5000 miles now after 6 weeks of ownership

[i3marc]

http://practicalbev.blogspot.com/

Needless to say the kind of commute only one has to do because they live in Cali.

I passed the 5k mark yesterday... battery still performs like a rock!

Every passing week I love my choice.

Bye bye gasoline forever.

 

[drb]

i3marc,
I too live in California. Happily I don't have to drive as much as you--8,000 miles after nine months of ownership. I wholly agree with you--the more I drive the i3 the greater my pleasure and my satisfaction with my decision to buy one. While I have a REx, I do not use it often. I love having a "gas station" in my garage, charging the car while I sleep. Continue to enjoy and many happy miles to come.

 

[barrychan]

Still it would be real nice to have a DC charging station in your own home town that if you need "juice" quick you can go get it

 

[getakey]

Still it would be real nice to have a DC charging station in your own home town that if you need "juice" quick you can go get it

Buy the Tesla home battery?

My wife is the one who drives it and she loves it. I get to drive it on weekends

 

[jadnashuanh]

The i3 can handle things at 50Kw on the dc input. Say a starting voltage of about 400v; power/volts=amps or 50000/400=125amps...that's a LOT of power. Given that it is actually a dc power supply and typically, the voltage input would be lower and no power supply is 100% efficient, even more is needed, the amperage goes even higher. You're talking industrial supply here, not something typically available in a residence. Even many businesses don't have sufficient power to install one without major upgrades, which is one reason why you aren't seeing very many of them around, and BMW has been promoting a smaller, slower unit at 25Kw, to make it easier for places to install, but slower to get to that magic 80%, but about the same to 100% because the larger one needs to slow down more to complete the charge than the 25K one does.

The TEsla home power unit, at least one of them, isn't enough to recharge the i3, and while possible, it doesn't have the on-board logic to talk to the i3 and recharge it.

 

[i3marc]

I would say the 5-7 kWh of level 2 is bearable if one plans accordingly.

Heck level 1 at work over 8-10 hrs is too... sadly most commercial garages hate you charging in a lowly 110v socket.

I suspect by the time I need to replace my battery we will have inductive charging or even battery swap.

Level 2 seems to be the one standard everyone agrees on and the easiest to disseminate.

 

[PDXelectric]

I would say the 5-7 kWh of level 2 is bearable if one plans accordingly.

Heck level 1 at work over 8-10 hrs is too... sadly most commercial garages hate you charging in a lowly 110v socket.

I suspect by the time I need to replace my battery we will have inductive charging or even battery swap.

Level 2 seems to be the one standard everyone agrees on and the easiest to disseminate.

I make an effort to charge up at a random 110v in my work garage. This is how the math works for trying to charge 50% of my power at work:

Electricity cost: .07/kwh (cheap I know)
Miles/kwh = 3.5
Cents/mile = 2
cents/mile with 50% of power free = 1

Its hard to beat 1 cent/mile.

 

[i3marc]

I make an effort to charge up at a random 110v in my work garage. This is how the math works for trying to charge 50% of my power at work:

Electricity cost: .07/kwh (cheap I know)
Miles/kwh = 3.5
Cents/mile = 2
cents/mile with 50% of power free = 1

Its hard to beat 1 cent/mile.

The BMW i3 is so incredibly efficient and disruptive (down to the automated parking... and you know the next software upgrade might let the cruise control actually stay in lanes since the car can control its steering and uses a camera with visual recognition!) that it might be an existential threat to established cost structures and privileges.

Jiffy lube, most garages and all gas stations become obsolete.

The problem is even as little at 1% of electric cars can spread trouble, as those drivers are lost forever to the oil conglomerates.

In my blog I describe how a VW dealer dealt with it... by a brutal conversion of its free charge point station to a "reservation only" system where you have to pay about $20 to get a full charge.

When electrics are more proeminent it will be pretext to tax per mile as gasoline taxes will drop dramatically, and a special "temporary" transition "surcharge" will be slapped on electricty used by EVs to make the price same as gasoline.

The twisted sick logic of the powers to be is that EV owners are "wealthy" since they can afford the higher sticker prices... but those idiots don't understand we buy EVs because they are in fact cheaper than regular gasoline cars.

Someone quoted the BMW i3 is engineered to last 40 years... well imagine the savings in gas over 10-20 years.

The car will pay for itself 2-3 X over in spite of the propaganda hammering us with the need to change a car every few years.

The establishment seems to not have realized to what degree EVs are disruptive... once they do, expect the worst as usual.

 

[RJSATLBA]

The i3 can handle things at 50Kw on the dc input. Say a starting voltage of about 400v; power/volts=amps or 50000/400=125amps...that's a LOT of power. Given that it is actually a dc power supply and typically, the voltage input would be lower and no power supply is 100% efficient, even more is needed, the amperage goes even higher. You're talking industrial supply here, not something typically available in a residence. Even many businesses don't have sufficient power to install one without major upgrades, which is one reason why you aren't seeing very many of them around, and BMW has been promoting a smaller, slower unit at 25Kw, to make it easier for places to install, but slower to get to that magic 80%, but about the same to 100% because the larger one needs to slow down more to complete the charge than the 25K one does.

I find it very hard indeed to believe that the slower 25kWh unit would be "about the same (time) to 100%." Surely the max charge rate will be an envelope that is at or above 50kWh until, say 80% (although in reality I think it starts to reduce before 80%), then starts to fall until reaching zero at 100% (although we know that is a restricted max not a true 100%). If so it means that a 50 unit will start to be restricted sooner but will still be charging faster than a 25 unit until it reaches the 5SoC at which the 25 unit hits the envelope. After that they will both be the same, before that the higher output unit will always be charging faster.

 

[jadnashuanh]

To 80%, the 50Kw unit will, of course get there quicker. But, it will then take a total running time of about an hour to top off to 100% (indicated, where the thing shuts off). The 25K unit, in an hour, can pump about the same amount of energy into the 22Kw (max about 19K available) battery, partly because there is less heat generated and the cooling system can handle it easier.

The closest CCS unit to where I live is about 120-miles away, so I do not have the opportunity to test this, but based on what I've read, I think this is correct.