chuckhawley
Member
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2016
- Messages
- 12
My wife and I needed to drive to LA to see our daughter graduate so I elected to take our i3 REX instead of the far more logical Honda CR-V. The direct distance is about 350 miles each way, plus dinking around in LA ran the total up to 850 miles. My 2014 i3 has about 53,000 miles on it, and I have had the following coding done:
[*]Expanded gas tank
[*]REX on demand (less than 75% SOC)
[*]Starts in Eco Pro mode
I left Santa Cruz with a full gas tank, full charge, and 4 gallons of gas in two 2-gallon jugs in the trunk. They don't leak, but I sure didn't want to get rear-ended. Rather than go into extensive detail about my trip, I'll highlight a few salient points.
[*]I never charged the battery other than with the REX and regenerative braking. I tried to charge in LA, but could not find an outlet that would pass muster with the 110V charger.
[*]I cruised at 65-72MPH with the REX engine mostly keeping up. I think the max sustained speed is about 70MPH, but a slight headwind (and certainly any inclines) will rapidly drop the SOC.
[*]Going up the Grapevine (either direction) dropped my SOC by about 25% by the time I reached the summit, with the REX at full RPM. By the time I reached the other side of the grade, I had recharged to my starting point.
[*]The gasoline "gas gauge" is very non-linear. Not only does it get tricked by gas in the filler neck, but it overestimates the range by 100% during the last 20 miles. This makes it difficult to pick a place to pull over to refuel, which has to be done with close to zero miles to go so that you maximize the range on each fill-up.
[*]At freeway speeds, I think I got about 65-70 miles per gas tank (two gallons or so). This seems pretty pathetic, especially with the enlarged gas tank, but I don't think the REX is very efficient when charging 100% of the time at full output. I wish that I could monitor the REX engine speed so that I could try to aim for a speed where the engine is turning more slowly, but that's really anal retentive.
My overall impression is that while this was a fun exercise, it just isn't worth it. What's the point if you're going to be burning gas AND not getting very good gas mileage? On the other hand, I still had the fun of good torque and sporty handling.
Finally, if I had one thing that I would do to the i3 to make it better, it would be a setting where I could have the REX turn on at 25% SOC and then have it maintain that level of charge until the car ran out of gas. What concerns me more than anything is to accidentally run the SOC down so that I can't get over a reasonable grade. 6% is dangerous, as others have pointed out.
Cheers,
Chuck Hawley
[*]Expanded gas tank
[*]REX on demand (less than 75% SOC)
[*]Starts in Eco Pro mode
I left Santa Cruz with a full gas tank, full charge, and 4 gallons of gas in two 2-gallon jugs in the trunk. They don't leak, but I sure didn't want to get rear-ended. Rather than go into extensive detail about my trip, I'll highlight a few salient points.
[*]I never charged the battery other than with the REX and regenerative braking. I tried to charge in LA, but could not find an outlet that would pass muster with the 110V charger.
[*]I cruised at 65-72MPH with the REX engine mostly keeping up. I think the max sustained speed is about 70MPH, but a slight headwind (and certainly any inclines) will rapidly drop the SOC.
[*]Going up the Grapevine (either direction) dropped my SOC by about 25% by the time I reached the summit, with the REX at full RPM. By the time I reached the other side of the grade, I had recharged to my starting point.
[*]The gasoline "gas gauge" is very non-linear. Not only does it get tricked by gas in the filler neck, but it overestimates the range by 100% during the last 20 miles. This makes it difficult to pick a place to pull over to refuel, which has to be done with close to zero miles to go so that you maximize the range on each fill-up.
[*]At freeway speeds, I think I got about 65-70 miles per gas tank (two gallons or so). This seems pretty pathetic, especially with the enlarged gas tank, but I don't think the REX is very efficient when charging 100% of the time at full output. I wish that I could monitor the REX engine speed so that I could try to aim for a speed where the engine is turning more slowly, but that's really anal retentive.
My overall impression is that while this was a fun exercise, it just isn't worth it. What's the point if you're going to be burning gas AND not getting very good gas mileage? On the other hand, I still had the fun of good torque and sporty handling.
Finally, if I had one thing that I would do to the i3 to make it better, it would be a setting where I could have the REX turn on at 25% SOC and then have it maintain that level of charge until the car ran out of gas. What concerns me more than anything is to accidentally run the SOC down so that I can't get over a reasonable grade. 6% is dangerous, as others have pointed out.
Cheers,
Chuck Hawley