Trigger pulled too!

It's on it's way albeit with a wait.

White Rex with Sport pack, pro media and parking

Early September for delivery. Plenty of time to get the charge point and a few other things sorted :mrgreen:

Congrats!

I assume it's a 17 that'll deliver in September? The anticipation is half the fun, but waiting for September will feel like forever. I have been spending some time to research chargers as well.

Yep, new model. they said late August but it'll be registered September. Personalised Reg anyway so it won't show.

PM me if you want, we'll compare notes on chargers before deciding. The sales guy gave me a leaflet for a company he'd had in a short while ago. £299 non-tethered. £349 tethered for Rolec chargers.

Oh, btw did your sales guy mention that BMW had been throwing in a free Type 2 in Q1 and Q2 sales and he was getting parts to ring to see if they were going to continue that practice in Q3?

Nice! No, they didn't mention that. I have seen it mentioned elsewhere. Not sure if it's global or not though? I'm in Canada. I asked about the Chargers they had out of curiosity, and they mentioned (in Canadian dollars) a $1000 16A charger and a $1300 25 or 30A charger. Relatively terrible prices here, and not a fan of the big and bulky sizes of them. Also, I'm sure this won't be my last EV, and I'll likely have other brands in the future too.

I have a list to choose from where I am so as to be able to get a rebate for the charger and installation. I wonder if brands of these chargers are different from region to region?

I do want to future proof, so wanted to get something with high amperage. I read that the i3 can charge/draw at 7.4kW, so a charger with at least 32A (on 240V circuit) would be sufficient to charge at the max rate. I've been looking at Sun Country Highway (Canadian reseller for Clipper Creek) as well as ChargePoint (as it seems to be the only internet connected EVSE on the list, and has a nice design too). I think I'm kind of settled on the ChargePoint CPH25 (240V 32A, 7.7kW output). Similar price here to the non-connected ones as well.

Have you been looking yourself yet?

Not properly researched yet but will be soon. I discounted the BMW one straightaway. It's massive and too much of a target in my opinion. Seems more like a free advertising hoarding for BMW rather than a subtle charging point. Plus they were running short of them apparently.

It's definitely going to be a 32amp 7.x kW charger. I'm just not certain I've got my head around what's required for what yet.

Some charge points are sold with communications modules included. This suggests you control the charger remotely. I though the BMW app was used to tell the car when to charge so why would the charger unit just not be "on" all the time :?: Confused on this bit still if I'm honest. If anyone can advise then please do.

Gif said:

Not properly researched yet but will be soon. I discounted the BMW one straightaway. It's massive and too much of a target in my opinion. Seems more like a free advertising hoarding for BMW rather than a subtle charging point. Plus they were running short of them apparently.

It's definitely going to be a 32amp 7.x kW charger. I'm just not certain I've got my head around what's required for what yet.

Some charge points are sold with communications modules included. This suggests you control the charger remotely. I though the BMW app was used to tell the car when to charge so why would the charger unit just not be "on" all the time :?: Confused on this bit still if I'm honest. If anyone can advise then please do.

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That's true. With the BMW i remote app, you can connect to the car at any time and see charge details, as well as schedule charging times via the car as well. So having access via an app to the EVSE itself to schedule and stuff is redundant. But for myself, the difference in price is $25 CDN more compared to the same spec non-connected EVSE ($500 post rebate vs $475 post rebate). Both 32A chargers, plus the connected once is much nicer looking, slim in design and has a built in spot for the charger handle to connect when not in use. I also don't mind being able to see pure stats from the EVSE as well about power draw.

Here's the ChargePoint site: http://www.chargepoint.com/drivers/home/

Though no clue if this is a North American targeted EVSE.

The good thing about these 'connected' charge points is that you can get actual power values from them, rather than estimated times and % battery full.

People find that, especially if you use off-peak costing on your electricity, doing that by enabling/disabling the EVSE is more reliable than using the car's logic. And, if there's a difference between weekdays verses weekends, it's a bit more flexible, too. If you don't have or need that feature, the wifi connectivity may be mostly a waste. If you're using off-peak, but then need to charge immediately during the day (say you got home from work, and want to go out that evening), that means reprogramming the EVSE. Might be easy, but it's one more step. In my case, don't have off-peak, so I just plug it in when I get home and it's ready when it's ready. Or, if I want to precondition, and the car asks for it, it can use power from the EVSE, which, might not be turned on!

Note that in the power equation, the power=volts*amps. Clipper Creek's newer versions specify 32A, but their older ones were listed as 30A (which I have). But, because my nominal input voltage averages 248vac, I can still max out my i3's needs with the 30A. Some prefer to get an even larger EVSE since they should last a very long time, to handle the bigger loads of potentially newer vehicles with larger capacity batteries. In my case, I just didn't have enough spare power in my panel, and upgrading would have cost a fortune (a condo which would have required access to about 5 other units to run the new, larger wire from the meter at the end of the building). Based in preliminary info on the 2017 i3, it does not look like they enlarged the charging circuits with the larger batteries, so it has the same input max, and just takes longer to reach a full charge. Eventually, as the batteries get higher capacity, they'll bite the bullet and redesign that circuit to allow a higher charging rate. Similar to the CCS input (DC fast charging)...currently, most are limited to 50Kw, but some new vehicles are planned to be able to handle up to 150Kw inputs. That higher standard is still in the works for release.

