My i3 is powered by electricity generated by my home solar array. EV+PV is really a fantastic combination and one that I believe will be fairly common in the near future. So how can you possibly top that? How about by getting two i3s and powering both of them plus your entire household's energy use by your solar array! That's exactly what the Norby's are attempting to do.
I have frequently written on my blogs how one of the best part of being in BMW's e-mobilitytest program for the past five years has been meeting and interacting with many of the other people in the program. Together we learned how to live with the issues that test cars frequently have, we built up our own support network and we simultaneously realized how fantastic driving electric was. It was a really a great experience and one that was nothing short of life changing for many of us.
While I've literally made hundreds of acquaintances in the program, there are a few people who I've really connected with and now consider friends, and one of them is Peder Norby. Peder and his wife Julie live in Carlsbad, California and went from MINI-E to ActiveE to BMW i3, just like I did, only they went one step further and got two i3s! Like me, the Norby's power their electric cars with clean energy from their rooftop solar array. However even though our systems are about the same size, their array provides about 1/3 more energy than mine does because of the location (sunny Southern California) and orientation of the arrays.
This year, Peder and Julie began a year-long net-zero energy challenge. They are attempting to live the entire year with their solar array providing all the energy they need to power their home and both of their cars. I believe this is a fantastic story and a glimpse into what the future has in store. Peder has been updating the progress on his i3 blog but now that he is one quarter of the way through the year, I asked him for permission to post his progress here and he happily agreed. Below is a little introduction to what the Norby's are doing followed by the three month update.
It’s hard to get this down to a sentence or two, but when we built our home in 2005, our ethos was to partner with nature, harvesting the gifts of nature, building the most efficient home possible.
In doing this, we wanted to elevate, we refused to compromise or lower the enjoyment of our life and the caliber of our dwelling, we refused to reduce our life to living in a small cave with one solitary light bulb, solely for the sake of efficiency.
Our desire was to express ourselves artistically, with the highest quality materials, design and comfort in the size home needed to accommodate our family and friends, while partnering with nature, being as efficient as possible. We wanted to live in a net zero energy home, harvesting food and drink from our land. Not big or small, not right or wrong, just our home.
The idea is a simple one: Harvest sunshine from the roof of your home to provide 100% of the power needed for your home and the two cars in the garage. That is our goal in this "Driving to Net Zero Challenge.
The 12 month documented journey began May 15, 2014. Three months in, things are looking pretty good:
Update Month Three. We're killing it!
The idea is a simple one, harvest endless sunshine from a small portion of a roof to provide 100% of the energy needed to power a home and two cars with zero utility cost, and zero gasoline cost.
We have a credit of $315 for the first seven months of the year
1/4 of the way into our "Driving to Net Zero Energy" challenge and as they say in political election coverage: "I am ready to make a projection and call this race"
We will be below zero in utility cost and gasoline cost providing the energy for our home and guest house, and the two cars in the garage driven a total of 24,000 miles a year. In fact we are so far ahead we will accomplish this goal four months earlier than planed with the January 2015 true-up bill from our utility.
We estimate at the true-up bill that we will have a credit of $400 to $450 for our electrical use and a cost of natural gas of $301 for the year thus -$100 to -$150 in total energy cost for the year.
How about total cost?
As I mentioned in my first post in May, an asterisk is required regarding the cost of energy as our utility does not let us carry over our electricity credit to our natural gas cost. Essentially our valuable peak hour electricity that we do not consume will be a gift to our utility. As the years go by we will most likely convert one or two of the natural gas appliances at the end of their useful life to electric in order to reduce the natural gas bill by using our excess electricity credit.
Where are we with energy usage and gasoline cost now compared to 2007 when we began this path to energy independence?
In 2007 our energy cost were:
$3,800 a year in electricity $ 300 a year in natural gas
$2,800 a year for Julie's Infinity G35 gasoline
$2,400 a year for my Volvo S60R gasoline
Total: $9300 a year in energy cost. ($792 per month)
This is not far off the statistical norm for a US family which uses an average of 11,000 kWh per year ($3,060 at SDG&E rates) and $2912 for gasoline according to the 2012 EPA statistics.
In 2014 our energy cost are:
$ 0 a year in electricity*
$ 300 a year in natural gas
$ 0 a year in fuel cost for Julie's BMW i3
$ 0 a year in fuel cost for my BMW i3
Total $300 a year in energy cost. ($25 per month)
* we donate $450 worth of electricity back to SDG&E.
You can see how quickly that $9000 a year in energy cost savings will pay off a $30K Solar PV system, $15k in extra construction cost for a thick well insulated home, efficient appliances and led lights and $1000 for a EV charging station in the garage. We have calculated from the installation in January of 2007 we reached the payoff point in April of 2012.
From April 2012 and for the next few decades, we will have essentially zero or de minimus cost for energy saving us $200k to 300K in energy cost with escalating utility and gasoline cost.
How about total usage?
Julie and I live normal lives, things come up and situations change. The interesting part of our Drive To Net Zero Energy challenge is that we are real people with a real life and not some demonstration house with nobody living in it.
We have been doing really great using a net total of -167 kWh of electricity (generation vs consumption) for the first three months of the challenge. We can extrapolate the prior four months of usage pre i'3s, assuming we had the efficient BMW i3's and the extra 1kw of solar pv production which would have saved us 225 kWh per month. We estimate that by May of next year we will be very close to a net of 0 total kWh used, +- 250 kWh per year which is a normal usage and weather variable.
The French Import.
I bet you thought it was a car :)
Julie and I have decided to make an impact on two young adults lives. We are hosting through Rotary Youth Exchange, a 17 year old French student named Peroline for a one year exchange. By doing so, an American young man is traveling to France to begin his year as an exchange student in France living with Peroline's family.
Our household has now risen to four and the extra electricity that our 17 year old exchange student will use will most likely push us into the positive use territory.
Hosting a 17 year old young lady French exchange student for a year was not contemplated and is not a very good idea for the Drive To Net Zero Energy Challenge!
But life is life, unpredictable, wonderful and real. We are very happy to have Peroline as part of our family for the next year and we're looking forward to driving her everywhere, using lots of electrons, to see the sights of our great nation.
Our goal remains Net Zero Energy usage as well as Net Zero Energy cost. We'll see how the the next 3/4 of the year goes.
Imagine a better future and your participation in it. Next Month:
Bonus video: Below is one part of a series of videos that Peder and I participated in. The video series is called "Wherever You Want to Go" and was produced by BMW back in 2011. BMW recruited Buzz Aldrin, Marissa Meyer, Robin Chase, Syd Mead, and many others to participate and Peder, Todd Crook and I were also chosen to because of our high level of participation in BMW's e-mobility program. The four-part series is available online and did a good job of opening the up a conversation about where we are going with regards to personal mobility. Take a look and see if you can spot Peder and me. :)
Hi, my name is Scott Lawson and I was Born Electric on August 11, 2014.
I confess: I am not a ‘car guy’. For me, cars are dirty explosion factories full of toxic liquids and endless grime. Oil changes, frequent fill ups, dusty air filters, and a noisy engine seemed to be an unnecessary evil. If I was to get an EV, I wanted it to be 100% electric, no engine, no gas, no oil, no going back! At times, I have even thought that if I lived in the city I would outsource my transportation to taxis, buses, and trains. But living in the so-called mega-city of SoCal (from San Diego to Santa Barbara) with inadequate public transportation options, a car is required. And since I am confessing, I should say I love traveling fast and zipping around in a driver’s car. Over the years BMWs have fit my needs well but were still powered by gas. I considered the LEAF for a fleeting moment and the Tesla Model S seemed like a car for executives or super models! And costs twice as much as any car I have ever owned.
BMW decided several years ago to create the BMW “i” sub brand and delve into creating a new kind of transport which they call ‘sustainable mobility’. More than just making an electric car, BMW is looking to change how personal transportation is defined. When the i3 hit the market I was excited to learn more; and the more I learned, the more I felt one with the design principles and philosophy. I am a system architect and strive to make technology useful to people and efficient for business. As I discovered more about the BMW i project and their first product, the all electric i3, I appreciated the innovative use of technology both in the machine and for the consumer.
The i3 driving machine’s body is made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) including fibers from the Kenaf plant (Hibiscus cannabinus), a form of hemp, for the interior. The manufacturing of the car is computer-controlled and ultra clean using robots, clean rooms, heat-activated glue welds, an all aluminum body, and powered by wind and hydroelectric power. As I read how BMW designed the car as ‘electric first’, I appreciated the lack of a large front hood, the use of tall skinny tires for less rolling resistance, that the ultra-light CFRP and aluminum construction allowed more efficient range. The opposing doors are possible because of the structural integrity of the material and the short overhangs on the front and rear help parking the car in a busy city. All of this adds us to a futuristic design not only in looks but in function. All of the thought that was put into the sustainability and design impressed me even before the first torque-filled test drive.
As an explorer of new technology I was impressed with the consumer technology built into the car. Integrated sensors and computers help in safety and convenience from the door locks to the theft protection to active cruise control to the integration with internet applications. The maps not only have traffic, but charging stations, mass transit stations and other points of interest. The i3 can listen to you with voice commands and read news and social media updates. The iDrive controller even has one-finger handwriting recognition so you can spell destinations or peoples names. The 20 GB music storage is fast and you can even play video from a directly connected USB drive (while parked, of course!). All of this adds up to the i3 being more than just the ultimate driving machine and turns it into the ultimate transportation machine. I feel it can transport me in time by delivering information to keep me efficiently connected to my social circle and work activities.
This is a new way of thinking. Just as cloud computing and mobile have changed the way we think about file storage, applications, installing software, and upgrades, the i3 alters the way we think about driving. It is something you have to not only experience, but something you have to work with and adapt to. It is a new way of driving. The “one pedal” experience is awkward at first, almost annoying, until you get the feel of it and think about electric propulsion. Driving one pedal is the best way to accelerate and decelerate and you begin to think about gliding to a stop and working with the force of the car. Your right foot is always active but never leaves the main accelerator pedal.
You have to change your thinking about “fuel” and trip planning. You can charge in your garage with a ‘level 2’ 240v charging station. While it relieves you of having to get gas, you do have to remember to plug the car in when you get home. This behavior is becoming familiar as many, if not all, i3 owners will have some form of mobile phone or mobile device that they plug in everyday. When it comes to trip planning, that requires a deeper shift in thinking. With an EV you just cannot ignore this aspect. Most technological shifts require new modes: you have to plan to record your show if you want to watch without commercials, you have to sync your laptop files if you want to work on them while on a flight, you have to schedule a PC virus check at night to avoid malware. Going on a trip up a mountain in the i3, you need to plan to see if there are charging stations, what kind they are (to make sure you are able to charge on them), and to figure the most efficient path there. The i3 itself helps with this by warning you on your state of charge (SOC) and showing you charging locations near you. But with only 25 miles of range to every 1 hour of charge, this is a slow process. More ‘level 3’ charging stations (also called DC Fast Charge) are coming and the i3 can be configured to use them to get charged up in 20-30 minutes. Unfortunately only in some places in the world today have a large enough concentration of DCFC stations to make longer trip travel carefree.
To get the most out of the i3, subtle shifts in thinking make all the difference. To save your potential range you can pre-condition the cabin for comfort while it is plugged in. To save on electricity you can set it to charge when your electricity rate is low. To more easily find your destination you can search online at your desk and send the address to the car via the internet. How you navigate these subtle shifts in thinking is the key to success in the modern EV world.
The i3 has taught me that driving an EV is not just changing how your vehicle is powered. It requires that you accept a new type of mobility and adjust how you approach your car. Many people will say an internet news site is just an electronic newspaper or that Google is just an electronic yellow pages, or that cloud file storage is just a “hard drive in the sky”. All of these ways of thinking miss the point that new paradigms like the i3 are a leap into something new. James May of Top Gear recently wrote this about the i3: “Being a car is just one of its apps”. A famous petrolhead, he sees the paradigm shift, too. You have to challenge yourself and think different. And owning an i3 will help you do just that.
I'd like to thank Scott for sharing his i3 story here. One last thing I'd like to point out is that Scott created a BMW i3 Owners map. You can enter your location and add yourself to the map HERE. I'm going to do a dedicated post on this soon though because it was a great idea and something I think other i3 owners will enjoy. Scott is the tenth Born Electric guest blogger I've featured here and I appreciate the time everyone has spent to tell the readers about their i3 experience. Previous Born Electric posts can be found below: Andy from The UK Hil from Holland Toni from Belgium Jan from Belgium Steven from The Netherlands Jon from Norway Ross from The UK
My name is Fred and I was born electric on July 30, 2014.
Today I have just a little over 1,000 miles on my i3 REx—over 1,000 happy miles I should add. I live in Huntington Beach, California and use my i3 regularly for running local errands, for meetings of 80 to 120 miles across the Los Angeles basin, and for pure pleasure. Indeed, it is now the only car I own. I sold my Lexus LS460L and my Lexus SC430 for the i3, and while both are great cars, the i3 meets my needs so well that I have no regrets about giving up either of them.
I never intended to own an electric vehicle and paid little attention to them believing that they were in general impractical. I was raised on the internal combustion engine and had no intention of doing anything other than sticking with what I knew and what worked for me. Adding to my mind set were two facts: first, America is awash in fossil fuels with the potential of freeing us from the importation of foreign oil; second, cars that once swigged gasoline are now increasingly fuel efficient. So, why change?
Then one sunny Sunday morning my son, who traded in his Hummer for a big Infiniti SUV, came knocking on my door, roused me from bed, and said, “come with me,” informing me that we needed to be somewhere in a hurry. Before I could find out where we had to be, we were racing down Pacific Coast Highway to what I discovered was the BMW dealer in Newport Beach. My son wouldn’t tell me where we were going or why we were rushing to be somewhere, keeping this news from me until we arrived. As we pulled into Sterling BMW, my son informed me that I was going to do a test drive—a drive so I learned that he took the day prior.
I had trouble believing that this was what all the fuss was about. My son has owned big vehicles for many years. He is a diver, and carts around lots of dive equipment. Also, we used his vehicles for towing our boats. Why in the world was he interested in this little car? Besides never giving a moment’s thought to an electric vehicle, I never considered a small car. Except for the BMW 320i that I owned in the 1980s and my little Lexus sports car which I used on weekends, my driving experience consisted mostly of large cars--heavy metal objects that surrounded me with lots of steel and horse power. I assumed that I would be safer in an accident in a large car than in a small one. Once behind the wheel of the i3, my fear disappeared. It is not true that in all things, small is beautiful, but in the case of the i3, it truly is.
The test drive was badly organized and although my son had signed us up for a specific time, we sat around for what seemed to be forever until we got our test car. Wanting my breakfast, I almost left. Further, when I tried to engage officials in charge of the test drive with questions about the vehicle, they seemed to know as little as I did. We were not off to a good start.
Once behind the wheel, everything changed. I immediately liked the clean lines and the airiness of the cabin. I especially liked the elevation of the seats with a firmness that secured my poor body against the discomforts of my arthritis. I abhor soft seats into which you sink, seats that require lowering yourself into position and then hoisting yourself out. I also liked the easy adjustment of the seats. While the seats in my Lexus vehicles are powered electrically, moving me like a belly dancer into every conceivable position, I never got the setting I wanted. By comparison, once into the i3, I knew I found a home.
The clincher was the drive itself. As we pressed the button to start the “ignition”, I listened for the rev of the motor only to hear quiet, blessed quiet. I thought to myself, this is too good to be true. My son took the wheel first. He likes to drive fast and once onto the road way, we took off with a punch that left everyone on the road in our rear view mirror. As a senior citizen I drive more cautiously, but when it was my turn at the wheel, I couldn’t help but accelerate to the max. What a ride! I also liked the steering—firm, nimble and responsive. The slightest turn moved the car decisively, making me realize that it needed two steady hands on the wheel. A quick U-turn in the middle of Pacific Coast Highway—something not recommended by good sense or the police—was a delight. I also liked the tight, firm ride—nothing spongy about it. The regenerative braking, I confess, made me nervous. Would I need a learning curve to master it? Well, as it turned out, I didn’t need much of a learning curve. Once I obtained my car, I felt comfortable and in control of the braking by the time I got the vehicle home.
