Occasional Use Charger in the Mean Time

[hailhail]

Lease was up on my 535, decided to give the i3 a shot. I've got an electrician scheduled to do a site survey next week and hope to have a 50a circuit installed prior to delivery. Should that not be able to happen, I was hoping to use the OUC to keep the batteries topped up. Will six to eight hours overnight be enough for about forty miles should I need to take the i3 out daily?

As a corollary, if my electric dryer is already on a dedicated circuit, is there any reason I couldn't just put a splitter on my dryer outlet and hook that up to the non-hardwired Clipper Creek wall unit?

 

[macgreiner]

That's what I did for the first few months - for a 46M commute. Worked fine.

 

[muddtt]

People split the dryer outlet. check out this link for Dryer Buddy.

http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?196026-Dryer-Buddy-outlet-splitter-for-EV-charging-station-for-sale

 

[hailhail]

People split the dryer outlet. check out this link for Dryer Buddy.

http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?196026-Dryer-Buddy-outlet-splitter-for-EV-charging-station-for-sale

I like that concept, but seems to be an overengineered solution, and priced accordingly; especially when a simple y-cord would do the trick.

 

[justanotherdrunk]

Had her almost a year ...

L1 (occasional use) in the garage is all I've ever used.

Rarely, I stop by Whole Foods for a DC Fast Charge.

 

[jadnashuanh]

IT all depends on your schedule. If you can regularly let it recharge overnight, and you're not putting lots of miles on, it should be able to recharge fully overnight. But, get the battery down to near zero, and it can take nearly 19-20 hours to recharge it. But, say you plug in when you get home, and it has 12-hours, or so (maybe more) to recover, you should be able to use nearly 60% of your range on a regular basis and always leave home with a full charge.

 

[i3Alan]

...if my electric dryer is already on a dedicated circuit, is there any reason I couldn't just put a splitter on my dryer outlet and hook that up to the non-hardwired Clipper Creek wall unit?

My laundry room shares a wall with my garage. I cut a hole in the garage wall about a foot above the dryer outlet and grabbed the cable to the dryer outlet. I cut the cable and then attached both ends to another 240V outlet, all inside a wall box, leaving working 240V outlets on each side of the wall. Cost me less than $50 for the wall box and outlet and a matching plug that I added to the hard-wired version of the Clipper Creek unit. (Also needed a tube of dry-wall spackle to tidy up the job.) I wanted the hard-wired CC unit because it comes with a longer tail (about 2' longer) which let me mount the unit closer to where I the i3 charging port gets parked. I did this in Aug, 2014, when I got the i3, and all has worked flawlessly.

Note that my dryer circuit was 30A, so I got the 25A CC unit. Also, my dryer is gas, so the dryer outlet is never used!

 

[ASUN]

It all depends on your daily commute.

I have had mine for 3 months now. It's perfectly suit my lifestyle.

My daily commute to work is 15 km, one way. The car starts at 100% at home using the OUC. Arrive at work where I have a level 2 charger, free of charge. Leave work at 100%, arrive home around 80%. Using the OUC, I can get the car back to 100% over night.

Repeat the above for tomorrow.

I can actually get away with charging solely at work for free, but I find that it's always best to charge the car whenever I can, in case of sudden errands I need to run.

Recently I was finally brave enough to try to take the car to its limit. Took it on two longer trips and I managed to bring the car down to 17-19%. That took more than an overnight to bring the car back to 100%. Around 19 hours on the OUC at 110V. This is something above my daily commute, so it's not a problem.

Hope the above helps.

 

[cmj912]

I've been fine with the OUC as well. Got car 12/15/15. Get home from work, plug in, charged in the morning. If you are smart about when and how you want to precondition the cabin you can do that too, although the battery preconditioning won't work.

 

[hailhail]

Oh that's good to know about the no preconditioning. What's the difference between battery precondition and cabin precondition?

 

[jadnashuanh]

Oh that's good to know about the no preconditioning. What's the difference between battery precondition and cabin precondition?

You can always ask the car to warm the cabin (preconditioning), but to get the maximum range, you need to also warm the batteries, which some call preconditioning as well. To do that, you must set a departure time and to get it to work fully, it needs about a 3.5-hour timeframe prior to departure. If you do set that up, you can ask it to also warm the cabin. Warming the cabin runs for about 30-minutes. Departure time will only work while plugged into the EVSE, but the cabin conditioning will work anytime.

 

[jadnashuanh]

Oh that's good to know about the no preconditioning. What's the difference between battery precondition and cabin precondition?

