Our New BEV i3

[JTM]

My wife and I picked up our new i3 a week ago now, with 11km on the clock. Have sentimentally named it 'EVElyn'. Came with the grey carpets as well (not the cream as expected) but does not show the % SOC as I thought we might have caught this update as well. We have done over 600km in the week and to date is meeting all our expectations handsomely. Took a 42km trip up Mt Glorious and home again (84km round trip ) with over half a charge still available. We were wondering what the hills would do to range but they seemed to have no effect at all - may be partly because we got stuck behind a struggling ICE (Mazda 2) on the steepest part of the ascent.
Quite enjoying getting to know the voice commands and internet connection stuff. Still haven't programmed the radio short cuts as so many stations and other options to choose from.

The charge time at home is fine, seems always fully charged and we only run 16 amp Clipper Creek ESVE. Have just put it on an off-peak rate and with 5 kWh of solar I think I will be able to meet both our residential and travelling needs from this energy source alone. Solar power and EVs are so synergistic - brilliant.

While the bluetooth works really well, we have iOS phones etc and the apple eco-system seems to disallow any download of music or video to the hard drive of the car so I'd be interested if anyone has a work around for this.

Love introducing the naive and disbelievers to this car as it does alter perceptions of EVs.
Anyway going well. 10/10 satisfaction for the first week.

JTM

 

[I33t]

Congratulations, JTM.

The new of ours hasn't worn off yet, very happy with it also.

Regarding the music, do you sync with itunes on your computer? I haven't tried on the i3 yet, but I just copied the itunes music folder to a USB stick and can access the music in our other car no problem. Have been meaning to plug the USB into the i3 to see what happens... Most of that music is ripped from CD in itunes.

 

[econut]

Congrats JTM, I'm loving mine.

As to the question regarding syncing your iTunes collection I ended up using 133t's route. Had my entire collection put into a USB stick, plugged it into the USB port in the i3 and the system copied the entire folder into the hard drive. You can still play all your music directly from the USB if you choose not to download.

Happy EVing!
Rob

 

[stumbledotcom]

The fact that you can't copy content from an iPod/iOS device is a hold over from the devil's agreement that Apple made with the recording industry in order to launch the iPod in 2001. It makes no sense today but there's no point in bemoaning it. It just is.

As the others have pointed out, it's quite easy to move music files via USB flash drive. One caveat: Be careful about copying the entire iTunes Music folder if you use iTunes for content beyond music and podcasts. That's because movies and TV shows get stashed counterintuitively in iTunes Music as well. Just a few videos will cause your collection to rapidly ballon. All that extra data takes longer to copy and then the i3 just ignores them. Speaking from the experience of managing 180GB of media here.

 

[Schnort]

Anybody know how much storage on the i3 is available for music?

Also, anybody compare the HD vs. just keeping it on a large USB stick? (in terms of navigating, etc)

 

[DarrenG]

20GB is reserved for the 'Entertainment Server'.

 

[JTM]

Thanks Stumble, eco-nut and 133t for the info re iTunes. Have successfully managed to transfer my whole music library (15gig) to the hard drive, including all album art work etc. Seems to be easier to access and navigate the selection than what I was doing via bluetooth to the phone. The voice commands seem more straight forward when calling up from the HD and the sound quality is just fine - might actually be a bit better although this is very subjective and I have only just played around with it a bit - not really used it much.

I am continuing to find little features. Did you know that when unlock the car holding down the unlock button longer brings down the windows until you release the button!!!

JTM

 

[DarrenG]

I am continuing to find little features. Did you know that when unlock the car holding down the unlock button longer brings down the windows until you release the button!!!

And the reverse will close them when you lock it I think?