This test drive made me know that the i3 offered a superior way of driving from anything I had known before. By the end of the drive, I announced to my son that I would put down my deposit early in the week and surrender my Lexus vehicles to CarMax. My son said he would also do the same and give up his Infiniti SUV. The decision to downsize and to go electric was a big one for our family, but after driving the i3, it left us little choice. The joy of driving the i3, the interior space and comfort, the responsive steering, the firm ride and the regenerative braking sold us on our first electric vehicle. In every respect the i3 felt, looked and drove like a BMW. We both decided on the REx, knowing that it would meet 90% of our driving needs—and indeed it has.
The drive’s the thing and that’s what sold us. Since I had zero knowledge and experience with electric vehicles, just to make sure that I hadn't confused lust with love, rushing into something I would later regret, I arranged a test drive with a Volt later the same day. The Volt had good acceleration but nothing like the punch of the i3. Also, the seats were a tad too much like all the GM seats I had known before as was the ride itself—a tinge on the soft side. Further, the interior seemed old and not very inspiring. Driving the Volt reaffirmed my decision to purchase the i3.
Only after the decision was taken to purchase the i3 did I begin to investigate the world of EVs and their multiple advantages. Entering into an intensive period of study, I became like all converts something of a zealot which I continue to be at the time of this writing. I am in conversation with several solar panel companies to get the best equipment at the best deal. My son and I each put down our deposit on the Launch Edition of the i3 believing that this was the only vehicle that would be available in the states in the near future. The roll out was long and contained all too many disappointments; near the end of our wait, my son decided to throw in the towel and purchased the John Cooper Mini Countryman in place of the i3. At least he is driving a more efficient gasoline powered engine than when he was behind the wheel of his SUV.
All the things I liked about the i3 that led me to buy it I still like—and like even more than when I did my test drive. I’ve come to appreciate the Harmon Kardan sound system which in a cabin that is quiet (except at freeway speeds), enhances my listening pleasure. Speaking of the quiet cabin, it is not always as quiet as I would like. At city-street speeds, its as quiet as a church mouse. But on the freeway, especially as I approach 70mph plus, wind noise is noticeable, sometimes quite noticeable. If BMW can dampen that in the next iteration of the i3, it would make the drive even more enjoyable.
Sometimes it’s the little things that are most distressing. My biggest problem and that of my guests is getting the tongue of the seat belt into the buckle. While I am older and have lost strength in my hands, younger and abler persons also have difficulty. Sometimes it takes quite a bit of hard pushing to buckle up. Do I wish for a battery with greater range, of course, but I’ve learned to live with it. I like the light weight of the vehicle which contributes to the i3’s acceleration, handling and efficiency. If there was one thing I would say to BMW it is, resist all the calls for significant additions if it means making the vehicle heavier.
In light of the limitations of the battery, the REx has been indispensable to my driving needs. The smooth transition from being on the battery to the point when the REx kicks in is quite remarkable. I never feel or hear it nor do my passengers (actually one passenger in the back seat thought he heard a slight hum). I did have a significant loss of speed coming up a long, steep incline at the end of a 211 mile round trip. My companions and I couldn’t help but laugh as we knew this might happen but had not experienced it at any time earlier in the trip when we encountered steep inclines and were still on battery. What this means is that, understanding the limitations of the REx (all cars have their limitations in one respect or another), I need to plan my trips more carefully which I will in the future. The “slow down” neither diminished my ardor for the car nor my appreciation for its overall abilities and quality.
I’ve set the vehicle to charge at midnight when electricity rates are at their lowest. I purchased a ClipperCreek HCS 40 which works like a charm and cost me considerably less than the charger BMW is selling. From the standpoint of technology, this was the easy part. I confess that I find the i3’s software daunting and even after 1,000 miles, I am still only half way through learning the software’s mysteries.
One of the most delightful aspects of owning the i3 is the number of people who wave me down on the street, or give me a thumbs up on the freeway, or stop me at my favorite coffee shop or at the market, or encounter me in other ways asking me questions about the car or just admiring it. Recently an eight year old English boy on vacation in California approached me with his mother gushing facts about the i3. He is a devotee of Top Gear and knew much more than I about the car. I know that some commentators think the i3 is an ugly little beast, but the people who come up to me all seem to be intrigued by its looks. I hope that their inquisitiveness turns into sales.
My own private "gas station" in my garage. How great is that?!
Several people helped me throughout the roll out of the i3. My dealership went out of its way to find answers to all my inquiries even when they had little experience with the vehicle. Stephan, my Client Adviser (salesman in ordinary English) actually knew something about the i3 and was an anchor keeping me from drifting away. BMW North America, despite the glitches in the roll out, was enormously helpful when I reached out to them. No sooner did I reach out to them than they reciprocated frequently, reaching out to me. I want to thank Jacob Harb of BMW North America who, put in charge of the roll out, became the focus for everyone with a grievance, all too many of which were legitimate but many of which were not of his making. Jacob reached out to me after I contacted BMW, giving me reassurance and easing the process. Good communication is more than fifty percent of addressing problems even when solutions are not readily available. Like the oak in a gale, Jacob may have bent but he did not break and he saw the roll out through to fruition. Finally, without Tom Moloughney who captained the ship during the long process, leading the charge for the i3 against its frequent critics, providing answers to questions no one else seemed to have, defending the vehicle even while the process was discouraging, providing a communication link to BMW and giving us certainty that there would be an i3 in our future, I say without Tom I would have and I think many others would have said, nice try BMW but now I am going back to what I know and can rely on--a gasoline engine. Thank you Tom.
_________________________________________
And thank you Fred for participating in the Born Electric series. For those that don't know, Fred has been a follower for a while now and has commented on this blog and it's really great for me to see him finally take delivery of his i3 and now tell us his story here. I appreciate the kind words he had for me at the end but honestly I wanted to remove that part. Fred insisted it remain and told me that he didn't want me to post the story if I deleted it. I know I've said it before but one of the great things about maintaining my electric car blogs has been the interactions I have with the followers through the years. I'd like to take a moment to thank all of my followers for their continued support. Without your comments, emails and encouragement I would have stopped doing this a long time ago!
Hopefully more dealers will understand that their EV customers want an EV loaner when their car is in for service and add them to their loaner fleet.
I've been lucky enough to own some nice cars in my life. Like most people, bringing my car in for service was never something I looked forward to. However one thing that I did like was when I got an interesting car as the service loaner. I remember one time when my Mercedes ML430 was being worked on I got a black E430 4matic and I liked it so much I almost told the dealer to keep my car and trade it for the loaner.
Today, many dealers have only a small fleet of in-house loaners and use rental car agencies for the overflow of cars that they need. They do it to save money, and I'm sure it does, but they do miss out on the opportunity to show off the other cars that they sell. I still don't fully understand why a BMW dealer for instance would want to put their customer in a car from another brand while they are getting service, it just seems wrong.
I tried plugging in the 135i loaner I had a when my ActiveE was being serviced. That didn't work too well.
However dealers that are beginning to sell electric cars are now finding they have another problem to deal with. Their EV customers don't want to drive a gas car while their car is in for service, regardless of the make or model. I wrote a blog post about this over two years ago when I was driving my ActiveE and now that the i3 has launched I'm watching many i3 owners say the same thing. One person recently posted this in the i3 Facebook group: "Most people would love to drive a new BMW 3-Series for a few days as a loaner. Not me. It vibrates, burns gas, I have to use the brake pedal, makes noise and is slow. All this found during the 2.1 mile drive home. Very much so #firstworldproblems. Think I'm going to bribe my wife for a ride to and from work."
Imagine that. The BMW 3-Series is considered one of the best cars on the road. In fact, it has was recently awarded Car & Drivers coveted "Ten Best Cars" distinction for the 23rd consecutive year. One would think just about anyone would love to have a new one for a few days while their car was in for service. That's not so if your car is an i3. After driving an electric car for a while, ICE vehicles seem antiquated. You feel the engine vibrations right up through the steering wheel, you hear the engine noise when you accelerate, gear shifts feel clunky and jerky. Yep, once you get back in an ICE vehicle after driving electric you realize what you've left behind and you don't miss it. You've evolved now, and you don't want to go back to the dark ages of the ICE.
Some BMW dealers have already realized this and are including i3 loaners into their in house fleet. This is a great idea for a couple of reasons. First, they can keep their i3 customers happy while their car is in for service, and secondly they can expose some of their other clients to the electric driving experience. Any electric car owner can tell you, getting people to try electric drive is the hardest part. Once they experience the smooth linear acceleration, the quiet vibration-less cabin and the excitement of the instant torque of an electric motor they too will be thinking about going electric. I'm happy to report my dealer (JMK BMW in Springfield, NJ) - perhaps with the help of some encouragement from me ;) has decided to include an i3 to their stable of loaners. I think this is a great move and will pay dividends for them in the long run.
However this certainly isn't just a BMW issue. I've seen Nissan LEAF and Chevy Volt owners lament the fact that they get an ICE loaner car and wish they had an electric option available. Tesla only sells electric cars so they only have electric loaners. In fact, not only do you get a Tesla loaner, but all Tesla loaners are the top of the line P85 Model S. Plus, if you really like the loaner, Tesla allows you to keep it. Of course you have to pay the difference in your car's value and the P85 loaners that you want, but it's a simple process where you just tell them your keeping that car and they tell you how much you owe them for the difference. That's another example of how Tesla is bringing new ideas and improved customer service to the industry.
I am sure that the savvy dealers who provide electric loaners for their EV customers will definitely benefit. The electric vehicle community is pretty close-knit and does communicate amongst themselves. It doesn't take long for a specific dealer to be labeled a "bad" dealer for not being very "EV friendly". Conversely, the dealers who have provided good service to their EV customers have benefited from a high number of referrals. The dealers who train their staff to understand these new cars, provide free on-site charging, and offer electric loaners are the ones who are really going to succeed in the new electric frontier.
A few posts ago BMW i3 owner Scott Lawrence Lawson was featured in our Born Electric series and gave up some insight into his reasons for going electric and how he's doing with his i3 after a few months of ownership. At the end of the post I mentioned that he created a BMW i3 owners map where i3 owners can register their location and see where other i3's reside.
It's not a commercial site that is trying to collect your data or sell you anything, Scott only created it because he though it would be fun to see where other i3's live. This is how he explains it on the site where you sign up:
I thought I'd give back to the growing i3 community by making a map of BMW i3 owners and owners to be. This is an opt-in map so if you want to be on it, fill out this form below. The more specific you are, the better the data will represent our community. Maybe you'll meet someone new who made the same great choice in mobility as you did! If you are an i3 owner, fill in the this form and I'd be happy to add you!
There are currently 378 i3 owners listed from twenty five different countriesand the list is growing every day. If you have an i3, please use the link below to go over to the site and add your car to the map. BMW i3 Owners Map
My name is Harold and I was born electric on August 19th, 2014.
There are two parts to my story here.The first is about my path to selecting and buying the i3,and the second is about my experiences owning and driving the i3.
PART 1:
“IF YOU’RE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION,THEN YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.”
When it comes to global warming,I’m embarrassed to say that for far too long my wife and I were part of the problem.We’re a two car family,and over the years we’ve driven a series of big, luxury, premium fuel guzzlers.As recently as 2007 we each had one of the full-size Range Rovers. Yikes, and yuck!
I gradually realized this was not tenable,but I found it very, very hard to give up the comfort (I’m 6’3 and don’t fit in most cars) and sportiness of a big luxury SUV. The very thought of shoehorning myself into the ugly and painfully boring Prius hybrid was enough to make me puke.
So my first tentative step in the right direction was to sign up to make annual contributions to one of those carbon-offset charities. I even got vanity license plates that said “I OFFSET.” Wow, how big and how brave of me!
Then BMW came out with a diesel version of their X5 so I dumped my Range Rover in favor of that on the theory that at least I would be burning a lot less fuel. As nice a car as the X5 was, it ended up only getting about 16mpg, and I also came to understand that the diesel wasn’t as clean as I had thought it might be.
Meanwhile,there were more hybrid cars coming on the market,but all still seemed to frumpy for me.I’m sorry,but I live in California and I spend a ton of time in my car and I want it to look and feel great!
And then Audi launched their stylish little Q5,and I dumped the X5 in favor of this smaller,more fuel efficient vehicle.But even that only got around 20mpg.
So about a year ago I started the search for my next car.I did my first exploration of EV’s.The RAV4 was too clearly a Toyota.The Leaf,which a neighbor of mine happily drives,drove like a turtle to me.The Volt was claustrophobic – and a Chevy to boot.The Tesla was way cool,but I actually don’t fit very well in it and,at least in the San Francisco area, driving one has already become interpreted as a sign that you are an obnoxious snob.
So,I had resigned myself to getting the new edition of the X5 diesel,which promised to deliver significantly better – and cleaner – mileage than the original one.And then one day while I was checking out the new X5 on one of the BMW forums,I saw something about the coming of the i3.It looked weird as hell in the photo,but it sounded intriguing.I started to follow stories about it.
I went to a car show in San Jose to see it in person.I fully expected to discover that I could not fit in it,but when I sat down in the model on display I discovered that it had more head room and leg room and better visibility than my Q5.(Of course at this point,BMW was showing it with a sunroof – more about that later….).Plus,the interior design was stunning.And the exterior, while weird,was weird in a sexy way.So I was hooked.
When the test drives started happening in the Bay Area, I went to them at three different dealers.Driving the car was a total blast (all the more so with the sunroof open…..) and I had to have one.I went to my dealer and said I’m willing to pay MSRP for one of the first ones you get,I just need to get two key options – the sun roof and the REX.Can you arrange that please?
And then things started to fall apart.For one,it turned out the sunroof was not going to be offered in the US.No reason for this has ever been provided, but that alone was enough to put me off.I’m claustrophobic,and I always felt I needed a sunroof to have the feeling of openness they give.And then some negative stories started to appear about the REX – a review in Europe said driving with the REX was like driving in limp-home mode,and then it was revealed that the REX was being modified in the US in ways that made it seem even less desirable.And,being new to EV’s,I was at that point too chicken to go the full BEV route.
So,I abandoned my quest for an i3.I signed off of the i3 forums and facebook group.I went back to my dealer and started haggling over prices on the X5 diesel again.But the x5 diesel remained in hot demand,and I couldn’t get what I thought was a reasonable price.And then the i3’s actually arrived.I saw two in one day “in the wild.”I went behind my dealer’s back and went to another dealer to test drive an i3 again.I found that even without the sunroof it still felt very open.And it was just as fun to drive as I had remembered.
So I went back to my CA, said you’re not going to believe this,but I want the i3 after all.He laughed very heartily.We worked the numbers for a while.I ended up doing the two year version of “owner’s choice.” (Went with owner’s choice vs. lease to get the full advantage of the federal tax credit,and went two years rather than three just because I expect the EV technology is going to advance pretty rapidly over the next couple of years and I may want to move to the next edition sooner rather than later.) And within just a few weeks I was driving my new Andesite Silver Terra i3,loaded up with everything except for the 20” wheels.And, surprise surprise,I even got over my fear of running out of juice and went with the BEV instead of the REX.
“WHO SAYS MEDICINE HAS TO TASTE BAD TO BE GOOD FOR YOU?
As I mentioned earlier,a key factor that kept me from switching sooner to a more environmentally correct car was that they all just seemed too ugly,too uncomfortable, and too boring.I wanted to do the right thing for the planet – but I wanted to still be able to enjoy driving at the same time.
Thankfully,my i3 has solved all three of those problems for me.
While I will admit that the exterior is a bit of an acquired taste,there can be no denying that the interior is stunning.Yes,the materials are all very environmentally friendly,but more important to me – they are gorgeous.The design is very fresh,very high tech,and yet very simple.Among the features I like most are the floating high definition screens (one for the instrument cluster stuff,one for the navigation and multimedia stuff) and the eucalyptus dash.I also really appreciate the openness of the cabin and the great sight lines.
The interior is also quite comfortable.I was initially skeptical about the thinness of the seats.As a veteran business road warrior,I have equated the steady thinning down of airline seats over the years with an equally steady decline in the comfort of those seats.Well, I can only hope that the designers at Boeing and Airbus get to drive an i3 soon so they can see how to make a thinner seat super supportive and comfortable.
