Cold Weather Range

[Surge]

An article from late March in USA Today does not sound promising for cold weather range:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...rply-cuts-range-of-electric-vehicles/6622979/

It's worrisome - they didn't test the i3 specifically, but they did test other cars with thermal battery management, a 2012 Mitsubishi iMIEV and a 2014 Ford Focus, and this did not seem to improve the range, vs. the Leaf which doesn't have the thermal battery management.

Range was reduced by 57% at 20F, and 37% reduced at 95F.

I'm not sure why the i3 would be much different? Yes, you should preheat the cabin/battery from the mains; but what if you cannot?

Tom said a range of 60-110 miles for the BEV, so at 20F and 95F, respectively, one would assume a range of 26-47 miles at 20F and 38-70 miles at 95F.
For the REx, take off 5-15% from these numbers (range depending on how much you use the cabin heat).

For those of you who have the i3 already, does this make sense?

 

[ultraturtle]

bmwi3ownercom did a reasonably well controlled range test at different speeds in Stockholm on or about March 11: http://bmwi3owner.com/2014/03/range-for-speed/ We do not know the exact temperature, but the high for that date was 9 degrees C and the low was 2 degrees C (http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/weather/maps/city).

We also do not know for sure if it was a BEV or a REx. I'm assuming BEV based on his February 23, 2014 post. Also unknown are heater useage and drive mode.

At any rate, his results yield the following range formulas based on speed for a temperature condition somewhere between 2 and 9 degrees C:

• In miles: Range = 133 - 1.1 X Speed in mph
  In kilometers: Range = 214 - 1.1 X Speed in km/h

As a very rough guide, simply subtract speed in km/h from 205 to get range - but again, this only works at ~ 6 degrees C.

Looks like you should be able to manage over 82 km (or just over 51 miles) of range at 120 km/h in these conditions.