I have a 2014 BEV i3 and live in San Jose California. I've had my i3 for a year and it's been great. The dealer replaced my charging unit for free a few months ago due to the known issue and recall. Other than that no problems. I've always believed my max range with Comfort and ECO PRO modes was around 80 miles. Tracking my range and mileage between charges has always been consistent with that. Yesterday I took my first long drive using ECO PRO+ and the results still are a bit of a head scratcher - so interested to know if others have had the experience I had. Until yesterday I had not driven my i3 to San Francisco. From where I live it's about 50 miles each way and so I thought charging would be required either in SF or along the way there or back to make it home. What I found yesterday seems to show I could easily make it without charging. I did recharge in the city, but the range and mileage numbers seem to show I could have made it without it.
I fully charged overnight before leaving in the morning. I had found several charging stations near my destination, but in case they were not working or occupied when I arrived I knew of two fast charging stations I could use as fall-backs on the way home that were within the 80 mile range I expected. I was heading to a work related meeting in the city, so I left early on a week-day morning, but I expected traffic. I put the car in ECO PRO+ from the start. There was moderate to heavy traffic the entire way. Here in California, I have carpool lane stickers and so driving in the car pool lane helped and was one of the reasons I took my i3 rather than my gas car. Still with the moderate traffic, the 56mph limit in ECO PRO+ mode was not much of a problem. You can override it, but then you might as well be in ECO PRO instead. I have not used it before on the freeway because of this, but the with traffic, most of the time, I was going 40-50 mph so not a problem. When I started, and put the car in ECO PRO+, it showed 77 miles of range. When I arrived at my destination - amazingly - I had traveled 47 miles, but had 51 miles of range left. This means only 26 miles of range had been used to go 47 miles! It took 1 hour 10 minutes, so my average speed was 40 mph due to the traffic. I found the Blink L2 charging station I had planned to use, it was free and worked perfectly. The car was fully charged in 3 hours. The return home in the evening was repeat of the trip up. The fully re-charged range in ECO PRO+ showed 82 miles of range, when I arrived home, the mileage was the same at 47, travel time was the same with 1 hour 10 minutes and the remaining range was 55. So on the return trip I had used 27 miles of range.
Here is the surprising part. It is easy to see from these numbers, that I could have easily avoided recharging. I had 51 miles of range left when I arrived in the morning. If I had left in the evening without recharging, I would have used 27 miles of range on the return trip and I would have arrived with still 24 miles of range after having driven 94 miles. This shows that it would be easily possible to drive well over 100 miles on a charge in ECO PRO+. Also the ratio of miles driven to range used is very interesting. It's 47/26 = 1.81 and 47/27 = 1.74. This means I was driving 1.74 - 1.81 miles for each mile of range used. This implies that starting out with 77 miles of range in the morning, I could have driven 133 miles until I got to zero range. If I wanted 10 miles of range left, I could have gone 116. This means I could drive up to the city and even drive a little there and be able to drive home without recharging. Charging in SF is still a little chancy in my opinion - so being able to go without it completely changes how I think of driving there and back. The only reason I had sometimes wished I had a Rex was for the San Jose to SF drive. Now it seems I don't need it.
I think the explanation for all of this is the speed - and average of 40 mph. And the use of ECO PRO+. I am also assuming that the range indication is linear - that means that range miles near the top of the range scale mean the same amount of remaining energy as ones as the range gets lower. But I think that's a fair assumption. The weather conditions were also perfect in the mid-70's. So no need to run the climate control and warm enough that range was impacted by the cold.
Has anyone else seen this kind of performance and range in ECO PRO+. Am I missing something here?
I fully charged overnight before leaving in the morning. I had found several charging stations near my destination, but in case they were not working or occupied when I arrived I knew of two fast charging stations I could use as fall-backs on the way home that were within the 80 mile range I expected. I was heading to a work related meeting in the city, so I left early on a week-day morning, but I expected traffic. I put the car in ECO PRO+ from the start. There was moderate to heavy traffic the entire way. Here in California, I have carpool lane stickers and so driving in the car pool lane helped and was one of the reasons I took my i3 rather than my gas car. Still with the moderate traffic, the 56mph limit in ECO PRO+ mode was not much of a problem. You can override it, but then you might as well be in ECO PRO instead. I have not used it before on the freeway because of this, but the with traffic, most of the time, I was going 40-50 mph so not a problem. When I started, and put the car in ECO PRO+, it showed 77 miles of range. When I arrived at my destination - amazingly - I had traveled 47 miles, but had 51 miles of range left. This means only 26 miles of range had been used to go 47 miles! It took 1 hour 10 minutes, so my average speed was 40 mph due to the traffic. I found the Blink L2 charging station I had planned to use, it was free and worked perfectly. The car was fully charged in 3 hours. The return home in the evening was repeat of the trip up. The fully re-charged range in ECO PRO+ showed 82 miles of range, when I arrived home, the mileage was the same at 47, travel time was the same with 1 hour 10 minutes and the remaining range was 55. So on the return trip I had used 27 miles of range.
Here is the surprising part. It is easy to see from these numbers, that I could have easily avoided recharging. I had 51 miles of range left when I arrived in the morning. If I had left in the evening without recharging, I would have used 27 miles of range on the return trip and I would have arrived with still 24 miles of range after having driven 94 miles. This shows that it would be easily possible to drive well over 100 miles on a charge in ECO PRO+. Also the ratio of miles driven to range used is very interesting. It's 47/26 = 1.81 and 47/27 = 1.74. This means I was driving 1.74 - 1.81 miles for each mile of range used. This implies that starting out with 77 miles of range in the morning, I could have driven 133 miles until I got to zero range. If I wanted 10 miles of range left, I could have gone 116. This means I could drive up to the city and even drive a little there and be able to drive home without recharging. Charging in SF is still a little chancy in my opinion - so being able to go without it completely changes how I think of driving there and back. The only reason I had sometimes wished I had a Rex was for the San Jose to SF drive. Now it seems I don't need it.
I think the explanation for all of this is the speed - and average of 40 mph. And the use of ECO PRO+. I am also assuming that the range indication is linear - that means that range miles near the top of the range scale mean the same amount of remaining energy as ones as the range gets lower. But I think that's a fair assumption. The weather conditions were also perfect in the mid-70's. So no need to run the climate control and warm enough that range was impacted by the cold.
Has anyone else seen this kind of performance and range in ECO PRO+. Am I missing something here?