And as for the driving experience,well,I haven’t had so much fun driving a car since the very first one I owned.First comes the peppiness.As the folks at BMW are fond of saying,the i3 is the fastest car they make from 0 to 30 mph.And I believe them now!Zipping in and out of city traffic is as easy as can be – aided by how tight the turning radius is.Likewise, accelerating on to freeway ramps and passing at freeway speeds is also quick and easy.When we had a meet up of Bay area i3 drivers recently,I had t-shirts printed up for everyone that carried this message:“I drive a BMW i3.So you can eat my dust,not my exhaust.You’re welcome.”Trust me,the message is appropriate:this car hauls ass.
It's hard to see in the picture, but the blue T-Shirts everyone is wearing are the shirts Harold made up for the Crissy Field i3 meet. He was even gracious enough to send me a couple in the mail. Photo credit: Dino Ignacio
The steering is also very tight.I’m sure it has some degree of electronic assistance,but it doesn’t feel in the least bit mushy or vague.If anythingit’s too responsive – you have to be attentive or it’s a bit too easy to oversteer.
The ride is firm,but in a good,BMW way.If you don’t want to feel the road at all,then this is not the car for you.But if you like to get some feedback from your driving,you should like this.
I really like the quietness of the car.If you keep the windows rolled up,it is super quiet;there is of course some wind noise at higher speeds, but I have not found it to be objectionable.And,at the same time,if you drive with the windows open,you can actually hear the sounds of nature!
I’m still learning all the fancy new tech tools.Love the Harman Kardon stereo,love being able to use apps like Pandora and TuneIn.Appreciate that iDrive has gotten clearer and more manageable,though it still requires a learning curve. Love the collision avoidance system and the adaptive cruise control. Haven’t yet tried the self-parking thing – but haven’t felt the need either, as this is the smallest car I have driven in ages and I would feel like a total wimp if I couldn’t park it by myself. : )
As for downsides of the i3, anyone who buys this car has to accept that they are on the bleeding edge of technology and that things may go wrong.And they have for some of the early owners.But, knock on wood,after just about 1,000 miles, the worst thing that has happened to me so far is that one morning while I was driving along a nearly empty six lane freeway a warning message popped up on my screen that said something about “Danger – objects detected in roadway.”There were no objects to be seen,so I ignored the message and kept on driving and the message ultimately disappeared.
Also,if you choose as I did to go with the BEV instead of the REx,you will probably find yourself being more than a little bit paranoid about monitoring how much charge you have left.I have been running somewhere around 75 miles per full charge – a little less than what the EPA says,but then I drive with a bit of a lead foot and I leave the AC on all the time.So far I’ve only once gotten the dreaded verbal warning “you have 15 miles of range left,” and thankfully that happened when I was only about a mile from my house.
One other downside is that, to my way of thinking,the i3 is not practical as a family car.The “suicide”doors (aka coach doors) make access to the back seat just too awkward for regular use, especially if you are trying to cope with child seats.
OK,so the i3 is good looking, it’s comfortable,and it’s fun to drive.But how does it do on my original overall reason for getting it,which is to help address the problem of global warming?
Well,for one thing I have not been to a gas station since I got the car.And will never have to go to a gas station with it.Take that,Exxon and BP and the rest of you big oil companies!(The vanity plates I have on order for my car will read:“I86DGAS”)And,at least according to the i3 mobile app,so far I have already saved 530 pounds of CO2 from being pumped out into the air.
So,in sum,thank you BMW for giving birth to the i3 so that I can at last do my part for solving global warming – but do it in a way that fits my own selfish needs for style, comfort, and fun!
PS-The i3 may not be right for everyone,but there are now plenty of EV’s on the market – surely one of them will be right for you! _________________________________________________________
Thanks for participating Harold! If you drive an i3 and want to share your Born Electric story here, just send me an email and we'll set it up! tom.moloughney@gmail.com
Lou Ann Hammond of drivingthenation.com recently spent some time with BMW of North America's CEO Ludwig Willisch talking about the i3. One thing I found interesting is Willisch said that BMW has tradmarked all of the numbers from i3 through i9 for the use of future vehicles. I had always heard they had tradmarked i1 through i9, and didn't start at i3 as Willisch indicated. A simple trademark search reveals BMW does hold the trademark for all the names from i1 through i9. So either Ludwig made a simple mistake, or perhaps he slipped and let out the fact that BMW doesn't have any plans to ever produce an i1 or i2. This of course isn't earth-shattering news, I just found it interesting that he indicated that the reserved names start at the number 3.
The other thing I enjoyed was all of the MINI-E and ActiveE footage in the video is of me driving my old cars. You see me plugging in at my restaurant, driving the MINI-E around in New York City and driving my ActiveE up my driveway at home. Willisch also talks about the dealers being excited about carrying the i brand. That's good news to hear because as with other manufacturers that introduce electric cars, BMW has struggled a bit so far to get the dealers up to speed with these new vehicles. They are definitely doing work behind the scenes to improve this, but there is still a lot to do to get their client advisers ready to embrace the i3. It's going to take some time, but I'm happy to report progress is definitely being made. Enjoy the clip!
Back on October 16th 2011, I celebrated the first National Plug in Day at the only event being held within driving range of my MINI-E. That was held in New York City and was one of 29 events held nationally. Last year National Plug in Day was expanded to a weekend (even though we still called it "plug in day") because there was such interest we wanted to have more opportunities to hold events. There ended up being a little over 100 different events and it was indeed so successful, that for this year and moving forward it will be called National Drive Electric Week, and we'll dedicate an entire week to host events.
I was the city captain and host of the Montclair, New Jersey event which I held in the parking lot of my restaurant. We had 32 electric vehicles show up and a lot of people stopped by to ask questions and check out the cars. We even had a couple owners allow some people to test drive their car and give the person a chance to experience electric drive first hand.
Mercedes Benz of North America brought a new B-Class Electric Drive for display
Mercedes Benz of North America brought one of their newly released B-Class Electric Drives and had a representative there to answer questions about the car. I noticed it got a fair amount of attention throughout the afternoon as most people didn't even know Mercedes was selling an electric car. However the real highlight of the day was when two BMW i8's pulled up. It was actually the first time in the US that two i8's were together in public other than the initial press drive event a few months ago. Not only did we have the cars, but driving them were the two of the top BMW i executives in North America! Jacob Harb, head of EV Operations and Strategy for BMW North America pulled up in the white i8 and Jose Guerrero, Chief Product Manager for the i3 & i8 arrived in the Ionic Silver one. They both talked to the crowd, answered questions and Jose opened up a couple cases of BMW i pens and key chains and handed them out. It was a great showing by BMW and was really appreciated by everyone.
The i8 is an awesome vehicle, but I'm perfectly content with my i3. I do however, want the Frozen Blue seat belts from the i8 for my i3. They would go perfectly with my Tera World interior so if anyone at BMW was wondering what to send me for Christmas... just sayin' : )
Of course I had to get some seat time in the i8. I actually got to drive an i8 last month but the i8s at the event were not available to test drive. I want these Frozen Blue seat belts transplanted into my i3!
It's really great to see how far electric vehicles have come in the past five years. Back in 2011 when I attended the first National Plug in Day I couldn't have imagined that in three short years we would be where we are now. In 2011 the electric cars we had on display were a Tesla Roadster, a Nissan Leaf, a Chevy Volt and my MINI-E which wasn't even available to the general public. At my event this year we had: a Tesla Roadster, Tesla Model Ss, Nissan LEAFs, Chevy Volts, a Honda Fit EV, BMW i3s, BMW i8s, a Mercedes B-Class ED, a smart electric drive, a Ford Focus EV and a Toyota RAV4 EV. There is still a long way to go for mass electric vehicle adoption but we are well on the way. Manufacturers are bringing cars to market and EV charging infrastructure is improving. Infrastructure deployment may not be going as fast as many electric vehicle supporters would like, but it is indeed happening.
The owner of this Honda fit offered test drives for those interested. Much appreciated!
2015 promises to be even better with more electric choices coming to market. Volkswagen will release an electric version of their popular Golf, Audi will introduce the A3 e-tron and Mitsubishi will bring their extremely popular Outlander plug in hybrid to the US in the spring. The Outlander PHEV has been a smashing success in Europe and Mitsubishi can't even make them fast enough. In some markets it has even eclipsed the Nissan LEAF to become the top selling plug in vehicle. Yes, the electric revolution is indeed underway. I want to thank everybody who attended this year's event and hope to see you all again next year!
That's Manny and me when I took delivery of my i3 back in May.
Some of you may recognize the name because Manny Antunes was my client advisor for my ActiveE and my i3. He works at JMK BMW in Springfield and has established himself as the go-to guy for BMW i cars in the New Jersey area and has sold more i3s than anybody on the East Coast. Well he just delivered another one, but this time he was not only the client advisor, but also the client!
While Manny has always been a strong supporter of BMW i and the i3, he never let on to me that he would be interested in getting his own i3. He's an ///M specialist (his Twitter name is m5manny) and I don't think even he thought he would get his own i3 until recently. The first hint that he may be interested was the day my i3 was delivered to JMK. It was the first time he saw an i3 in Laurel Grey in person and I could see how he was staring at it. It was a lustful type of a stare and he even made a remark (I can't remember exactly what he said), but it was something like "Now that's an i3 I could see myself in" and I remember being a little surprised by the comment. Fast forward a couple months and he sends me an email that he's joining the electric life and just ordered his own Laurel Grey i3. I couldn't be happier for him and I'm certain he won't regret the decision. He may not know it yet, but he just took the first step towards leaving gas behind for good. My guess is it won't take him too long to realize he just doesn't need or want it anymore. He thinks he's doing it for the fuel savings. Little does he know he's going to simply like it better after a couple months.
Below is Manny's story, which he provided to BMWBLOG:
Hi, my name is Manny and I’m a BMW M Certified client advisor, and I just bought a BMW i3. Let me clarify one thing, I’m also one of the first BMWi certified client advisors and have been in the BMW EV program since I delivered the very first ActiveE in January of 2011. My heart still lies with the M cars and spending time at the track, but I simply don’t need a track car as a daily driver, what I need is an i3. Used To Be An “M Guy”
Living in NJ there aren’t many occasions to drive an M5 or the new M3 and M4 to their fullest potential. And honestly driving a track prepared E39 M5 like I did for many years became a chore. Maybe you can chalk that up to old age (I’m 42 now) but driving this beast regularly began to beat me up physically. It was equipped with KW variant 3 coil overs and Dinan sway bars. Stiff is a word commonly used to describe the ride in my M5. That and the full SuperSprint exhaust with X-Pipe became a nuisance to my neighbors when I’d get home late at night from work.
When the opportunity arose for me to represent my BMW Center back in late 2010 for the then upcoming ActiveE field trial I jumped at it. Being a product guy I love learning about anything BMW, plus the opportunity to meet a new demographic of BMW buyers intrigued me. Who would buy an electric 1 Series I thought, well I would soon find out. The clients I would meet were actually car fanatics, much like myself they loved driving their BMWs as much as any other, but they knew something I didn’t yet, the EV fuel free lifestyle and the instant torque. Oh man that torque!
I’d also like to add that EV owners can afford just about any BMW in our lineup, and most certainly the fuel costs associated with some of our V8 offerings. They buy an EV because they love the instant torque, the immediate throttle response and that thing about not spending money on gas. That last part is important because it’s something that really drew me to owning an EV and in particular the i3.
What Has Drawn Me To The BMW i3
So what do I love about the i3? The fact that its “Life Module” is made entirely of carbon fiber produced at BMW’s Moses Lake plant in Washington State which makes it the lightest BMW currently offered for sale. This Life module is mounted on top of the “Drive Module” which holds the 22.8kW battery, much like body on frame construction. Being that the other components of the car such as the body panels are made from thermoplastic the whole package is very light, 2634 lbs for the BEV version and 2799 lbs for the REx. Could the i3 be a contender for a class win at a future autocross day? We’ll find out in the spring.
The engine, not your typical engine, but nonetheless a fun one. It won’t win any horsepower wars but at 170HP and 184 lb-ft of torque all available from the second you mash the throttle, provides a rush of power similar to driving a silky smooth BMW V12. In fact the i3’s power-to-weight ratio is a very respectable 15.49 lbs/HP. For comparison the 335i rear wheel drive is 11.98 lbs/HP, a 535i rear wheel drive is 13.19 lbs/hp, and a 228i is 13.72 lbs/HP. But it’s all about the torque with the i3, not the horsepower.
So let’s boil it down, why did I buy an i3 for a daily driver? Three important aspects:
The lowest weight in any BMW making it a very toss-able car in the turns
The instant torque allowing for some interesting stop light Grand Prix
For my daily commute I wouldn’t have to buy gas.
Care to try it out for yourself? Put in a call to your local BMWi center, a third of the BMW dealerships are currently running a program for an Extended Test Drive on the i3. You get to experience the i3 and all its virtues for 3-4 days. Much like our own Chuck Vossler did and now he’s getting an i3 of his own, while he still owns a E92 M3 and a Porsche 911. There must be a theme here.
The i3 I purchased is an Range Extender REx “Mega world” with the optional 20 inch wheels and a few options like DC Fast Charge and heated seats. Personally I love the Laurel Grey with the BMW i frozen blue trim, it really sets the color combination off. I’ll have another article out soon on the custom bits I created for my i3 such as the custom painted calipers in BMW i blue and a few other touches. For now I’m just enjoying passing fuel stops that I used to stop at only to hand the attendant $60 every five days.
Yes, the drive is fantastic as well but I can’t get over my fuel savings costs. Now I have more money to save to buy another track car.
I have always maintained that a good number of i3 buyers will be Chevy Volt and Nissan LEAF owners that have just finished up the three year lease on their vehicle. Phil Tipper is an EV "early adopter" and leased a Nissan LEAF. His lease will expire next spring so he's trying to decide which plug in vehicle he'll get next. The i3 is on his list of possibilities and when BMW recently offered the i3 extended test drive Phil jumped on the opportunity to get to know the car a little more. I love this extended test drive offering from BMW. I think it's a great way to give prospective customers a chance to absorb what the i3 is all about. Phil is already an experienced electric car driver so he could focus more on the specific features of the i3, but many others who have never experienced electric drive will find the extended time they have with an i3 intoxicating. Having more than a few minutes during a quick test drive at a dealership will absolutely help convince people that may have been on the fence. It's simple, the more you drive electric the more you like it. That extra time behind the wheel may be all they need to make the decision to go electric for the first time. Phil wrote of his experience and thoughts on his time with the i3 and posted it to his blog. I thought is was interesting to hear what a Nissan LEAF driver thought of the i3 so I asked him if I could post it here and he obliged. Below is the post from Phil's personal blog:
As regular readers of my blog know, I'm actively researching the next electric car to replace our 2013 Nissan LEAF SL when its two year lease expires next June, and that the BMW i3 is on the top of my list of contenders.
I like the BMW because of its light weight for an EV (because of the carbon fiber structure of its "life module"), giving it the potential for good energy efficiency and promising good handling around corners, because it has a relatively powerful and torquey motor making it quick off the line, because BMW has tuned in tight steering and minimal body roll, because it is a rear wheel drive design (for classic sports car handling), because I like BMWs and I like the personal service that a premium brand provides, and because I can get a model with a range extender that offers a total of about 150 miles of range, with more range available with a fill-up of a tiny bit of gasoline. I like the idea that a range extender will let us take trips as far as Santa Barbara and San Diego without worrying as much about the reliability of public charging and the time recharging would take.
I'm also fascinated by the concept that having a range extender as a cushion will actually let us, paradoxically, drive more electric miles because we'll be more likely to take the EV than to fall back on the Prius, and because we'll be comfortable dipping deep into the battery's charge because the range extender will be there as a cushion and we won't risk needing a charge to get home.
On brief test drives of the i3, I had been able to briefly sample the car's quick acceleration and tight steering, but I'd had trouble getting used to the strong regeneration when the accelerator pedal is released, and I had even felt a bit of vertigo, especially as a passenger when the car was driven vigorously. So I had some concerns to resolve. On Facebook and in person, drivers of the i3 had told me that these concerns would resolve themselves quickly after I had gotten more used to driving the car. A longer test drive was needed.