The only way to warm the batteries up for maximum range is to set a departure time. On that menu, you have the choice of also conditioning the cabin and, if you're not hooked to an EVSE, it will ONLY condition the cabin. On the other hand, you can condition the cabin in several ways: when you exit the car, you can tell it to keep the conditioning on (runs for 30-minutes) so if you're just going in for a short errand, it will still be comfortable when you get back; you can tell it to start conditioning the cabin from the app (again, it will run for 30-minutes).

In summary...the only way to condition the batteries is to set a departure time while hooked to an EVSE; you can condition the cabin anytime, either from the car, or from the app, and it doesn't care if it's connected to an EVSE.

 

[Fredr500]

To. precondition the battery does it have to be fully charged or will it precondition while charging?

How much more range do you get when you do it?

 

[brorob]

To. precondition the battery does it have to be fully charged or will it precondition while charging?

How much more range do you get when you do it?

I've read that the thermal management preconditions the batteries but I've also read that the charger in the car will regulate the charging so the batteries are at 100% at the departure time. The reasoning behind this is that charging the batteries keeps them warm. I'm curious if anyone could verify which of these is true or if it depends on the temperature. Since preconditioning can cool or warm the battery packs, I would guess the thermal management system controls this.

Your battery does not need to be at 100% to precondition. If you're using a Level 1 EVSE, you won't have enough power to precondition and charge. The article below has been referenced on this forum a few times and I've found it useful.
http://bmwi3.blogspot.ca/2015/03/bmw-i3-understanding-how.html

One time when I preconditioned the batteries in the winter, my range showed around 80 miles. Lately when I have preconditioned, the range has only showed around 60 miles. I always set the departure time 5-8 hours before leaving so I'm not sure if this is a glitch or if this is normal. I expected to see around an 80 mile range every time since I saw it the first time I did this. Temperature outside was pretty consistent between these observations. I do not have the November 2015 software update yet so I'm wondering if that will help.

 

[jadnashuanh]

The preconditioning of the batteries starts about 3.5-hours before the departure time so it is done at your departure time, so setting it hours earlier is a total waste of time except for the fact that a 4-500# mass will take awhile to cool back down. For optimal use...make your departure time accurate! Now, if you also set cabin preconditioning, that won't start until about 30-minutes before your departure time. If you have set a low-cost charging window, the car will wait until that window IF IT CAN, otherwise, it may start earlier. As said, the level 1, 12A, 120vac EVSE sold in the NA market with the car is not big enough to complete charging AND preconditioning, and you'll leave with less than a full battery even if it was before it started the preconditioning, but you should be close.

The predicted miles depends on the last 18-miles you drove the vehicle, and that may or may not be representative of how you WILL drive it when you next leave. Plus, depending on how far you drove before and the type of driving will drastically affect the prediction. I've seen my estimate remain the same after driving nearly 10-miles because I was driving more efficiently than the time before.

 

[brorob]

The preconditioning of the batteries starts about 3.5-hours before the departure time so it is done at your departure time, so setting it hours earlier is a total waste of time except for the fact that a 4-500# mass will take awhile to cool back down. For optimal use...make your departure time accurate! Now, if you also set cabin preconditioning, that won't start until about 30-minutes before your departure time.

When I wrote that I set the departure time 5-8 hours before I leave, I mean I program it 5-8 hours in advance, which is longer than the 4 hours required to set it. So at 10:00 I'm programming a departure time for 17:00 AND leaving at 17:00. I always drive the car with the same level of conservative power on the way to work, which is over 20 miles, so I'm still curious why I had a long estimated range the first time I preconditioned (similar temps too) but shorter ranges since then. I'm aware of how the predicted mileage is based on several factors, like past driving habits.

 

[cmj912]

The preconditioning of the batteries starts about 3.5-hours before the departure time so it is done at your departure time, so setting it hours earlier is a total waste of time except for the fact that a 4-500# mass will take awhile to cool back down. For optimal use...make your departure time accurate! Now, if you also set cabin preconditioning, that won't start until about 30-minutes before your departure time.

When I wrote that I set the departure time 5-8 hours before I leave, I mean I program it 5-8 hours in advance, which is longer than the 4 hours required to set it. So at 10:00 I'm programming a departure time for 17:00 AND leaving at 17:00. I always drive the car with the same level of conservative power on the way to work, which is over 20 miles, so I'm still curious why I had a long estimated range the first time I preconditioned (similar temps too) but shorter ranges since then. I'm aware of how the predicted mileage is based on several factors, like past driving habits.

I get this too. I think sometimes it knows the last ambient temperature as well, because I get shorter estimates (when you see how much it thinks you'll have when it is done) when it is cold out. During the warm spell we had I was getting 80ish but it has gone as low as 49 or lower in the cold. I am going to have to check with the dealer when I go in for my "BMW Encore" visit as well to check that I am at the most recent software update. For those that don't know if you go to the encore visit they give you some pretty kicka** headphones.