Battery Temperature Reading

Perhaps this is available somewhere that I am not aware of, but considering how much of an impact the battery temperature has on the range of our cars, I would think this information would be provided to the user.

This might be useful to an engineer (and probably a good percentage of people buying a high tech car like the i3 may be), but for the general public...not much use other than a curiosity point.

It maybe something you could read out if you had an OBDII reader, but it would need to know BMW specific codes, and those tend to be expensive. Most of the OBDII devices can only read the generic codes.

There is a hidden service menu in the i3, but I've not tried to access it. THe description of how shows up here occasionally, and you should be able to find it by searching. I do not know, but that info might be in that menu.

This would absolutely only be an i3 or other future electric vehicle feature, but the value is much more than pure user curiosity.

Although I am an engineer (got me :lol: ), even a non technical minded user would find value in being able to know how quickly the battery warms during their typical day to day driving patterns versus how many miles are gained from preconditioning the battery before departure.

Ultimately, this information could be use to determine if someone is wasting more energy preconditioning their car for departure versus just taking a minimal hit in range that may not be needed everyday.

NHi3REx said:

Ultimately, this information could be use to determine if someone is wasting more energy preconditioning their car for departure versus just taking a minimal hit in range that may not be needed everyday.

Click to expand...

I would not be surprised if BMW is already doing that in their decisions on how much and when they opt to warm (or cool) the batteries, and not something the typical person would need to worry or think about. They know their car better, and it is to their advantage to make it as reliable and efficient as they can to make it stand out in the market. As such, I see it as a curiosity, by no means a really viable item for the general user.

From a user standpoint, during preconditioning, most people only worry about comfort and maximizing the range (which some don't really care about). If you set a departure time, you have no control over when it starts. If you do a precondition, you could opt to start it any time prior to you actually departing, but the longest it appears to keep conditioning the interior is 30-minutes, so not a huge amount of user control there.

It's available in the service menu - 14.05. This is copied from the FB i3 page:
-------------------------------------
Hidden Service Menu on Instrument Cluster

To enter the menu, hold down the trip meter button on the side of the instrument cluster screen for 10 seconds. From then on, pressing this button means "next" and holding down the button means "select".

To begin with you have only these options available:

1 Identification
1.01 Conv. Index (1/mls)
1.02 SWFL 1
1.03 VIN
1.04 HMI Version
2 System test
3 Start roller
10 Unlock

To unlock the following menus, you will need the VIN from 1.03 above. Add the last FOUR digits together (other BMW models require adding the last five digits) to get your unlock code. e.g if your VIN is L12345, your code is 2+3+4+5=14. If that doesn't work, try adding the last five digits.

11 Consumption
11.01 Consumption dist. (l/km)
11.02 Consumption time (l/h)

12 Range
12.01 Range consumption (l/100km)
12.02 Range (km)

13 Fuel Tank/Battery
13.01 tank left (ohm)
13.02 tank right
13.03 tank left (litres) - zero
13.04 tank right 7.9l
13.05 tank total
13.07 display value
13.07 tank phase. 1
13.08 Batt. Kapa. Max. 19.8 kWh (maximum designed battery capacity)
13.09 State of charge
13.10 Batt. Ladung (battery charge)
13.11 Batt. Anziege (battery meter indication)

14.01 O. Temp. Sensor
14.02 O. Temp. Raw data
14.03 coolant temp
14.04 oil temp
14.05 batterietemp

15.01 litre counter
15.02 time counter
15.03 distance counter
15.04 kWh-Zaehler ("kWh counter")

16.01 v CAN (km/h)
16.02 v Display (km/h)
16.03 Cruise Control (km/h)
16.04 Rev. Counter (1/min)

17 System Voltage
17.01 Ubatt (V)

18 Accoustics
19 DTC
20 Dimming LCD
20.01 LCD temp. Sensor (ADC)
20.02 LCD temperature (C)
20.03 Light sensor
20.04 LCD luminance

21 Dimming PWM
21.01 Dimming wheel
21.02 Display
21.03 Scales/pt. orange
21.04 Underfloor pointer
21.05 Status lights
21.06 Status lights blue

22 CBS (condition based service)
22.01 km/year short term (km)
22.02 service call status
22.03 Limit, time (Month)
22.04 Limit, distance (km)

23 Check
24 Correct. Factor (careful!)
25 software reset