To my delight, some BMW dealers recently began offering three-day test drives of the i3. This was exactly what I wanted. I found a dealer within 25 miles of my home that was offering the long test drives, Shelly BMW in Buena Park, California, and I found their internet team responsive and easy to work with. I thank them and applaud their willingness to take on the bother and expense of offering this program. To me, the BMW i3 is a car that benefits from a longer test drive so that the customer can learn its unusual.driving dynamics. In fact, I think that brief test drives around the block can be misleading, mostly because of the strong regeneration. I picked up a base model "Mega" i3 with the range extender engine and the optional 20 inch wheels and tires last Thursday morning. Here are some of the comments about my experiences that I posted on the BMW i3 Facebook group.
Random impressions from first 24 hours, 150 miles: Regen braking:
It's pretty much a non-issue and I beg to retract all of my earlier doubtful and even downright negative comments about it. It is different, but it is manageable and you adjust fairly quickly. I would still like to have the regen strength adjustable for a more relaxed driving experience in certain situations. At low speeds with this car, you WILL brake significantly if you need to lift your foot to readjust its position on the accelerator, and it would be very nice to be able to reduce the regen power if you just want to relax and coast with your foot off the pedal for a few seconds. Also, as many have said, the regen strength is lower at high speeds, so you don't go into full-on braking at freeway speeds if you lift off. My wife's first test drive comes in a day or so, and I expect her to have issues learning to drive the car smoothly, and I also expect uncontrollable giggling at some point during her test drive (from her, not from me). But I was able to drive her on a day trip today without her feeling too jerked about. And that was in both Comfort and EcoPro modes. Ride and handling:
The car does bounce around a bit more than I like on uneven pavement in situations when I want a smooth ride, especially when I have a passenger. When I'm out for sporty driving by myself, the ride is tight and just fine for me. I put a lot of this down to the short wheelbase that allows the car to bob over bumps, and the 20 inch wheels with low profile tires. I had mentioned getting just a touch motion sick on short test drives before, but I have to say that I really haven't felt that in my first full day of driving the car. I imagine that having a chance for my inner ear and brain to get used to the car has something to do with that. I'll just say that the car is less relaxing to cruise in than my Leaf is because the steering is very responsive to any turning input and I find that I have to pay more attention to where the car is in the lane than I do with the Leaf. Some would say that's the price you pay for responsive steering. Fair enough.
Oh hell yes! You owners know this, but I think that the best kept public secret about the i3 is that there is a little sports car demon hiding inside this little thing. When I'm driving alone on a twisty, hilly road, it feels as good as any sports car I've driven (remember that I'm in the Mazda, Nissan, 3-Series class, not the Ferrari, Porsche class). The skinny tires grip on curves like the devil and the torque of the motor just goes on and on. Very, very grin-inducing, and very BMW. For me, this is the one and only reason for ME to get this car. Frankly, a fully optioned Leaf SL or a Mercedes B Class EV would do as good or better job for family cruising duty. They are more spacious and more relaxing to cruise around in. But in my experience, the i3 is more fun to fling around than a Tesla Model S because of its small size, light weight and tight handling. And I've driven a Model S on some of the same twisty roads. Given that I'm limited on parking space and we can't really have more than two cars, my EV has to be my fun car as well as being practical. Since the FUN potential of the i3 is so high, I can probably live with the practical downsides of the car.
Performance on Rex:
I haven't had much time driving the car in REx mode, but I purposely ran the battery down so that the car would go into Rex. There is a slight, almost unnoticeable vibration in the cabin, and you can hear the two cylinder motor chugging a little back there with the windows up. I drove the car fast up a pretty steep hill with the REx running and there was no reduction in power that I could detect. I must say that I do like having the REx there as a cushion. I've been driving EVs for over three years and I know how to handle range issues, but it was very nice to see a 40 mile cushion on the dashboard as we finished our 70 mile trip today (Note: The gas tank was less than 3/4 full).
If the mi/kWh onboard readouts are to be believed, I'm getting no better efficiency in the i3 than I do with similar driving in my 2013 Leaf SL. I expected something like 20% better efficiency in the i3, but as near as I can tell, Nope! (Note: see my revised comment on efficiency near the end of the article.) You might say that I must be pushing the i3 harder, but after a day of cruising with my spouse aboard, I got around 4.2 mi/kWh, which is what I'd expect from my (heavier) Leaf in the same kind or driving. This was a mix of suburban and freeway driving, in a mix of EcoPro and Comfort mode. Go figure.
Random minor observations: I like having frameless windows on the front doors. Getting in and out of the car is a pleasure when I don't have to contort to get around the upper door frame.
I like the placement of the 12v power plug for a phone charger. My phone sits down there in that well with the charger plug and I don't have wires everywhere.
The door pockets are spacious and handy for carrying all kinds of small items.
Installing kiddie seats in the back seats was a bit challenging. We have two grandkids, a four year-old and an infant. I had to remove the rear seat headrest so that the bigger kid seat would fit properly down into place. The base for the infant seat takes up a surprisingly large amount of space front-to-rear, so when we put in the actual carrier cradle into the base, the front seat will have to be moved forward a lot. Since I'm long-legged and tallish, we'll have to put the infant base behind the passenger and have her move her seat forward, and we'll have the bigger kiddo sit behind me, the driver, and she and I will have to negotiate over leg room.
Finally (after first 24 hours): No electronic or mechanical gremlins, errors, CELs, nothing. Very reassuring.
And here is my summary of my experience after the end of the three day test drive:
I'll summarize by saying that I liked the car very much, and that most of my concerns were eliminated after a few days driving it. Positives:
+ The strong regen is a non-issue. It took a long test drive like this to convince me, but I no longer see this as a problem. Even my wife found it manageable. (BUT I do have to mention that she did have a second of unintended acceleration when she wanted to use the brake and forgot that her foot was still on the e-pedal. This was after only ten minutes driving the car for the first time, and we're sure that with more familiarity, this wouldn't be a problem.)
+ The quick acceleration and tight handling were really rewarding and these would be the biggest reasons that I'd choose an i3 over any of the competitive cars. This is really a little sports car disguised as an economical city car, and it's the true standout, as far as I'm concerned, for sportiest small four-door EV. (I know that the Spark is pretty quick, but it's really a tiny little thing and wouldn't work for us as a family hauler.)
+ Material and build quality were very good, even in the base Mega model. I happen to find the interior materials interesting and even the compressed Kenaf panels are fine with me.
+ I liked the maneuverability and tight turning circle.
+ I happen to like the car's unusual styling.
+ We were able to install kiddie seats for our two grandkids and reassure ourselves that the car would work for kid transport duty. This included one rear-facing infant seat and one front-facing kid seat. Space wasn't plentiful. The infant seat base takes up a lot of horizontal (front-rear) space, so it limits how far back a front passenger can move their seat. So we put the infant seat base behind the front passenger so that as the driver, I can get my needed leg space.
* Having no keyless entry on the base car is cheesy, especially since the car has keyless-go.
* No option for power seats. That really should be an option for those who want it, with full disclosure that it adds weight and might harm range.
* I still find the seating position too high, and I kept wanting to lower the seat below the lowest setting. Ditto the steering wheel. It feels too high even at its lowest, and the high steering wheel position gives me a kink in my right upper shoulder.
* Loud and uncomfortable wind buffeting with the windows down above about 55 mph. I like to drive with the windows down, and without rear windows to open (or a sunroof) the "air hammer" that happens with the windows down is severe. I found that raising both windows to within about 4 inches of closed helps a lot.
* There was an annoying "reciprocating" thrum that I heard/felt at moderate to low speeds. I was never sure whether it was tire noise or drivetrain noise, or both, but it wasn't a typical EV driveline low howl that changes pitch as you slow to a stop. It was more of a cyclical thrum that got slower in its cycle as I slowed down. Is this typical for the i3, is it unusual, or could it have been specific to the 20 inch tires? (Update: Tom Moloughney, our i3 online guru, told me that he had confirmed this sound in his own i3 to be coming from the 20 inch tires.)
* The short wheelbase (five inches shorter than a LEAF's) makes the car rock and bob over road imperfections. It's tolerable but it sure isn't a serene riding car. For most of my personal driving, it's no problem at all, but for times when I want to treat my passengers to a smooth ride, it's intrusive.
* I won't get into complaints about the crippled USA REx implementation, but the EV range that I got with the car was an unimpressive 72-ish miles. That's fine for most of my driving, but I'm used to getting about 85 miles with my Leaf, so this felt a bit limited. I do like having the cushion of the REx, though, and I think it would let me drive more EV miles, because I'd choose to take the i3 more often when planned trip lengths are a bit long, and a total range of about 150 miles with the range extender is very attractive after driving a Leaf for three years. It will make the difference between being able to use the car fully and not being able to in the spread-out LA metro area.
* Energy economy was poorer than in my Leaf on the freeway, but better than the Leaf on suburban streets, including with spirited driving. I find this rather disappointing because if I get an i3 REx, I'd like to do more regional driving trips with it, and I was hoping for better freeway economy. OTOH, with the good economy at lower speeds, I can drive it around like a hooligan without any misgivings (free energy from our home's solar roof).
- The "coach" doors. Awkward to move kiddie seats in and out of the back seats unless you have plenty of space on the side of the car. We had to back the i3 out of the garage into the driveway to have enough space to swap the kiddie seats in and out. The maneuver also required removing one rear head rest because it interfered with the upper part of the forward-facing child seat, and this requires partially folding that rear seat forward to be able to remove the head rest. We found that it was also necessary to slide the front seats forward and flip the back rests forward so that we had enough room to get to the child seat restraints and belts.
We wind up needing to swap out the child seats a couple times a week because we have two cars and only one pair of child seats. So this will become a frequent exercise. Not a huge deal, but if it's raining (if it ever does around here again), I'd be either doing this drill in the rain in the driveway, or back the Prius out in the rain to be able to get the i3 doors fully open and move the kid seats in and out. First world problems, to be sure.
- The placement of the charge access door on the right rear fender. I was lucky that I chose a 25 foot cable when I bought my Aerovironment L2 EVSE. Since I mounted the EVSE near the left front fender of a headed-in car, my choices with the i3 are to back the car into the garage or to wrap the cord around the car to get the plug to the i3 charge port. The latter choice was the more appealing one to me, and it worked fine, aided by the i3's short overall length.
* And of course, I find the car's price and value for money proposition disappointing. I'm going to want a good sized discount AND a boost to the residual percentage to feel okay about the lease pricing. We'll see how things are next Spring, when I'm in the market. But BMW really needs to kick in the whole $7,500 Fed rebate, or price the car to make up for the difference. OCF (Owner's Choice with Flex - a purchase program with a guaranteed buy-back at the end of the term) programs are less attractive in California because you're charged sales tax on the car's full cost, even though you're only using it for a portion of its life. Leasing would be more attractive to me, but not at BMW's current pricing, rebate amount and residuals.
Lastly, the only issue or problem I had in three days and 265 miles was a problem with " low cost charging". Even though I had set the car in that mode, it insisted on charging immediately. This was with Level 2 charging with about 15% SOC remaining.
And by the way, my existing Aerovironment Level 2 home EVSE with Nissan badging worked great with the i3.
When activated, the ACC displays an icon of a car on the road ahead of you. That means you are locked onto a vehicle in your path.
One of the coolest features on the i3 is the Active Cruise Control. The Parking Assistant is cool tech also, but honestly I can't see myself ever using it except to show it off to friends. I can park the car just fine on my own, and faster than the Parking Assistant can. The ACC on the other hand is not only really cool, but very useful.
Whether I'm stuck in slow moving traffic or driving long distance on the highway I'm finding myself using the ACC more and more. It's kind of like locking onto the car in front of you with a tractor beam from some sci-fi show and letting it pull you along. However there is one thing that needs to be improved upon with the i3's ACC. It will occasionally disengage by itself without warning. Yes, it does post a notice on the center display screen that it has deactivated, but unfortunately that is already after it shut off so it's not any real help. In traditionally powered cars, this is less of an issue because the i3 has such strong regenerative braking. When the ACC disengages in a gas car, it will go into a freewheel coast and be barely noticeable, other than the fact that it is gradually slowing down. In the i3, when the ACC disengages the car immediately goes into full regenerative braking mode and abruptly decelerates. It actually quite startling and certainly a safety issue because if someone happens to be tailgating you they could easily run into the back of your car.
The ACC seems to have difficulty driving when you are driving into direct sunlight
Knowing this, many of the existing i3 owners and I are always ready with our foot at the accelerator in case the ACC disengages, so we can quickly restore power to the motor and stop the vehicle from decelerating. It's something that you quickly adjust to, but if you aren't ready for it at the very least it's scary, and at worst a huge safety issue. It seems to happen much more when it's raining, and when the sun is low in the sky and you are driving directly into it. These things must confuse the cameras used for the system. I've also noticed that by driving under some low overpasses the system will shut off on occasion. Perhaps the system gets confused thinking the bridge is an obstruction in the roadway. BMW has advised keeping the windshield clean so the system can see clearly outward, but that is never an issue with me as I always keep my windshield clear.
I believe the answer to this issue would be for BMW to change the software so the car freewheels like a conventional BMW if the ACC disengages by itself. The free wheeling could last for 4 or 5 seconds which could then be followed by the regenerative braking slowly gaining strength. This would prevent the abrupt deceleration that currently occurs when this happens and give the driver a few seconds to realize what just happened and act accordingly. Of course the ultimate goal would be to eliminate the self-disengaging of the system, but that will never be 100%. There will always be circumstances where the system gets "confused" and need to turn control back over to the driver.
I'll continue to use the ACC because it's really a great feature, but I'm always "at the ready" while using it. I wanted to write this post for the new i3 owners out there that follow here just in case you weren't aware of this issue. I was actually inspired by a follower of this blog who recently got an i3 and sent me an email asking about this. He was concerned that it was a problem with his particular car. So if you are new to the i3 and the ACC feature, just be ready at all times to respond with some throttle and you'll have nothing to worry about. I'm sure BMW is aware of this and already working on a solution. I don't believe it can stay like this without some kind of update to eliminate or minimize the abrupt deceleration following deactivation. At some point, it will cause an accident if not addressed.
The 650cc twin cylinder engine used in the i3 is borrowed from BMW's Motorrad division and modified for the REx
From the first word that the North American version of the i3 REx would have restrictions not found on its European counterpart, i3 enthusiasts and customers in the US and Canada have wondered how well it would work under strenuous driving conditions.
In fact, it is by far the topic I now get the most correspondence over. I have probably received over 100 emails through this blog from followers that want to know how well the range extender works and how capable it is. People want to know things like what speed the car can maintain in charge sustaining mode and for how many miles can the car maintain highway speeds on a certain percentage upgrade, and so on. I even have had people ask me if I could conduct specific tests with my car to confirm it can do what they need it to. The reason being is the 34hp REx engine can only deliver about 25kWs (although some reports say BMW upped it to 28kWs) of power. That is plenty of power for nearly all normal driving needs, but not enough for continued high speed or long upgrade driving. The problem then arises if you continue to consume more energy than the REx can deliver.
My i3 when the REx turns on. Notice the tiny little bar of electric reserve to the left of the triangle. That indicates the 6.5% SOC position where the REx initiates and tries to maintain. There isn't a lot of buffer there for strenuous driving conditions.
The root of the problem reverts back to BMW's desire to have the i3 REx certified a BEVx vehicle by the California Air Resource Board. This allows BMW to get the most ZEV credits per vehicle, and also allows the i3 REx to qualify for other perks, like sales tax exemption in New Jersey and Washington State. It also allows the owner to get the full $2,500 California CVRP rebate, unlike all other PHEVs which only get $1,500. However this came with a cost, one that everybody with an i3 REx from every state has to endure. BMW had to restrict the REx use to comply with CARB's BEVx classification. The European i3 REx can be manually turned on any time the state of charge is lower than 75%. This is called a Hold Mode and allows the driver to hold a higher state of charge and keep a higher battery buffer which they may need for continued strenuous driving conditions later in the journey. The North American version has no Hold Mode, and the range extender only comes on when the battery is reduced to a critically low 6.5%. For normal driving that is fine, but when really pressed for continued periods, the car cannot maintain full power.
