The new car has arrived!

i3 REX with lodge interior, DC rapid charge, Pro nav, LED headlights and Harmon speakers. I totally love it. Sitting in the cabin feels like being on the bridge of the Enterprise from Star Trek TNG, and it whizzes from 0-30 in a second or two in total silence. Very space age.
Coincidentally it came the same day that my local council in Poole, England, installed its first rapid charger (there are another 18 being installed over the next two months), so great timing. Went to test it out and it worked a treat, although it's priced £4 per hour of charging. I'll be using a plug socket at home but it's nice to know there's a rapid point nearby.
Anyway, I have a 260 mile trip to the north of England tomorrow. Hoping to use a couple of free Ecotricity rapid chargers on the way, but the REX is probably going to get a good workout. Nervous, but it should be fun!

Congratulation.

Looks like BMW finally get rid of the white carpet and use more sensible colour choice.

Blue20 said:

Congratulation.

Looks like BMW finally get rid of the white carpet and use more sensible colour choice.

Click to expand...

Damn, if I'd have known that they were ditching the white carpet then I'd have definitely specified the Lodge interior. I went with the standard interior purely due to the carpets on the Lodge being a stupid colour. This looks lovely and congrats on your new toy. Let us know how the weekend trek up north went. Mine arrives next Friday.

Also, how are you finding the charging from the standard plug? Do you think its easy enough to live with? When I had the weekend Demo, it charged fine overnight. Just juggling whether its really worth spending >£300 for a home charging point... my hunch is that its not worth it as long as I can live with 6-8hr charge time.

If you are confident that you won't need to charge in a hurry during the day you don't really need a home charge point. I ran our leaf for nearly three years using just the supplied 10A EVSE. However the Gen1 Leaf only had a 3.3kW charger anyway and the time difference was small.

The brick (EVSE) is really only meant for occasional use though and you do need to make sure that your electrics - socket and wiring - are up to the job of 10A continuous. A dedicated supply is to be preferred, better not to put it on a ring.

Please can you say who operate the rapid chargers that are going in around Poole? Will I need yet another RFID card?

Cheers

Bill

PS - Congrats

Congratulations. Good luck with your journey tomorrow, I have yet to have a successful charge at any of Ecotricity's CCS chargers at motorway services. However you could manage on the REx, make sure it's full of fuel, deploy it at 75% charge (as soon as you can) then run it until it's needs more petrol. Run on electric until you find a petrol station. Repeat as necessary, just don't let the battery get too low.

You're not too far from me and these charging points are a long time coming. Funding was announced in 2013 and when I asked Dorset County Council when they were being installed, the answer was "completed before 31st March 2015". Oh well, close.

As well as the 10 going in across Poole and Bournemouth, a further 8 will be going into:

Lyme Regis
Bridport
Dorchester
Weymouth
Blandford
Shaftesbury
Wimborne
Christchurch

All AC/Chademo/CCS equipped.

Ref which operator, not sure who it will be, however that picture looks like it's near Poole Civic Centre, which appears on ZapMap as ChargeYourCar. This is the same as the one at County Hall in Dorchester, use either RFID card or the phone app.

Did you swap your wheels R <-> L between the photos outside charging (the way BMW mounts them) and in your garage (looks better to me), or does your car have 4 of the same wheels such that their rotation directions appear different on the right and left sides (probably not likely)?

Blue20 said:

Congratulation.

Looks like BMW finally get rid of the white carpet and use more sensible colour choice.

Click to expand...

Yes, I ordered my Lodge interior with some trepidation but to my mind the all leather Suite interior was just too dark. Thought I would have to buy some additional dark coloured mats but was very pleased that my car, which I collected last week. came with black carpets which are far more practical. Perhaps this was an unreported change to the 2015 model spec.

mark1 said:

Ref which operator, not sure who it will be, however that picture looks like it's near Poole Civic Centre, which appears on ZapMap as ChargeYourCar. This is the same as the one at County Hall in Dorchester, use either RFID card or the phone app.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Bill

although it's priced £4 per hour of charging.

I think that works out at about 12p per kW-hr, which is about what you get charged for kW-hrs at home.

Congratulations on the New Rex, I am sure you will just love it. Looks like BMW have listened to some feedback on the carpet mat colour!

Congratulations!