Differences between comfort, Eco proand Eco pro plus?

[Lemonypye]

Hi,

Do any of you lucky early i3 owners have the user manual to hand to explain what 'exactly' the difference between all 3 modes are? I know Eco pro plus shuts off air con and heating and limits you to 56mph, and Eco gets you some more range too, but what exactly is being shut off or retarded to achieve these savings?

Thanks
Chris

 

[Plug]

There isn't too much info on it in the handbook, here's a scan of the relevant page (sorry for the rubbish quality but the 'eco' paper is so thin it's semi-translucent).

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2873/11756014356_5871104303_o.jpg

 

[Lemonypye]

Thanks plug. That's still more than I knew from scouring the web. Particularly the driver set table max speed in Eco pro mode.

Cheers
Chris.

 

[Plug]

No probs, there's another little bit on how ECO-PRO affects climate control but it doesn't really say anything new, just that it takes longer to warm up/cool down (same for the seat heating).

 

[toolworker]

I would appreciate any more info on this topic.

I drove the i3 last Saturday at Weatherford in Berkeley. It felt like the pedal was attached to a rocket. Exhilarating, but I'm not sure I want to drive that way all the time. ("Comfort" might be a less than apt name for this mode, particularly for the passenger. )

So a more gradual mapping of the pedal to the power curve is a welcome option.

But what else does ECO PRO do?

Is seat heating available in ECO PRO? The manual page (thanks, Plug) seems ambiguous on that. Seat heating is an energy-efficient alternative to cabin heating and should be available.

The manual talks about configuring ECO PRO and ECO PRO+ modes. What settings are available?

 

[Jazz]

Hi Toolworker. Comfort is the 'normal' setting, giving you that full-on throttle response and power on tap when you want it. Clicking on Eco Pro will see your range jump (next time you're in an i3, flick Eco Pro on and watch your estimated range on the dash increase). Eco Pro allows you to configure Speed Warnings (encouraging you to go slower/more efficiently) and you can also configure Eco Pro Climate, which like other BMWs reduces the potency of the aircon to save energy. You'll also probably notice the accelerator becomes softer- again making it a bit harder to exploit all that power, again to save energy. I do believe seat heating is available on Eco Pro.

Eco Pro Plus is like the extreme version, where the throttle peddle becomes very soft and unresponsive, top speed greatly reduced and the digital readout on the climate control stops and your seat heating isn't available as well. You can still turn on the normal fan, but that's mostly it.

 

[toolworker]

Thanks, Jazz.

So it sounds like if I just want to remap the accelerator pedal to be softer, I could configure Eco Pro to turn off all the warnings and not adjust the climate control?

But could one still floor the pedal and get the same acceleration as from the Comfort mode?

That would be perfect.

 

[Jazz]

In theory yes you can!

A full 'Kick-Down' in the i3 should still allow you to access the same acceleration and top speed even in Eco Pro mode. So your suggestion of configuring the Eco Pro mode in that way should work for you, if you don't want that electric torque shoving you in the back each time

 

[i3me]

But could one still floor the pedal and get the same acceleration as from the Comfort mode?

That would be perfect.

In EP the acceleration is much softer than in C mode.
You can see this in numbers when you flip through the dash display settings to give you the instantaneous kW/100km (kW/mi) used. Even gently accelerating in C mode drains the batteries in a major way!
I was led to believe that the car was accelerating fairly economically in C when the white indicator under the blue "fan" didn't go very far to the right, but the numbers told me a different story! :mrgreen:

In effect the C mode in the i3 is the Sport mode in ICE BMW's.
I believe we should regard the EP mode as the C mode in the i3. It not only makes more "range" sense but the performance is still better than most other ICE 4 door sedans out there!

 

[amateurish]

Seat heating is available in eco pro.

I'm not sure what difference eco pro+ makes to top speed. I could do 70mph+ in eco pro+. It just needed more accelerator to get there.