The European i3 REx has a Hold Mode which allows the driver to manually turn on the range extender if they need to. This feature is disabled for North America and is that is the root of the problem.
This creates a problem when the driver needs to drive for an extended period which demands an energy draw of more than 25kWs. The meager 6.5% battery reserve can quickly deplete in these conditions. When this happens, the car goes into a reduced power mode and can only maintain a speed of about 40mph. To make matters even worse, the driver gets no warning and the car just slows down. This is not what you want happening to you when you are on a highway and cars are whizzing by you at 70mph. This is a real issue, and compounded by the problem that most BMW client advisers didn't know how to communicate this to the customers and sold them the cars without informing them how to properly operate the vehicle in REx mode. I've had people contact me that were completely unaware of how the range extender worked and said they were told by their client adviser that "the car can do anything in range extender mode as it can in all electric mode, it just doesn't have quite as much power." That isn't true, and many early i3 REx customers were disappointed when they found out they couldn't drive up that mountain to their summer home, for example. In fact, one the Born Electric guest bloggers here mentioned an instance where he went into reduced power mode with a car full of friends.
Don Parsons of Denver, Colorado recently took his i3 REx to the summit of Mt Evans which is the highest elevation with paved road in the US. He did experience the REx reduced power mode, but it didn't stop him from completing the14,000 ft ascent to the summit. This, of course is about as taxing on the range extender as it gets!
All that said, I now have over 10,000 miles on my i3 REx and not once have I ever gone into reduced power mode, and I've actually tried to make it happen! The "problem" I'm having is the highways are relatively flat here in New Jersey and the REx can basically handle anything I give it. The times I have tried to make it happen the flow of traffic wasn't fast enough for me to maintain a speed of over 75mph for a long enough period. 75 mph on relatively flat ground seems to be the upper limit the REx can handle for continued driving. There is plenty of energy to go up and down the hills I routinely drive over, and also to have short bursts of power well past 80 mph for passing if needed in REx mode, so for me the car works perfectly and I really don't need a modification. However my friends in California and other areas of the country that have long, steep inclines to negotiate disagree, and want to see some kind of modification to allow the range extender to turn on at a higher state of charge so the vehicle has a larger electric buffer. In fact, there will soon be a two-part post here by an i3 Rex owner in California that has been obsessing a bit over this very topic. (well, I call it obsessing, he calls it studying - I'll let you be the judge when you read his post next week!)
The Chevy Volt has a much more robust range extender engine and can operate under just about any condition without an issue. However it has about half the electric range as the i3 REx, meaning you will need to use it much more, so it has to be more capable. With a 70-80 mile all electric range, most i3 owners will not need to use the REx frequently.
So now that we understand the problem, what is the solution. Should BMW simply give up the value of the BEVx designation and allow the driver to initiate Hold Mode as the European i3 REx owners can? That isn't happening as far as I can tell. What I do believe is going to happen? Well for starters there will be software updates that include better indicators that the car may be headed to reduced power mode if you don't take action to alleviate it. Perhaps by slowing down 5-10 mph you can completely avoid having a problem at all. I also expect there will be a better state of charge display so the driver has more accurate display of how much power they have left. I would also love if BMW could add a display that would show the actual power draw you are using, so the driver can see if they are drawing more energy than the REx is producing. That would be an awesome tool for the driver to use in these situations and I do hope the BMW engineers consider adding it.. However I'm saving the best for last. It is my belief that BMW is working on an update that will indeed allow the range extender to turn on much earlier than the 6.5% threshold if the car determines you will need the extra power. This will work with the navigation system which accounts for topography. Once a destination is entered, the car will determine how early the REx will need to be turned on so it avoids reduced power while climbing an upgrade at the end of the journey.
The i3's range extender sits next to the electric motor above the rear axle
While this isn't quite as good as having the ability to manually turn on the range extender, it's pretty close. The bottom line is people just want to be able to get to their destination without worry of a reduced power "slowdown" while driving on the highway. If the modifications that BMW are working on do indeed work, I don't think anyone will complain. In fact, I've privately asked this very question to quite a few current i3 REx owners and every one said as long as it works, and they can use the car to drive up long, sustained inclines at highway speeds, then they'll be very happy. From what I understand the update could be available as early as the first quarter of 2015 and will indeed be available as a software update to existing i3 REx owners.Of course it would have been better if this was available right from the launch, but at least BMW is working quickly (the i3 has only been available for about five months in North America) to correct the problem.
John spending some time with the i3s carbon fiber big brother, the BMW i8
Below is a guest post from a fellow BMW ActiveE Electronaut who went on to get an i3 REx, just as I did. John and I have had quite a few discussions about the i3's range extender implementation for the North American market. In fact, he almost didn't get the car because of it. As you will read below, he's given a lot of thought to how BMW has implemented the REx to achieve the California Air Resource Board's BEVx designation and why he believes CARB should reconsider the strict requirements they have imposed. This will be the first part of his contribution here. Next week I'll publish the second part which will summarize his "SF Bay Area to Tahoe" road trip to see how the range extender fared on this strenuous, 7,000+ ft climb up to Donner Summit.
My name is John Higham and I was Born Electric on June 2, 2014. I am an aerospace engineer with expertise in designing spacecraft and have 11 U.S. patents on various aspects of spacecraft design, control and operations. When I'm not EVangelizing the benefits of electric vehicles I enjoy cycling, hiking and pretty much anything else that includes fresh air and sunshine. I have also traveled extensively and have written several magazine articles and one book on world travel.
You can determine where an individual’s passion lies by discovering what upsets them. The reasoning is simple -- if you simply don’t care about, say, bicycle racing, you’re unlikely to be perturbed by what Lance Armstrong may or may not have done to win the Tour de France. But if bicycle racing is your passion, you’re not only well versed on the history of Lance’s doping scandal, but also know the nuance of who knew what when; more importantly you are outraged over the loss of sportsmanlike competition from 1999 to 2005.
It is with that understanding that I go on record to say the BMW i3 REx makes me absolutely crazy. Before I indulge that proclamation, I would like to state what is admirable about the i3. Then the remainder of this post is to document what makes me crazy about the i3 REx -- complete with numbers and graphs.
I love the fresh thinking that BMW bestowed on the i3. I love the carbon fiber. I love the environmental responsibility that was engineered into the i3’s cradle-to-grave lifecycle. I love the Colin Chapman-esque“add lightness” mind set. I love the low center of mass. I love the open, light and airy interior. I love the taut suspension and go-kart like handling. Did I mention the carbon fiber? Love that. Perhaps most of all, I love the optional Range Extender (REx).
Ah, yes. The REx. There’s the rub. In concept the REx is brilliant, at least from my point of view. In its execution, the US spec'd REx is at best an opportunity lost. This is not BMW’s fault. Not entirely, anyway, but let’s leave that aspect of the discussion for another post. But first, let me lay the groundwork on why the REx is both important and game-changing for electric vehicles, then we'll discuss how the REx (in US spec) is an opportunity lost.
People buy a car for a multitude of reasons, but I think it is reasonable to say that two very big factors are first, fulfilling the mundane task of getting from “A” to “B” and second, to enable spontaneity. An electric vehicle does the former brilliantly for the vast majority of use cases.
Why then are electric vehicles shunned by the masses? I submit it’s because they do a poor job of the latter. In fact, saying an electric vehicle doesn’t enable spontaneity is being too kind. In truth, an electric vehicle kills spontaneity.
Who can forget the heady days after receiving one’s driver’s license, keys in hand and a full tank of gas -- it’s a breath of pure freedom into the soul of every teenager. Fast-forward a few years and by the time that teenager has acquired a mortgage and is considering a new car purchase for their commute, the practical side of automobile ownership looms large. An electric vehicle may seem like a practical choice. But no grown-up can completely suppress the siren song of the freedom car ownership gives. Spontaneity isn’t always fun and games, as I learned scraping the last few lithium ions off my BMW ActiveE’s cathode taking an unplanned detour to a hospital emergency room. Everyone who has ever owned an electric vehicle knows that driving has to be managed.
What the heck? Manage? Manage is the antithesis of spontaneity. Can any EV driver think of coming home on a Friday after a long commute home from their day job, to discover their spouse wants to go out on the town for an evening and just grab the keys and go?
Perhaps the Tesla drivers can do this, but no other EV is capable of this simple feat. And while Tesla is a fine car, it just isn’t the package I’m looking for. There is something about hauling around an extra 1,000 pounds of battery whose capability goes untouched much of the time that just doesn’t sit well with me. And I know I’m not alone.
The reason that the public eschews EVs can be summed as in one word -- range. First, the lack of range for those occasional cross-country drives and second, the potential to simply be out of range and out of luck at the end of the day when there are errands to run or fun to be had.
This is the reason why the accusation that electric vehicles are the playthings of the rich is frankly accurate more often than not. Because while an electric vehicle makes a great second car, it is often a poor choice as an only car for many families and individuals.
The REx changes all this. Let me explain.
A Transitional Electric Vehicle
For the EV to live up to its potential of being the only car a driver would ever need exactly one thing needs to happen -- the ability to add energy as thoughtlessly and effortlessly as the plain old Internal Combustion Engine vehicle. Fast chargers go a long way to fill that role, but fast chargers are still too slow and not nearly plentiful enough to be practical for many legitimate use cases. Until the “time to charge” issue is resolved a bridge needs to be built. I give you the REx -- it has the potential to bridge the gap between EV and ICE.
The California Air resources Board (CARB) created a category of vehicle called the Transitional Zero Emission Vehicle (TZEV) as a way to help both the public and auto manufacturers to make the transition to a purely zero-emission vehicle such as a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV), the implication being that this group of vehicles serves as a transition to a pure BEV. TZEVs are further defined into sub-categories, one being the Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) and another called the Battery extended Electric Vehicle (BEVx). The BMW i3 falls into the BEVx category.
What does all this mean? Glad you asked.
The Genius of CARB’s BEVx Classification
Two of the more popular PHEVs are the Chevy Volt and the Toyota Plug-in Prius. It has been said that PHEVs are a gateway drug to BEVs. My anecdotal evidence suggests this is true; everyone I know with a Chevy Volt or Plug-in Prius wishes they had more electric range and has stated their next electric car will at a minimum have increased electric range over their current car.
According to the website voltstats.net the Chevy Volt community drives nearly 80% of its miles all electric; one driver has managed over 30,000 miles on a single tank of gas.
This simple statistic reveals a powerful fact; once experienced, people love to drive electric. The reasons are manifold and range from cost savings, to the quiet smoothness, to the adrenaline rush of instant torque. Some even drive electric to be environmentally conscious.
But Volt drivers aren't exactly gobbling up BEVs as their leases expire. Why is that?
It's because the Volt can be the only car a driver ever needs. The Volt can drive across country without blinking an eye and it can indulge your last-second whim to go out to dinner, even when its battery is flat.
CARB engineered the Battery extended-range Electric Vehicle (BEVx) classification to increase the electric miles driven for PHEV-class cars like the Volt from the current 80% to over 90%. I submit that the BEVx is much more than that. It has the potential of bridging the gap between EV and ICE and being the only car a driver needs. That's the genius of the BEVx.
A PHEV's All Electric Range (AER) is typically 40 miles or less. Its engine is what one might call a normal size and it is mechanically connected to the driving wheels via a transmission just like any ICE-mobile.
The BEVx classification is differentiated from the PHEV, like the Volt, by virtue that the engine may not even be an engine. The classification allows for an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) that may or may not be an ICE. The APU is not mechanically connected to the driving wheels, rather its purpose is to generate electricity to extend the AER beyond what the manufacturer engineered in. For an EV to be classified as BEVx under CARB's official designation, one important factor is that the available range while operating with the APU for the range must be less than or equal to the AER.
If the difference were simply that, I would have no need to be writing this. The other important difference is that the APU is constrained by regulation to turn on only when the battery falls below 6% SOC, shutting off once its SOC rises above 6%. This artificial constraint on how the APU manages the SOC means that BEVx class cars come close to being the only car a driver may ever need, but it fails for some use cases. That is the opportunity lost I'd like to explore further ,because it just doesn't have to be that way.
One of the many virtues of an EV is the quiet smoothness of the electric drive. Another important consideration of engineering an efficient vehicle is to keep mass (weight) at a minimum. These two factors combine to dictate that the APU be sized as small as possible. This should not impact the drivability of the car, however, because the APU isn't connected to the driving wheels and the power required to propel a car down the road at freeway speeds is frankly not that great.
On BMW's i3, the APU is sized such that it can maintain the car at freeway speeds on level ground. In the i3's case, the APU is a 650 cc motorcycle engine borrowed from BMW’s C 650 GT and detuned to 35 BHP. The APU with its associated hardware to generate electricity (called the genset) is referred to as the Range Extender (REx) and it increases the mass of the i3 a mere 265 pounds over the purely electric BEV version of the i3.
To propel the car at freeway speeds while simultaneously climbing a significant grade would require a much more powerful (ergo larger and more massive) APU. Sure, the APU could be 200 BHP, but this would be the motoring equivalent of driving in a thumb tack with a sledgehammer, as the i3 only requires 35 BHP to maintain 80 MPH on level ground. Therefore in order to climb a hill at freeway speeds, the i3 needs to dip into the battery’s stored energy.
This is where CARB's BEVx regulations are problematic.
Since the APU is constrained by regulation to only maintain a 6% SOC, significant altitude gains are simply out of the question; at least at freeway speeds. On the i3, 6% SOC is only 1.13 kWh. If the APU's output is being utilized to maintain freeway speeds, the 1.13 kWh remaining in the battery is only good for about 725 feet of elevation gain as calculated further down in this post.
If you never plan on driving your i3 anywhere that might include an elevation gain of more than 725 feet, fret not; the i3 REx can be the only car your family will ever need. It is truly a transitional vehicle bridging the gap from ICE to BEV and has all the spontaneity and long-range capabilities your family may need. As long as you keep its diminutive tank filled, you're golden.
But if not, not.
The Abysmal Failure of CARB’s BEVx Classification
Before we go any further let's be clear. CARB's BEVx regulations impact any car that ever will be manufactured to this specification, and not just in California. For the BMW i3 REx, for example, the BEVx limitations apply to every vehicle sold in North America. Including Canada. The BEVx is a great way to assuage range anxiety if you're considering an EV. But if you want your shiny new EV to be the only car your family needs, proceed with caution.
For example, I live in California's San Francisco Bay Area. I like to take my family to Lake Tahoe, about 7,000 feet of elevation gain, a few times a year. That’s simply not possible to do in a reasonable amount of time in the i3 REx. This is because the i3's REx has been artificially emasculated via a design-by-committee staffed by political appointees who have no idea what it means to drive electric.
It therefore follows that if I want to drive electric, I can buy a i3 REx for the daily grind. But when I require spontaneity to indulge a weekend trip to Tahoe, I am limited to two options -- keep an ICE on ice or eschew the BEVx completely for a PHEV.
And it doesn't have to be that way.
SF Bay to Tahoe by the Numbers
California's SF Bay lies at sea level and the drive east to Lake Tahoe follows the Sacramento river, never gaining significant altitude for about 50 to 100 miles, depending on one's starting location. Continuing east past the state capital of Sacramento begins what is at first a gentle climb into Gold Country. Assuming the route is along I-80, the slope increases significantly past Gold Country until Donner Summit (elevation 7,228 feet), 95 miles east of Sacramento.
Because the i3's APU isn't sized to maintain freeway speeds and simultaneously gain significant altitude, to drive the i3 to Tahoe requires near 100% SOC at the bottom of the hill, say in Colfax, as outlined below. That’s simply not possible with the current implementation of the SOC management software of the APU unless you delay your drive significantly by charging your car at the local Level 2 EVSE (about 3 1/2 hours for the i3).
Yet fellow i3 owners in Belgium may drive their i3 REx’s to the Swiss Alps, which is of similar distance and altitude gain. The difference, of course, is their cars do not fall under the CARB rules; they can enable their APU at will to maintain the SOC until such time they begin their climb into the Alps. In that way they can drive on the REx on the flat portion of their drive, saving the energy stored in the battery for climbing up into the Alps.
To really understand the limitations, let's talk about the physics involved and then plot a hypothetical trip from my home in Mountain View to Truckee, California. Then we'll test the physics by doing the trip and compare the results in another post.
