Driving a 2017 bev 400 miles

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Cheapergear

Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2019
Messages
6
I'm interested in this car. 2017 BMW i3 60 Ah RWD - $21,277 on cargurus, but its 400 miles aways. How feasible would it be drive this home in the midwest? Will there be enough charging stations? I've been told that all 2017s in the US have the 94ah battery.
 
Without knowing where it is, or where you live, I'd say there's no way to know if there are enough charging stations.

Most of the country does have at least L2 stations (4 hours to recharge) close enough together to drive nearly anywhere, with DC Quick Charging stations a bit less common, but fairly good across major travel highways. I-70 and I-80 both have a good amount of DC Quick Charging.

I'd recommend using plugshare.com to search for your expected route home. (You want to turn on the filter and look first for the CCS plug (DC Quick Charge) then J-1772 (Level 2.)

I also thought that all 2017s were 94Ah. I'd get the VIN and verify on one of the many VIN lookup sites.
 
If I were to drive a BEV this distance, I would bring my little Honda 2000 inverter along just incase I couldn't find any plugs. I could power my BMW portable charger but it would mean long stops but at least you could keep moving towards your 400 mile goal.

Note: the little charger that comes with the car is quite slow and could take most of a day to get a full charge depending on which battery is on the car. I have a 60 ah in mine and it takes about 15 hours. I would think that the 94 ah would take a full day to charge.

Sounds like an adventure waiting to happen.

Perhaps a flat deck truck could bring it the 400 miles?
 
One option is a car-hauler. When I sold my '72 MGB on 'Bring-a-Trailer', the buyer just had a car-hauler transport it from Dallas to Tampa in a day, and for not a huge cost. There are lots of them around. I believe the buyer used this one, and had no issues:

UFirst Auto Transport
www.ship-your-car.com
 
I was going to suggest something like U-ship or another hotshot company to transport it. After reading the jackpoint damage thread here, I decided to bite my tongue fearing how one of them would try to strap an i3 down and crack the life module.....
 
fearing how one of them would try to strap an i3 down and crack the life module.....

Having seen several car haulers loaded and unloaded at auction sites, they use webbing 'basket-strap' tie-downs that go over the tires and fasten to the car-hauler deck.
 

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Tried using the plugshare website to map a route but it doesn't look very feasible. There arent that many dc chargers on I65.
The website isn't very good for route planning in my opinion.
 
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