than say, a Volt gets.

Also, there are benefits for some customers to have the car a BEVx designation. For instance in NJ where I live, the i3 REx is sales tax exempt, but you do have to pay sales tax on a Volt and the same goes for Washington state, and others are likely to follow. That saves me about $4,000 on my i3 REx purchase. I would gladly trade the ability to turn on the REx for $4,000. as it works now, it is perfect for what I need it for (I don't live in a mountainous region though)

It's not a do-all, fits everybody car and I'm sorry if it ends up not meeting your needs. Many people will likely find it's not as functional for them as say a Volt would be. For me it's better than a Volt as I will drive 99% of the time on electric, but those few times I need to go further the REx is perfectly capable of taking me wherever I need to go.

By the way, for what it's worth, I do certainly expect there will be a software hack that people can use to free up the REx and allow you to turn it on manually, and I bet it won't take long after launch for some clever person to figure it out.

Thanks Tom - appreciate the depth of insights on this issue. I think I'll be using electric 90% of the time too but if I go into the mountains, I think I'll need the hold charge function. Hope there is a software hack and/or rapid DC chargers get put into convenient places in the mountains...

TomMoloughney said:

By the way, for what it's worth, I do certainly expect there will be a software hack that people can use to free up the REx and allow you to turn it on manually, and I bet it won't take long after launch for some clever person to figure it out.

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Hope so. Settings for this sort of thing can sometimes be modified by a $5 app controlling a $25 OBD 2 adapter. Trick is finding and modifying the correct setting - pick the wrong one and you can brick the car. There are probably dozens of nerds chomping at the bit to download and decipher raw data from the i3 and be the first to publish the fix. I'm one, but will not have the opportunity for another couple months.

They've hacked the tesla and looked into it's inner workings. Don't think they've done anything but look yet though. Mind you the i3 will sell in much lesser quantities so maybe it won't get hacked unless a techie buys one

I applied nearly three weeks ago and just received California Green Carpool sticker set serial 39860 for my 2014 Chevy Volt.

So there are 140 sticker sets remaining.

The California legislature might authorize additional stickers.

ultraturtle said:

Settings for this sort of thing can sometimes be modified by a $5 app controlling a $25 OBD 2 adapter. Trick is finding and modifying the correct setting - pick the wrong one and you can brick the car. There are probably dozens of nerds chomping at the bit to download and decipher raw data from the i3 and be the first to publish the fix. I'm one, but will not have the opportunity for another couple months.

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I know you mean well, but this is the second time I have to take an exception to both the content and the tone of a post from you. I have been intimately involved with a similar effort in another EV community, and I don't agree with your portrayal of "facts and realities". It's mostly just your projection, and by the sound of it, I don't believe that you have actually accomplished anything similar yourself. By the way, this also applies to the other discussion about jack-rabbit starts not having an impact on range. I really disliked your answer on that thread, and have subsequently disengaged from the discussion. While I wish you the best of luck with the CAN bus decoding effort, should you really get into it, I would appreciate if you toned down the attitude a bit.

Must be me, but I cannot see anything wrong with ultra turtle’s post that you quoted?

MikeS said:

Must be me, but I cannot see anything wrong with ultra turtle’s post that you quoted?

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I take exception with the following statements, as they are not entirely accurate, and include a fair amount of projection.

pick the wrong one and you can brick the car

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$5 app controlling a $25 OBD 2 adapter

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There are probably dozens of nerds chomping at the bit

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Perhaps it's just me, but I don't like the mental picture of anyone "chomping at the bit".

Ok, but the prices guesses seem about right from my quick search on eBay and from my relatively broad knowledge of computers it is possible to change something you wouldn’t want to which may well do something bad to the vehicle. He did also qualify the initial statement by saying 'Settings for this sort of thing can sometimes…………..”.

MikeS said:

Ok, but the prices guesses seem about right from my quick search on eBay and from my relatively broad knowledge of computers it is possible to change something you wouldn’t want to which may well do something bad to the vehicle. He did also qualify the initial statement by saying 'Settings for this sort of thing can sometimes…………..”.

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Depending on how the CAN messages are routed, you might need a more expensive connector, as the vehicle likely contains more than one CAN bus, and you might have to communicate on all of them simultaneously. Given the market size, I doubt that anyone will want to sell an app for $5 to address this need. But what do I know, according to Google, one can find a $0.99 app for just about anything, Why not this, right? As to the claim of "bricking", while that's always a possibility, I have yet to see someone who did that to their car, and I've been fairly involved with this effort in the other EV community.

I don't mean to come across as someone who knows better, and wants to curb someone else's enthusiasm. All I meant to say is that the realities and facts portrayed in the post above are not entirely accurate. They are the result of projection. Knowing how hard it was to get some results, and what skills were involved, I had a particular problem with the "nerds chomping at the bit" statement. I find that downright off-putting. Much like his response on the other thread. Also, the participation was much more limited, and there were no more than six core contributors. Not dozens, although many liked to kibitz. Anyway, please don't mind me. I just felt the need to say something, because it's a topic I know something about.

This project will need all the help it can get, and the sooner it can get underway, the better.

I agree that without the ability to manually turn on/off the REx, it's of very limited usefulness -- to the point of rendering it almost useless.

I'm not so optimistic that a hack will be able to accomplish what we want. Doesn't the OBD2 just read the status of various sensors? I don't think you can SEND data to the car through a consumer level OBd 2 reader, can you?
Even so, you're probably looking at getting into the idrive "service menu", which may not be possible while the car is in motion, or without a special tool....

Surge said:

I don't think you can SEND data to the car through a consumer level OBd 2 reader, can you?

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You can, quite easily, with an inexpensive adaptor.

Surge said:

Even so, you're probably looking at getting into the idrive "service menu", which may not be possible while the car is in motion, or without a special tool....

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If, in fact, the setting to allow manual activation of the REx is accessible, it is likely a "set and forget" single setting change, like disabling seat belt warnings or backup beeping, for instance. If so, plug in the OBD2 adaptor, send the command to change the setting, disconnect the adaptor, and you are finished. No need to access anything while the car is in motion. That is just a guess of one way it might work.

I live on Maui and having the Rex kick in at 6.5% is problematic on many levels. First of all, I don't like to let my battery deplete to less than 10% (Probably actual 20%). My first attempt at climbing Haleakala had the rex kick in and the battery quickly deplete to 0% resulting in a maximum speed of 18MPH - quite a dangerous situation to have so little power in a road vehicle.

I was able to purchase a hack from DVDinMotion and what it does is "un-hide" the hold mode which is available on European spec I3s. This is a life saver - If I need to climb Haleakala at the end of long day, I hit the HOLD Charge mode at about 18% and I can zoom up the mountain no problem. I likely will rarely need this, but on the days when I do need this, I consider this a public safety issue. The I3 with this feature is the only car I will ever need.