To propel a car down the road there must be sufficient power to overcome all sources of friction, aerodynamic drag and assuming you're climbing a hill, gravity. Staying on flat roads for the time being, at freeway speeds friction (from tires, gears and bearings in the car and so on) are vastly overshadowed by aerodynamic drag. The power required to overcome aerodynamic drag is proportional to the cube of its velocity and is governed by the following equation:
This result tells us what power is required, in Watts, to overcome aerodynamic drag for the i3. Assuming that other sources of power drain (friction, the heater in the car, etc) are negligible, we can make a pretty graph of the power required to overcome aerodynamic drag as the i3 rockets down the road, as a function of the speed. Don’t fret; we’ll make a reasonable estimate of some of those other power sinks later.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Power, in kW, to overcome aerodynamic drag for a BMW i3 at sea level.
Note the plot is given in the more familiar MPH, although the equation results are in m/s.
In a like manner, we can derive an equation for the power required for the i3 to overcome gravity as it is climbing a hill.
Now that we have a reasonable approximation of the power required to overcome both aerodynamic drag and gravity we can sum the two together and get an equation for the total power required to climb a hill
where I used the mass of the i3 and its occupants to be 1500 kg.
Tying it all together, we also know the output of the i3's REx is 35 HP at sea level, which is equivalent to 26 kW. What we don't know is how many of those Watts actually make it to the wheels to propel the car down the road. Up until now I have ignored things like friction losses due to tires, bearings, spinning shafts and the like Further, there are efficiency losses in the genset, plus losses in the inverter, motor controller and the motor itself. Finally, power may be used for other reasons than propulsion like running the heat, or the lights. Or perhaps the driver is a big Talking Heads fan and simply has the optional Harman Kardon audio system turned up to 11.
But if those power hungry subsystems (environmental controls, lights, audio) are kept in check, I've found by trial and error that about 80% of the power generated by the REx is used to propel the car, which works out to be about 21 kW. If you start using the heater full-blast (about 7 kW) and so forth, available power to propel the car down the road goes down commensurately.
Now we have a reasonable approximation for the total power output from the REx (21 kW) that is available to propel the car down the road. Equating the REx output to the equation we derived for total power, Pt, we can now estimate what the top speed of the i3 is as a function of the slope of the hill it is climbing, assuming no head wind and using the output power of the REx alone.
This equation may look simple, but it is difficult to solve in closed form; luckily we can feed it to the mathematical engine Wolfram Alpha and get the following results for hills of various slopes, s
% grade
MPH
0
81.0
1
74.3
2
67.5
3
60.8
4
54.9
5
49.5
6
44.6
7
40.1
8
36.5
9
33.1
10
30.4
Top speed as a function of road slope after battery depletion (at sea level)
Note the table is given in MPH although the equation results are derived in SI units.
Both aerodynamic drag and the output of any ICE changes as a function of atmospheric pressure. Repeating all of the above steps, but at higher elevations (lower atmospheric pressure) and a trend develops. On level ground, there is very little drop in top speed as you gain altitude. But as the slope of the road increases, top speed at higher elevations begins to fall sharply as compared to the table above. At 10,000 feet on a 10% slope, the top speed is estimated to be a mere 21 MPH. (For the REx’s output at altitude, I assumed the power drops linearly with atmospheric pressure using this source for a pressure model.)
Armed with this information, we can now take that hypothetical drive from the SF Bay to Lake Tahoe. The terrain is relatively flat all the way to Sacramento. This means that you can "REx it" all the way to the CCS fast charger located at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) facility in Sacramento where you can obtain a 80% SOC in about 30 minutes, but a full charge is going to take you a full 90. It's certainly better than Level 2, but understand there is nothing to do around the SMUD facility. So, bring your own food and entertainment while you're charging.
The alternative is to continue driving on the REx, but since the REx will only maintain a 6% SOC, by the time you reach the CCS charger in Sacramento your battery has a limited ability to make elevation gains. Continuing east toward Lake Tahoe starts a significant climb. Let's see how far you might get and what the consequences are.
When the REx turns on, there is 6% of usable battery energy left. According to BMW’s website, there is 18.8 kWh of usable energy in the i3’s battery. So, when the REx kicks in, there remains in the battery about 1.13 kWh of usable energy.
All of the equations above were derived in terms of power, in Watts. Energy is in units of Watt-hours, but we can easily derive similar equations in terms of energy. Rewriting the equations for overcome gravity yields the following:
Fg is the force required to overcome gravity, in Newtons
Eg is the energy required to overcome gravity, in Watt-seconds
and all other terms are as previously defined.
We know the energy remaining in the battery when the REx kicks in is 1130 Watt-hours. This is reduced by the 80% electromechanical efficiency assumed previously for 0.80*1130 = 723 Watt-hours. Reusing the assumed mass of the i3 and its passengers to be 1500 kg, we can solve for the height of the hill that can be climbed before the i3’s speed becomes limited by the power output of the REx.
Google Earth has a nifty elevation profile generator. From that you learn that you'll climb those 725 feet by the time you've reached Newcastle, only 32 miles east and well short of the goal to reach Lake Tahoe.
What happens if you keep climbing that hill now that the battery is at 0% SOC and the only power source is the REx? That’s simple, now that we have developed the table that shows us i3’s top speed while being powered solely by the REx, as a function of the slope of the hill.
Once again using Google Earth, we learn along that portion of I-80 where you’ve climbed 725 feet above Sacramento that I-80’s slope is roughly 4%, with 7% sections looming before the next charging opportunity in Colfax.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
According to the table we developed, the i3 will become limited to a top speed of 55 MPH on a 4% grade and 40 MPH on a 7% grade.
The message is, if you want to reach Lake Tahoe or even just Colfax, charge up at SMUD, or you're going to be a road hazard.
I’ll skip to the punch line now -- if you’re trying to reach Tahoe in an i3 you must charge in Sacramento and also in Colfax or you will be speed-limited depending on the slope of the road. Charge completely in Colfax and the i3’s battery will be nearly fully depleted by the time you reach Donner Summit, but at least according to my calculations, it is possible to reach the level 2 EVSE in Truckee if you’ve taken the opportunity to charge completely in Colfax.
Finally, I would like to ask the not-too-hypothetical question “what if I had the European version of the REx?” As noted above, the European version of the i3 REx has what is called the hold mode, where the REx will try and maintain the battery SOC at 75%. Since the REx is fully capable of maintaining the i3 at freeway speeds on flat ground, as long as the power consumed due to overcoming aerodynamic drag, headwinds, rain, environmental controls and whatever else the driver does is kept within the limits of the REx’s output, it follows that if you keep gas in the tank you’ve got 75% of a battery to climb a hill. 100% if you charge up at the bottom.
How much elevation gain does 75% of a battery get you? We already answered a similar question for 6% of the battery (about 725 feet). Doing the arithmetic for 75% yields:
This is more than enough to climb most passes in North America, including Lake Tahoe, at freeway speeds, just by keeping the tank filled. If only we had access to hold mode like the Europeans.
To verify all these numbers, we’ll take a drive to Tahoe and see how accurate the above analysis is. That will appear as another post on this blog next week.
Summary
Congratulations if you've persisted through the tedium of the numbers above. For the rest of you who skipped to the summary, here's the takeaway.
The BMW i3 is a Transitional Zero Emissions Vehicle. My definition of transitional means it is bridging the gap between ICE and the time when the infrastructure is in place so that a zero-emission vehicle has the same utility as an ICE-mobile. The infrastructure for EVs just isn’t there yet, so the car that best fills the role of “being transitional” is the car that will finally allow the public to embrace zero-emissions vehicles and drive the maximum number of zero-emission miles.
In my view, the BEVx class vehicles does that job the best (BMW i3 REx being the only one as of this writing) for most people. It could do that job the best for everyone if CARB simply changes the rules that govern the use of the APU.
Sure, I could buy a Volt. But I love to drive electric and loathe to buy gas. The Volt with its 40 mile AER just isn't there for me. I have had my i3 for 5,000 miles; 250 of which have been using the APU to sustain the SOC. That’s 95% all-electric miles as compared to the Chevy Volt, which has a community wide average of 80% all-electric miles. If I am forced to trade my i3 in for a Volt, just so I can make an occasional drive to Lake Tahoe, I will in fact be driving fewer electric miles than I am today. I am not the only person in this predicament. And yes, I could rent a car for those occasions I go to Tahoe, but let me suggest you go back to the beginning of the post and freshen up on the topic of cars and spontaneity.
Here is one solution. I urge CARB to modify the BEVx classification such that the APU cannot be physically connected the drive wheels, all-electric range must be greater than or equal to the range available on the APU and if the destination programmed into the navigation system is not within the all-electric range, allow the user to switch on the APU once the SOC falls below 75%. This will allow the i3 to make any drive in North America, just like an ICE or a PHEV, as long as one is willing to keep the diminutive tank filled. Now that's a transitional vehicle.
My name is Mike from metro Richmond, Virginia. I was Born Electric for the second time on August 11, 2014, with the purchase of a new i3 with Range Extender!
The i3 is my first BMW but my sixth car from the BMW Group as I have owned several MINIs over the past twelve years ranging from a base Cooper to the track-ready JCW GP. The i3 shares currently shares driving duties with my first EV, a 2012 Nissan LEAF SL. It’s the first time in 25 years of driving that I don’t own an ICE car as well as a car with a manual transmission. I think I am having serious withdrawals with no clutch as I really miss shifting for myself!
Racing the Sun
My first exposure to electric vehicles came at Virginia Tech as a student in the College of Engineering. As a guy passionate about cars practically since birth, I naturally found myself working with peers to design and build a solar electric vehicle for entry in Sunrayce 97, a multi-day competition sponsored by GM and DOE. This race would pit us against other schools from the U.S. and Canada and have us driving the car on public roads between Indianapolis and Colorado Springs with pit stops along the way. A typical one-day stage had us driving 50-200 miles completely on electricity. Hyper-miling techniques would take on new meaning and would have to be the norm rather than the exception! Like the i3, the solar car made use of carbon fiber (plus Kevlar) and aluminum to keep weight low and strength high. Unlike the BMW, our car employed several pounds of lead-acid batteries which were mandated as a means to level the playing field and keep costs low. Boy has battery technology really evolved since 1997! I would have the honor and privilege to qualify the car first at the GM Proving Grounds in Michigan and then across the bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Throughout the event at IMS, I remember watching GM reps drive through Gasoline Alley in an EV1 and thinking about how futuristic and cool it was at the time. We ultimately made the race and I was able to drive the car across the finish line in Colorado. It was both scary and thrilling at the same time! I just knew at some point down the road I would have an electric vehicle of my own. Little did I know that the knowledge and experience that I gained from the solar car program would not only boost my interest in EVs, but also somewhat change my driving habits.
Fast forwarding into this century, I had anxiously awaited the arrival of LEAF and Volt in my area. The Volt is nice, but I was more interested in the Nissan. I carefully monitored sales, waited until prices came down a good bit, took a few test drives of the Nissan, and finally leased a new fully loaded 2012 LEAF SL in Blue Ocean. The LEAF was my introduction to production electric vehicles and would allow me to gauge over a 24-month period whether or not a battery electric vehicle would mesh with my driving habits work in my life, allow me to explore the local charging infrastructure (or lack thereof), and force me to setup charging at home. The central Virginia infrastructure currently shows only a few public charging stations, but we do have Tesla supercharging stations so hopefully more Level 2 stations will be installed in the near future. More on the LEAF later, but let us now move into BMW territory.
One LEAF and one i3 REx. Could be the perfect garage!
No Availability of MINI-E and ActiveE
As a longtime MINI owner until a few months ago, I would have jumped at the opportunity to participate in the MINI-E and ActiveE trial programs but was unable to do so because neither one was available for lease in my area. Shame on MINI and BMW for not offering these cars in non-urban markets! I did get to see an ActiveE in person earlier this year which was an unexpected thrill. An ActiveE owner from the greater New York City area moved to Virginia and returned the car to my local dealer.
Tom's MINI-E and my ActiveE, side by side. Yes, I'm definitely jealous!
Choosing the i3 w/Range Extender
The BMW driving experience and range extender option are the two main reasons why I chose the i3. The LEAF is a very good car especially for the price, however, I simply wanted more in my next plug-in:
1)Greater range with the ability to travel to Washington DC, North Carolina (to visit my family) and beyond without stopping for a lengthy recharge, even if it meant using a little gas
4)Remain practical enough to tote around my 8-year old son (who loves to ride!) and occasionally carry a few adults and stuff
5)Greater use of available lightweight and/or sustainable materials
6)All of the above for a decent price
The i3 Rex fits the bill almost perfectly for me (except for the lofty price!) because I can limit my environmental impact by driving the car as a BEV about 90% of the time and engage the Rex 10% of the time for long journeys. My daily commute is less than 20 miles roundtrip. Most of the time I won’t need the Rex, but it’s there when I do need it thus eliminating the need on a daily basis for an ICE vehicle. The i3 is compact and roomy but not as limited in some areas as the MINI, it’s nimble and quick, it features traditional BMW rear-wheel-drive, it doesn’t look like any other car in terms of the exterior and interior styling, and I can take my 8-year son just about anywhere anytime. I actually like the rear window styling and think it makes changing lanes a little safer since it improves visibility! Does it look a bit strange? Yes it does, but the rear window along with the rest of the i3 is interesting in a good way.
I think all of the entries in the plug-in category are terrific however the Tesla Model S and Cadillac ELR (not really a consideration) are priced out of my range. The Chevy Volt is modern and refreshing on the outside but not so exciting on the inside. I might have considered a Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive or VW e-Golf (my pick between these two cars) however both cars will not be available in my area for quite a while. Sadly, the Honda Fit EV, Fiat 500e, Toyota RAV4 EV, and Chevy Spark EV are also not for sale leaving only a handful of plug-in EV models from which to choose out of the increasing pool.
My first trip to the local dealer took place way back in August 2013 not long after BMW released the first bits of information and images of the production i3. The MINI sales manager, whom I knew very well, introduced me to the BMW sales manager. I told him that I was very interested in the i3 and wanted to place my name at the top of the list. The only major thing that I wasn’t sure about was the price as it had not been announced yet. Meanwhile, I kept in touch with the dealer, followed the press releases, and discovered many i3 discussion groups and online forums. Many thanks to Tom Moloughney, Chris Neff, and other i3 owners around the world for their knowledge sharing and great blogs! I finally placed an order in early February for an i3 on somewhat of a reasonable budget with the following options:
·Range Extender
·Solar Orange metallic paint (changed from my initial order of Andesite Silver)
·Giga World trim
·Technology and Driving Assistant Package
·Heated Seats
The dealer pulled some strings to secure me a production slot in Week 10 (early March) only to have BMW headquarters push my order back a couple of months to build pre-configured i3s, accommodate supply constraints such as the shortage of Tera World leather, etc. I am a patient guy so it was fine with me as long as I ultimately got the car I ordered in the right configuration. While I received some updates from the dealer about my order, I frequently called the BMW Concierge to get information about my car. The Concierge was great and more than happy to give me the status of my order and answer any questions. Thank you, BMW, for this welcome service! My car entered production on May 21, completed production on May 30, passed QA with flying colors onJune 2, but then got held up at the factory nearly a month. It shipped out to the VPC (New Jersey) at the end June and eventually arrived in Virginia around the 1st of August. I was perfectly fine with letting BMW keep my car as long as necessary to do more quality control, perform hardware and software updates, etc. as long as it arrived just the way I asked for it and without significant issues. Total time from order to delivery was about 6 months.
I ordered my i3 with the gorgeous Solar Orange metallic paint. It really glows in the sun (pun intended!) and looks great with the two-tone interior of the Giga World trim level! The color palette is pretty limited at the moment with too many silvers and greys, so it’s a good thing that I have wanted to buy an orange car for a long time. Solar Orange truly hits the mark! For the time being, I am the only one in my area with an i3 in this color although someone else in a different part of town has a Solar Orange / Mega i3. My second and third choices, respectively, would have been Ionic Silver and Capparis White with either Mega World or Giga World trims. I had considered the Andesite Silver, but deemed it too brown.