That's really useful information so thanks all. I had concluded that a "connected" charge point was pretty superfluous for me. I haven't got a night tariff and based on the composition of my bill and available tariffs from my supplier, it likely won't save me much at all anyway although I'm yet to do the breakeven analysis (being an accountant sucks!)

I couldn't see the point in controlling the on/off of the charge point if the car does that anyway. Plus, I've got a connected smart meter installed (UK) so can get total load data direct from that albeit it's not car specific. Can't really see the need to determine if my oven is using more than my car though :lol:

The one thing i've just read implies that UK charge points having GPRS chips might well be down to insistence from UK Gov that they are able to get data on usage in exchange for the OLEV grant.

t's on it's way albeit with a wait.
White Rex with Sport pack, pro media and parking
Early September for delivery.

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Ditto, but grey metallic (whatever that's called). I'd have liked Solar Orange again, but the replacement is a horrible metallic blue which doesn't, IMHO, "suit" the car.
It's our second i3 - and our only car. So we've used the Rex for around 25% of our journeys.
I got a Polar 27.5Amp charger a couple of years ago for £95 with Government subsidy, and it's perfectly OK.
The wait till September is nothing compared with the 8months we had to wait for the first one!

FrancisJeffries said:

I got a Polar 27.5Amp charger a couple of years ago for £95 with Government subsidy, and it's perfectly OK.

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I've got a Rolec 32amp tethered in a box in the dining room waiting for fitting so hope it'll be okay

FrancisJeffries said:

The wait till September is nothing compared with the 8months we had to wait for the first one!

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Yeah but waiting is not my forte :lol:

I've got a Rolec 32amp...

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Mine says it's 32Amp, but I measured 27.5Amps at maximum rate!

The pilot signal of the EVSE may be miscalibrated. That signal is what the car uses to know the maximum amount it can draw from the EVSE. The car can only use 7400W maximum, so it depends on the supply voltage along with the amps to decide if it's maxed out or not, you cannot just use amps as P=V*A. The only easy way to check the pilot signal would be with an oscilloscope or similar device, and then, getting onto that signal may not be the easiest thing to access.

It's the 31st August and it's been born and is sitting on a dockside somewhere in Belgium waiting for a ship heading to UK. Methinks the 3rd September was a tad optimistic but I didn't think it would be that quick so no great problem.

The main thing is it's on its way

Also pulled the trigger 3 and a half months ago and been waiting patiently ever since.

As luck would have it, the car is now ready for collection tomorrow at my dealer. The very same day that my wife decided to book a long weekend for us over in Italy! So the wait will continue until next week

Our local Sainsbury's a mile away has 12 charging points that work with the Source London card. Very useful as we're currently in a rental before moving to our own place at the end of the year after which we can have a charger installed.

Its the Protonic Blue i3 94Ah and definitely no RX!

At last

I've pulled the trigger too! I'm in the UK and I've ordered the 94aH REX in Capperis white (standard colour) with the 19" Streamline alloys. I've specified no extras, although Rapid DC charging is standard now. I've bought it through a Salary sacrifice scheme: net cost to me will be £387, including servicing, tyres, vehicle, fully comp insurance (for me and my partner) and European breakdown. And no down payment/deposit
Estimated lead time is 20 weeks, so may put off to 1st March when the new registration comes in.
I'm not worried about leasing the car (as opposed to buying it), as I won't need to worry about depreciation and I can go for another i3 or perhaps a Tesla Model 3 in 3 years time. And another sweetener, I'll get a home charging point thrown in.

We had a 48hr weekend test drive a couple of weeks ago. We loved the car (the only options were black paint and Turbine 429 alloys), but the issue we have is around charging infrastructure. I suppose I'll have to get a wallet full of cards that will be able to access the numerous charge points.

Welcome on board. I'm just going through the charging infrastructure exploration phase!

With a home charger, as long as you have the ReX and you don't do excessive daily mileage, I have found you don't need to worry about charge cards. For the first week, I've done my work commute, about 600 miles in total including one 130 mile round trip and all my local journeys with no issues at all. ReX cut in once for a few miles on the long trip.

I have decided to sign up for the PAYG Apps rather than RFID cards (which cost money just to have) on the basis that on the small number of times I need to charge on the go, I can hopefully find a charger that will accept the App starting process rather than RFID. The main reason for avoiding public chargers is that many are not that cost effective if you can charge at home on cheap rate electricity.

Ecotricity want £6 for 30 minutes (on a non CCS charger where I am) and many Charge Your Car sites are £4.50 per hour for Level 2 rates which works out about 6 to 8 times the cost of home charging. Polar Instant admin charge of £1.20 for a free level 2 charge is more in keeping with the cost of home charging but still more expensive.

Tested the Polar Instant App today in a multi-storey in Cardiff. Took some fiddling around to sort out the right charge point (the identifying code was on a label on the base of the unit out of sight :roll: ). Charge started but App didn't think it had so when I got back I couldn't stop the charge and so couldn't disconnect. Had to ring helpline but they stopped and released it without a problem. Bit of hassle but I'm sure part of that was my ineptitude as a newbie.

I was cautious about relying on the Apps as a result of the reviews and comments on some websites about charge points not being able to be used by the App as opposed to an RFID. We'll see how things go but where I live, ReX is in the boot for that very reason :lol: