Will my Chargemaster unit activate pre-heating?

Hi folks,

After a few months of lurking and picking up good information here, I've finally joined the forums.

I ordered my BEV i3 in December (UK customer) and it is due to be built in June with estimated delivery in July.

I didn't choose any of the battery/cabin preheating options but am now considering adding them.

The only problem is, I'm not entirely sure what they do, whether I can even add them and whether they will be of any use to me.

As I understand it the two options are the 'winter package (HV battery preparation & seat heating)' at £260.00 and the 'auxiliary cabin heating system' at £530.00. The HV battery preparation seems to me the more critical of the two, in that it will *definitely* preserve the car's range (because the battery *must* be at the optimum temperature to function correctly) whereas the auxiliary cabin heating system will *probably* help to preserve range but not necessarily (in that a warmly dressed driver might not be blasting the heat too much on every trip). Have I understood correctly or is there more to it than that?

My build has the standard interior. Is the auxiliary cabin heating system available with that or only with one of the pricier interiors? (I think I might be confusing this problem with one of the other options.)

I have already had my home charging point installed and it's a 32A Chargemaster unit. The iGenius at my BMW dealership says she thinks some of the preheating options will work with the BMW Wallbox only (something to do with software/the app EDIT: she also said my options would be restricted because I plumped for the standard Business satnav/whatnot instead of the Professional version, even though the latter is showing up as costing *nothing* in the build configurator now, but that's a whole different bone of contention). Is this correct and if so, do the restrictions affect the 'winter package (HV battery preparation & seat heating)' at £260.00 or the 'auxiliary cabin heating system' at £530.00 or both? I would obviously prefer to pre-heat from the mains rather than drain the battery. The iGenius knows I've already had my Chargemaster unit fitted so it's not as though she's trying to sell me a BMW Wallbox but equally, I wouldn't expect BMW to have trained their iGeniuses as fully with regard to non-BMW units. Is she right about the restrictions?

In short, is there any point in me adding either or both of these options to my build?

I've searched for answers here but it is difficult to be sure that I have understood everything correctly so I'd be grateful if any of you more knowledgeable people could shed some light on things.

Hi there,

I just wanted to touch on the Professional Navigation. This option was supplied as standard for cars ordered till launch date (16th Nov). I missed out because a dealer had failed to let me place an order.
After further investigation I learnt that 9th January '14 was the cut off date to receive the Prof Nav as standard. I'm sure your i3 has the Prof Nav included for free.

Espresso said:

Hi folks,

After a few months of lurking and picking up good information here, I've finally joined the forums.

<snip>
I've searched for answers here but it is difficult to be sure that I have understood everything correctly so I'd be grateful if any of you more knowledgeable people could shed some light on things.

Click to expand...

I have both the winter pack and the aux cabin heating pack on my BEV i3. So far at home I have only been charging using the standard 13 UK mains EVSE that came with the car. If I pre-warm for a departure time it is never quite fully charged.

The aux cabin heating system uses a heat pump to heat the cabin air and that is more efficient than other heating systems. Exactly how much this will affect range is a bit unknown I think.

I would definitely get the winter pack - heated seats use far less power than warming the air in the car so are a must if you want to preserve range. You can see this effect as you drive by switching on and off the heated seats vs switching the cabin temp up and down (or on/off) and seeing what happens to the predicted range. As far as my experience goes the benefit of other option is less well defined and less able to be defined.

Bill

Hi Espresso,

I have a 32amp British Gas unit which I understand is exactly the same as the charge master unit and I can confirm pre-heating works without any issues. There has been quite a bit of discussion on the forum about the exact sequence that happens with pre heating but when mind came on the electricity usage surged up so it is definitely drawing from mains.

I have a Rex so no heat pump but the car was warm when I got in so no question heater is working. I also have the winter pack which includes battery heating but quite how you would check that is beyond me. Temperature in the UK is now warm enough I don't really use it but I am looking forward to getting into my warm de-iced car in the winter.

Regards

Jon

I can't reply at length now but thank you all for taking the time to answer my questions.

I rang BMW UK's customer service line today and they explained a bit more about the winter options. They were unable to tell me anything about the cut-off date for the free Pro-nav.

This was all rendered moot shortly afterwards when the iGenius from the dealership phoned me to say I couldn't change my build now but I would, in fact, get the free Pro-nav.

I'm not convinced that it's impossible to change a build which hasn't begun but I wasn't dead set on adding things anyway.

So that's the decision made for me!