Here is my opinion regarding each trim level and individual option:
·Range Extender – Must have in my case, biggest distinguishing feature between i3 and other EVs
·Mega World – Looks good with some colors, if seats are a bit light and materials not as rich looking as Giga World and Tera World trim, no Comfort Access and Sirius radio (can be added)
·Giga World – Best suits my taste with two-tone cloth and leather combination, leather dash, and eucalyptus wood plus you get Comfort Access, Sirius satellite radio, and garage door opener
·Tera World – Too dark for my taste, reduces the light and airy feeling of the passenger compartment; Climate is too hot / cold here in Virginia to have dark brown leather seats
·Technology and Driving Assistant Package – Required in my opinion since you are spending this much money on a high-tech car you should have the big center screen and bells / whistles too
·Parking Assistant Package – Did not order, but decent value at $1,000; Most likely would never use the autonomous parking; Backup cameras will be required on all U.S. cars starting in 2018
·20-inch Wheels – Gorgeous, but slightly harsher ride, more noise, perhaps more punctures
·DC Fast Charging – Currently no infrastructure in my area to support this option
·Heated Seats – Won’t buy a new car without them, great with cloth and/or leather seats
Solar Orange with Giga World interior is the best combo IMO.
Frustrating Delivery
I feel that I should mention here that the actual delivery of my new i3 Rex was quite disappointing. Not only was the car not even halfway charged nor did it contain even remotely close to a full tank of gas (even if it is only a whopping 1.9 gal!), but I would ultimately have to return to the dealer not once but TWICE to re-sign all of the Owner’s Choice with Flex financing paperwork making a total of three times to sign all the important documents. The dealer had driven the car to a local music festival along with other vehicles without asking me when they knew darn well that I had ordered the car and was close to coming to get it as I was negotiating with the sales manager but had not yet taken full possession of it. Plus it was not plugged into the charger, thus leaving the SOC around 30% at the time of the delivery. We did go to the gas station and fill up the tiny tank with Shell premium unleaded for just $6.55. At least it was squeaky clean as they had run it through the detail shop. While my car was on order, my Client Advisor had been promoted to a Finance person so I will chalk up the first mistake to the learning curve with his new role. The second mistake was inexcusable as I was told i3 financing paperwork had to be printed on “special” printer paper. Excuse my ignorance, what is wrong with the regular printer paper which is probably made of the same recycled paper? Honestly, I could discern no differences when I sat down for the third time to sign the paperwork. At least I got the dealer to discount the car by $1,000 (not great considering better deals could be had 100 miles away) and throw in some accessories.
Accessories and Paint Protection
As part of my deal for the i3, I asked the dealer to provide me with the all-weather mats and trunk mat/box free of charge. The trunk mat doubles as a cargo box with the pull of the drawstring which is kind of cool. I highly recommend the all-weather mats as they are significantly easier to live with than the standard Giga crème mats! For extra protection in the interior, I went to Target and purchased charcoal grey bath towels to place over the seats, particularly in the rear where my son will sit. The dealer also gave me a voucher for $50 for use in the parts shop which I took over to get two blue glow-in-the-dark key covers and the BMW i notebook. Additionally, I placed a call to Joe @ Autobahnd (for those of you with i3s in central Virginia he does top notch work) shortly after delivery to cover the front of my i3 with clear bra to protect that luscious orange paint. Joe did a great job and charged me $650 for full hood, front bumper, headlights, fog lights, A-pillars, and the trapezoidal lower sections behind the front wheels. I will ask Joe to return in the near future to do my lower doors and front fenders also.
I charged the LEAF over the past two years using a combination of Level 1 (home) and Level 2 (work) chargers. Now that I own two EVs, I went ahead and purchased a Bosch Power Max EL-51253 home charging station from Amazon for about $550 (after using a $50 gift card that I had lying around). The only disadvantage is the 18 foot cord, but it is long enough for my needs. I highly recommend this charger as it was easy to install, looks great in my garage, and charges the i3 and the LEAF without fail!
Overall Impressions
The i3 has been a blast to drive and trouble-free throughout my ownership period of two months and 1200 miles, with no warning lights or error messages.Overall, the car is fast, comfortable, efficient, fun, and turns some heads!The acceleration throws you back in the seat and the steering is very responsive, almost too fast.BMW engineers nailed the steering however I will have to spend more time evaluating the suspension to determine if BMW got the handling right because while the ride is fine I am not sure if the suspension and large wheel / tire combination really hit the mark.The i3 carves a very nice arc and corners more flatly than the LEAF but it doesn’t feel as stable and composed over bumps as I would expect from a BMW.My favorite part of the car is the strong regenerative braking – I LOVE the one-pedal driving!Switching the car into Eco Pro or Eco Pro+ mode allows me to complete local but long round trip drives (without tapping into the range extender) that I could not previously do in the LEAF, even driving conservatively in the middle of summer.The i3 BEV is fantastic also, but the range extender makes the car just that much more versatile.Visibility to the front and sides is excellent with a commanding view of the road ahead.I feel like I sit higher in the i3 than I do in the LEAF, which is surprising.I would not call visibility to the rear great, but the standard parking sensors work well enough.I am not a music lover, however, the base stereo sounds good considering there are no rear speakers and I have come to enjoy the Sirius radio on my commutes to work.My last few cars have all had Sirius and I had never spent more than a few minutes listening to it but now I do in the i3.If there is one thing to which I am not accustomed yet, it would be the drive pod (transmission).While easy to operate, it does not feel intuitive as I find myself often selecting Drive rather than Reverse or vice versa.
A few weeks ago, I was able to experience the range extender by taking a 215-mile roundtrip deep into the Blue Ridge mountain range to do some apple picking with my son. The trip would prove one way or the other if the Rex was worth the extra dough as I would be driving mostly at highway speeds along both flat stretches of road and moderate hills along Route 29 between Charlottesville and Lynchburg. The night before going to the orchard, I was pulling the i3 into my garage when I noticed a message on the professional navigation screen saying the Rex would run in maintenance mode the next time I drove the car below 75% SOC. Sure enough, the next day driving along I-64 the little engine came to life for about 10 minutes holding the charge steady as I cruised around 70 mph on the way to the orchard. I can enthusiastically say that we made it to the orchard and back without a hitch! Here is the mileage I was able to obtain during this trip starting with a full charge and the gas added by the dealer at delivery:
·EV range (highway): 74 miles
·1st Rex tank (used 2/3 tank of fuel): 47 miles
·2nd Rex tank (used ½ tank of fuel): 49 miles
·3rd Rex tank (used ½ tank of fuel): 45 miles
·Total mileage: EV: 74 miles; Rex: 141 miles
I arrived home with just under ½ tank of fuel after depleting the batteries and stopping twice very conservatively for a couple splashes of gas. This trip was my first chance to try out the Rex and I didn’t want to be left stranded somewhere with my son. The Rex performed flawlessly, going about its business without much fanfare! I could not tell it was operating at all on the highway, even with the windows up although we had the windows cracked all the way to the orchard. I could only make out a little bit of noise below 50 mph or so with more noise as I approached stoplights. There is also a tad bit of vibration through the seats when the Rex is running. The vibration becomes more pronounced when the Rex is really cranked to its max. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it thrashing, but it is definitely more noticeable at times. The only negative thing I noticed was some hesitation in power during one of two hill climbs, however, the car never lost more than a few mph and giving me the confidence to continue driving with a few changes to my throttle position. I should add that the hesitation occurred after the blue bar had dropped down below the 6.5% threshold and inched closer to the 0% SOC mark. Prior to this hesitation, I had taken off quickly from a stoplight in Comfort mode to gain momentum going up a hill but didn’t think about my acceleration affecting the power. The blue bar WILL move toward away from the small triangle and toward the 0% SOC mark if you accelerate hard and expend more power than the Rex is producing. I would suggest selecting Eco Pro or Eco Pro+ to avoid over exerting your right foot and closely monitoring both your speed and the SOC level. You shouldn’t have any problems!
Here are the aspects of the i3 that I like the most:
1.Strong regenerative braking – love using the motor to stop the car instead of the brakes
2.Strong acceleration – put the hammer down and it flies
3.Steering – ultra quick with a ridiculous turning circle
4.Exterior styling – futuristic and bold, especially in Solar Orange or Ionic Silver
5.Interior styling – love the design and use of different materials throughout
6.iDrive – completely new to me but I like it so far
7.Comfortable and supportive seats – conform well to my 5’7”, 160-pound body, no aches / pains
8.Clamshell (“suicide”) rear doors – easy getting stuff and / or my son in and out
9.Range Extender – brilliant, so far it has worked as advertised!
10.Adaptive Cruise Control – makes the car even easier to drive on the highway
11.Mirrors that fold down in Reverse – nice touch that makes parking that much easier
12.Enhancements – can be mostly done with software and hardware updates for current owners
Dislikes
There are a few things that either I don’t like or would like to see about the car, even though it is genius in several ways! Most of these items are minor and some even downright petty:
1.Unsettled suspension motions over bumps and changing pavement - could be more composed
2.Thin steering wheel – nice material, small diameter, but wimpy thickness
3.White / cream floor mats with Giga World – practically useless to me, what was BMW thinking?
4.Car is turned on but then turns off when door is opened – lawyers went overboard here
5.Transmission control stalk – not intuitive as I get confused selecting Drive or Reverse
6.Extras not available – heated steering wheel and opening rear side windows would be welcome
The i3 Rex has generally lived up to my expectations thus far as the first electric offering from BMW. This car is the most expensive vehicle that I have ever purchased, so I just hope it will deliver real value as the LEAF has a lot going for it at just $250 per month in my case! Frankly, the more I drive the i3 the more I really like it although I need to spend more time with it to understand its full capabilities. It was very exciting to drive my i3 a total distance of 200+ miles in one day – a genuine delight! I plan to keep the car for about 5 to 7 years and really look forward to a positive and rewarding ownership experience!
Donner Summit is the highest point along Interstate 80 in California at 7,228 feet elevation.
Last week we heard from i3 REx owner John Higham in a post he wrote which detailed his thoughts on the i3's range extender restrictions for the North American market. John certainly didn't mince words and offered his reasoning why he believes the range extender on the i3 should have its artificial restrictions (which are in place to satisfy CARB), relaxed a bit. John also promised to do a road trip which would take him from the San Francisco Bay area up to the 7,228ft Donner Summit in Lake Tahoe and report on the range extender's performance under these strenuous conditions. Below are his findings.
SF Bay to Tahoe by the Numbers, Part 2
Nailed it. Well, nearly.
In Part 1 of this post about all things REx, I declared that a US spec BMW i3 REx could not make the popular weekend getaway of Lake Tahoe from the San Francisco Bay area without being speed limited within 15 miles of Sacramento. How speed limited depended on the slope of the road as you climbed east into the mountains, but top speed would range from 40 to 55 MPH. The alternative was to fully charge in Sacramento before any significant climbing begins and then again in Colfax about halfway up the hill. This makes such a drive impractical.
I also declared that a European spec’d i3 would make it no problem, so long as one kept the diminutive 1.9 gallon tank filled and the feature known as “Hold Mode” engaged. In fact, European cars have made similar drives into the Alps.
The basis of these declarations is simple physics. In Part 2 we test the physics from Part 1.Twice. First with a U.S. spec BMW i3 REx and then with a European spec i3 REx.
OK, I lied. I don't have a European spec i3. But I do have a US spec i3 that has been modified to behave like its schnitzel eating cousin.
I drive the BMW i3 from my home in Mountain View, California to Donner Memorial Park in Truckee. The state park is placed at one of the sites where the ill-fated Donner Party settled for the winter in 1846. The snow that winter was as high as the memorial behind the i3.
A Quick Summary of Part 1
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) developed a class of car called the Battery extended range Electric Vehicle (BEVx). Some say the BEVx was never intended to be a car with mass appeal that can be driven like any ICE-mobile. But I ask, why not? Actually, what I usually say is “Why the hell not!” while shouting and pounding the table with my fist. I digress.
I believe that the BEVx class of cars represents the bridge from plain ol' Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars to pure electric that will finally allow the public to embrace EVs without looking back. Except.
There is one teensy exception and it is what engineers call a "corner case." In this situation the “corner case” refers to those people who require a car to maintain freeway speeds over sustained elevation gains. That’s what this post is all about -- to test how big that corner case actually is.
California's San Francisco Bay Area lies at sea level and the drive east to Lake Tahoe follows the Sacramento river, never gaining significant altitude for about 50 to 100 miles, depending on one's starting location. Continuing east past the capital of Sacramento begins what is at first a gentle climb into Gold Country. Assuming the route is along I-80, the slope increases significantly past Gold Country until Donner Summit (elevation 7,228 feet) is reached 95 miles east of Sacramento.
The i3's APU is sized such that it can maintain freeway speeds, but not to maintain freeway speeds and simultaneously gain significant altitude. It’s simply not possible to drive from the SF Bay Area to Tahoe in a reasonable amount of time with the US spec’d i3. Of course if you have the patience to charge every 60 to 80 miles, you can drive your i3 from the Bay Area to Tahoe or anywhere else for that matter. But that is impractical, even with with so-called fast chargers.
Since this post comes in two parts, and the test drive to Tahoe also comes in two parts, potential for confusion exists when referring to them. Let’s dispatch any confusion and call the first test The Apple Pie Test and the second test The Lederhosen Test.
The purpose of these tests isn’t to prove you can drive an i3 to Tahoe by taking logical opportunities to charge. You can. It’s been done. The purpose is to prove the assertions made in Part 1. First, that the US spec’d i3 REx is hobbled as compared to its European counterpart and second (and more importantly) that an i3 REx is more than a great EV; it has potential to be the only car you need.
Oh yeah. No math in this post. I promise.
The Apple Pie Test
The Apple Pie Test is simple: try to “REx it” to Tahoe and see how far you get. (Oh, I’ve made REx a verb, but the Oxford dictionary hasn't caught up yet.) Since this is my test, I get to make up the rules. The rule is simply to take a BMW i3 as CARB intended it to be delivered to the public and drive it along I-80 until the car becomes speed limited, then compare the observed results with the predicted results from Part 1.
To do this test I left the Benicia, California, CCS fast-charger with 90% SOC and a predicted range of 60 miles. The drive toward the Tahoe region is essentially flat for about 63 miles along I-80, then the road climbs into the Sierra Nevada mountains. I planned this section of the drive to be all electric until such time I hit the foothills. The goal was to set the cruise control to the posted speed limit (65 MPH) and simply keep driving powered by the REx until the car became speed limited.
In Part 1 I calculated that the car would become speed limited at about 725 feet elevation gain and by using the elevation profile in Google Earth, I estimated that would occur about 12 miles east of Sacramento.
The actual drive didn’t work out exactly like that, but close enough for the rough assumptions that were made. At first the speed limitation was subtle. I started to suspect the car was speed limited at around 800 feet elevation (750 gained), “flooring it" to coerce an increase from 65 MPH with the cruise control set, I achieved about 67 or 68 but no more. But by 950 feet elevation gain the effect was no longer subtle. Not only could I no longer keep pace with traffic, but was feeling very vulnerable and was searching for an exit in earnest. On some of the steeper portions of that section I was under 55 MPH indicated with traffic whizzing past at 70 MPH and above.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The BMW i3 was clearly speed limited on this section of road after leaving Sacramento powered solely on the REx
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
This photo was snapped moments after the previous photo
Anyone who has owned a BMW for very long can tell you that the speedometers are optimistic by at least 5%, if not 7%. So, that 58 MPH in the photo is closer to an actual speed of 55 MPH. In Part 1 of this post I made a table of predicted top speed as a function of the grade of the road. Using the GPS coordinates of the road and Google Earth, I found the grade of the road at the precise point is 3%; the table from Part 1 predicts a top speed of 60 MPH on a 3% grade; close, but some refinement of that table is in order.
In summary, the Apple Pie Test demonstrated that all that analysis, the calculations, graphs and so forth from Part 1 were within the margin of error that could be expected for the rough assumptions that were made.
More importantly, It proves that you can’t just REx it to Lake Tahoe in an i3. Luckily, there is a CCS charger in Sacramento, so moments after the above photos were taken I turned around and headed straight for it. With the miracle of regeneration the i3 got its SOC back up to a respectable level and I REx’d it all the way back to that CCS charger with no issues.
Hold Mode and Coding
The Lederhosen Test requires the use of a feature known as “Hold Mode”, which is on all Euro-spec i3 equipped with the REx; perhaps even all such cars destined for anywhere in the world outside of North America. What Hold Mode does is engage the REx (or more specifically in CARB-speak the APU) to maintain the battery State of Charge (SOC). Sounds a bit boring and perhaps it is.
The fact of the matter is, US spec’d cars have Hold Mode; the car’s onboard intelligence switches it on automatically when the battery SOC reaches 6.5%. The European version of the car also will switch on Hold Mode automatically when the battery SOC reaches 6.5%, but the European version also allows the driver to manually engage Hold Mode whenever the battery SOC is 75% or less.
The difference in the US spec’d car and its European counterpart is perhaps subtle, but as we shall see, the difference means everything if you require a car to maintain freeways speeds and gain significant elevation simultaneously.
What is important here is to understand that the US-spec cars do in fact have the European-spec Hold Mode programmed into the car. The menu option that allows the driver to engage Hold Mode manually is simply hidden from the i3’s iDrive menu. For someone skilled in the seedy underbelly of the BMW tuner world known as “coding,” enabling this hidden feature in the iDrive menu is trivial. To be clear, this practice is most likely frowned upon by both BMW NA and CARB.
To satisfy scientific curiosity, I “coded” my i3 to enable Hold Mode, Euro-style. On to the Lederhosen Test! (click through this link to read about how to code your i3: Code your i3)
The Lederhosen Test
As noted in the last paragraph of the Apple Pie Test, as soon as I became speed-limited near Auburn, I turned around and returned to Sacramento and specifically to the CCS fast charger there. After plugging in and after i3’s SOC had reached 90%, I once again set out along the same route toward my final destination in Truckee, California, near Lake Tahoe. Hold Mode is only available if the SOC is 75% or less, so after leaving the CCS charger I drove the first 12 or 13 miles all electric.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The CCS fast-charger in Sacramento in Sacramento is at an elevation of 50 feet.
The only difference in the two drives was the SOC at the bottom of the hill and manually engaging Hold Mode. This simply means the REx was used in the Apple Pie Test to “hold” a 6.5% SOC but on the Lederhosen Test, it was used to “hold” a 75% SOC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Engaging Hold Mode at 75%. Note there are 88 miles to my destination, with 39 miles of all-electric range available.
In Part 1 of this post I calculated that by engaging Hold Mode at 75% SOC the i3 should be able to climb essentially any mountain pass in North America, so long as one keeps the gas tank filled. What isn’t visible in the photo above is that Donner Pass, a 7,228 foot climb, is between me and my destination; it is time to put my hypothesis from Part 1 to the test.
With Hold Mode engaged, as one drives the i3 the REx keeps the battery SOC constant at the level set. If driving conditions are such that the REx (due to its limited power output) cannot keep the battery SOC maintained, then energy from the battery makes up the difference and the battery SOC falls commensurately.
Soon after leaving the CCS charger in Sacramento and engaging Hold Mode at 75% SOC I found myself once again in Auburn near where I had turned around just 90 minutes earlier during the Apple Pie Test. It was time for a lunch stop.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
As expected the battery SOC falls as elevation is gained
The photo above was taken at my lunch stop in Auburn. Note that the SOC has fallen 4% to 71% at 1210 feet elevation (1160 feet of gain). If I had stopped the car and let the REx run sufficiently long, the SOC would have returned to 75%. But that would have both taken time I didn’t want to spend and defeated the purpose of the Lederhosen Test. So, after a quick bite to eat I got back in the car and re-engaged Hold Mode at 71% SOC.
Leaving Auburn, I resumed toward my destination of Donner Memorial State Park 65 miles away in Truckee, California. The only thing between me and my destination was Donner Pass at 7228 feet, one more stop for gasoline, and the potential to run out of battery. But I had done my homework and was confident that I had plenty of energy left in the battery to complete my drive.
It was the perfect day for such a drive; the sky was a beautiful blue, the temperature was in the mid 70’s, the traffic light and SiriusXM’s Classic Vinyl accompanied me. During the drive I took pictures of the i3’s displays every 1,000 feet of elevation gain, but suffice it to say that the battery SOC slowly dropped in an expected and predictable fashion as I glided up the mountain's slope. After 45 minutes or so I once again stopped to top off the fuel tank.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The i3’s other “fast charge” port. I don’t like to use this method of adding energy, but sometimes a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The battery SOC has fallen from 75% to 54% after climbing 5300 feet.
After refueling, Donner Summit was less than 30 minutes away. I found myself so absorbed in monitoring the progress of the battery SOC prediction that I nearly blew past the sign marking the summit!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The i3, with Hold Mode engaged, used a mere 31% (75% at the bottom of the hill less 44% at the summit) of its SOC to gain nearly 7,200 feet of elevation. In simple terms, one can think of it as if the REx’s power output is used to propel the car forward, the battery’s power output is used to climb the hill.
By using less than a third of its battery to gain those 7,228 feet, the i3 REx is obviously capable of much more. In Part 1 I asserted that the i3 with the European-style Hold Mode was probably capable of summiting any road in North America. After making the drive over the Sierra Nevada’s I-80, I believe that point has been verified.
Summary
The i3 REx with the European-style Hold Mode is more than capable of conquering Donner Summit simply by engaging the feature at the beginning of the climb and keeping the tank filled. The US spec i3 REx is not. But the implications are far greater than this.
The entire thesis of this post and the previous one is much larger in scope than “can BMW’s i3 make the drive to Lake Tahoe.” The thesis is much more than the car or the corporation. It’s about an idea. A brilliant idea.
It’s about a transitional electric vehicle that the public can embrace without looking back, without asterisks and without range anxiety. The embodiment of that transitional electric vehicle is the BEVx class; to date only one car is made to that standard. It’s a brilliant piece of engineering. Yet that brilliant piece of engineering is emasculated by regulations imposed by a governing body that should be championing it.
I’m surprised that Sir Isaac Newton hasn’t leapt from his grave and set his hair on fire.
The use case I have been passionately trying to demonstrate, that the i3 is fully capable of, may be an inconsequential corner case for the majority of owners worldwide. But it is a legitimate use case and one that the many buyers consider. And people buy to the corner case, especially if it is their only means of transportation.
Until such time that adding energy to an EV takes as much thought and effort as adding energy to an ICE-mobile, technologies like the BEVx are going to be required to get the public to embrace electric mobility.
If removing the restriction on the operation of the APU is not made, the genius of the BEVx classification will never bear fruit. That’s because even though the average driver does less than 40 miles a day, they also want the flexibility to take their car wherever they want, whenever they want. For this reason, PHEVs are about as “electric” as the general public is willing to go.
Once the current limitation of the APU software managing the SOC is understood by the public, the public will eschew the BEVx classification for PHEVs, such as a Volt. While that may be a better choice for the environment than, say, a Camry, the Volt driver will not be able to drive as much on electricity as if he bought a BEVx, such as an i3.
That’s why I’m writing; to beg CARB to Unleash the REx. It’s been said that the PHEV is the gateway drug to a pure BEV. If that is so, the BEVx has the potential to be crack -- instantly addictive. Make it so.
Facts about my trip from Mtn. View -> Truckee -> Mtn. View
Left home with 100% SOC
528.2 miles round trip
246 miles on REx
6.6 gallons of gas purchased
Ended trip with about ½ gallon more gas in the tank then when I left
A photo from the BMW i3 Sales Start in November 2013. Pictured are the first group of people to take delivery of an i3
According to InsideEVs, worldwide i3 sales have passed the 10,000 unit mark, just shy of one year from the i3's European launch.
It wasn't until May of this year that the i3 became available in the US, and after a couple months of relatively slow sales, the i3 has had two consecutive months with sales greater then 1,000 units and October is expected to continue that trend. Inside EVs also states that BMW claims they are now selling about 3,000 i3s per month and if that is correct, and the trend continues, then the second year sales will see over 30,000 i3s hit the streets. That figure is pretty much what has been said to be BMW's target for annual i3 sales, and if they indeed hit it in the second year of production then that has to be considered a success.
Me and my client adviser, Manny Antunes of JMK BMW. I took delivery of the first i3 REx in the US back in May
The initial year sales has been production constrained, with many European customers waiting 5 to 6 months to take delivery. I have had people comment here that they are in the UK for instance and have been waiting many months for their i3 to be delivered. Yet here in the states there is definitely excess inventory on some dealer lots so BMW has obviously given the US market priority with i3 allotment.
I recently attended an i3 meet in California which had over 20 i3s show up. It would be difficult to get that many together here on the East coast. California is the epicenter of the electric vehicle revolution.
There was a lot of speculation that BMW was having difficulty with production in the initial months and I do believe that was correct to an extent. Everything about the i3 is a new frontier for BMW. The materials and the production processes are different than anything they have dealt with on any of their conventional offerings. I believe it would be foolish to think they would just hit the ground running and not encounter some initial production snafu's and delays. Now that BMW seems to have the initial production issues worked out, they claim to be making and selling about 100 copies per day, which I'm sure is making the i3 product managers very happy. Hopefully, the level of interest in this groundbreaking car continues.
Those that have followed this blog since before I got my i3 know I toiled a bit over whether to get the range extender option or not. Having lived with pure battery electric vehicles for five years I really didn't like the idea of hauling around an internal combustion engine if I really didn't need to do so, even if it was a very small, efficient one.
Ultimately, the decision was easier than I had hoped. Once it became clear the i3 would have significantly less electric range than the two previous BMW-made electrics that I've been driving (MINI-E and ActiveE) I knew I needed the REx. As much as I love the i3, I'm still disappointed BMW moved backwards with the electric range in every EV they have produced. The MINI-E was good for a reliable 100 miles in moderate temperatures, the ActiveE about 90 miles and the BEV i3 is EPA rated at 81 miles per charge. I drive a lot and 81 miles would just be cutting it too close for me, especially in the winter when the range is negatively effected by the cold weather.
Our Equinox, Tacoma and i3 joined by my old ActiveE before I turned it back in.
So i3 REx it was for me, and fortunately I'm very happy it worked out that way. Without the reassurance of a long range EV like Tesla's offerings, there will indeed be some cases where the limited range of the sub-100 mile EVs require you to alter your plans or make compromises. I accept that because for me the advantages of driving electric far outweigh any small inconveniences that occasionally arise from the limited range or charging times. However the range extender option on the i3 was inciting because I knew I'd be driving on electric for 95% of the time, but still be able to take the car on days that I knew I needed to drive further than the range could accommodate. That has indeed held true because I have a little over 11,000 miles and only about 500 of those miles were with the REx running. However so far the REx was just a convenience, allowing me to take my i3 on days I needed to drive far when I otherwise would have taken one of my gas cars. I hadn't faced a situation where I really needed the extra range, and didn't have any other options, until last weekend.
My wife and I have two gas vehicles besides the i3. Meredith drives a Chevy Equinox and I also have a Toyota Tacoma pick up which I use when I need to haul large items like refrigerators for my restaurant, and I also use it to plow my driveway and the parking lot of the shopping plaza that I own and manage. These are our long range cars for trips like when we go to my in-laws in Vermont. So when Meredith needed to go on a company retreat which was 95 miles away in Pennsylvania she naturally planned on taking her Equinox. About a half hour before she was ready to leave, I went out to the garage to give the Equinox a once-over. I always do this when she's going far from home, just to be safe. The first thing I did was a quick visual inspection of the tires and wouldn't you know it, the first tire I looked at had a large screw sticking right into it and in a perfect position for me to see it. OK, there is no time to fix this now so the Equinox is ruled out. No problem, I'll load up her stuff into the Tacoma and she'll use that. It can use a good run anyway since we barely ever drive it. I then remembered that I needed to refill the washer fluid because it was empty the last time I drove it. I popped the hood, filled the fluid and when I closed the hood I heard a loud cracking noise and the hood popped back up. As I lifted the hood I could see the latch that holds it closed was rusted and cracked in half. With no way to secure the hood closed that rules out the Tacoma. There's only one option now, she'll be REx-ing it to the retreat.
The owners of the B&B she stayed were nice enough to let her charge up. They told her their son in law drives a Volt so they weren't totally surprised about a car that needed to plug in.
After a quick REx briefing (I don't think she had ever driven it in REx mode before) she was off. Since the temperature was in the 40's and it was all highway driving, I knew she'd only get about 60-65 miles before the range extender turned on so she'd be driving about 30 miles with it running. I had a full tank of gas so she wouldn't need to stop for gas on the way there, however we didn't know if she could plug in at all once she got there and she may have to drive the whole 95 miles home in charge sustaining mode. I've driven the car enough to know this wouldn't be a problem as long as she kept her speed under 75mph, other than the fact that she'd have to stop for gas twice on the way home. I did a quick check to see if by chance there were any level 2 charging stations near where she was going , but as I expected, there were none. Luckily, the bed and breakfast she stayed at allowed her to plug into an outlet they had on the garage, so she was able to charge at 120v overnight. Since the retreat lasted for four days, she had no problem fully charging even with using the car to run some local errands every day.
So even though I've used the REx a dozen or so times already, this was the first time it was absolutely necessary, and further validates my decision to shell out the additional $3,850 for it. It really makes the car so much more versatile, and allows me to not even think about the range. As others have noted, it really does allow you to drive more electric miles because you can use it for trips you otherwise couldn't with the BEV i3. Obviously, the ultimate goal is for longer range electric vehicles to become more affordable, and infrastructure to mature to the point where public charging and DC fast charge is ubiquitous. However until then, the range extender will play an important role in the adoption of electric vehicles, as it allows for utility that is simply unavailable in the vast majority of today's electric vehicles.
Trip stats: I was very happy to see 3.7 miles per kWh considering it was about 70% highway driving, with the cabin heat on the entire time.
Stats from the trip:
Going to PA: 61 miles on battery, 34 miles on REx While there: 49 miles all on battery Coming home: 65 miles on battery, 30 miles on REx. Total: 239 miles; 175 miles on battery, 64 miles using range extender Total gas used: 1.7 gallons (.9 gal refill when she was in PA & .8 gal refill when she was 1.5 miles from home). Averaged 37.65mpg while REx was running.
It seems BMW has been busy developing new ways to charge your i3 or i8 lately. A few months ago I posted information on BMWs new low cost DC Fast charger and I just got word from an i3 owner in California that the first one is already up and will soon be ready for use at Crevier BMW in Santa Ana, California.
A member of the i3 Facebook group posted this picture from Crevier BMW. BMW's new DC fast charge station has just recently been installed there.
The latest news out of Munich is BMW's "Light the Charge" program. BMW has developed LED streetlights that also have built in charging stations. They already have a couple of them in place outside their Munich headquarters, and will soon begin installing them around the city of Munich for a pilot program. The units will be networked and allow the customer to pay with a credit card or by swiping an RFID card from a partner charging network provider. In the US, BMW's charging partner for ChargeNow is ChargePoint.
The European version of BMW's light pole charging station. In Europe, the EV driver carries the cable that plugs into their car as well as the EVSE. Here in the US, the cable is permanently tethered to the EVSE.
The obvious issue with adding charging stations to light poles is available capacity. Will the utilities have to pull new wires to accommodate the added demand or are they already over sized and can handle the additional load? In Europe the standard electrical supply is 230v so there is already more available power than we have here in the US where the basic household supply is 120v. I'd imagine most light poles here are typically 120v, but I'm not 100% certain about that. Pulling new wires and upgrading the lights could prove very costly, more so than even installing stand along charging stations, but I could see how using these on new light pole installations would work.
Charging stations on all these light poles would be great for workplace charging, airports and shopping malls.
Besides street side parking, I could also see how this approach would work well for large parking lots. Instead of having the charging stations all located in one place, which typically is a desirable location close to the buildings, they could be scattered all over the parking area, and each light pole could service the four parking spaces surrounding it.
Whether this idea comes to fruition and becomes a reality beyond the pilot program is unknown at this time, but I like that BMW is really giving thought to how they can improve public charging for their customers. The maturation of the public charging infrastructure is crucial for mass electric vehicle adoption, and I hope BMW continues to explore new ways to help make it ubiquitous.
Well I guess you can't blame them for trying. Desperate times call for desperate measures, they say. Lexus is at it again with their anti-EV advertising and this time they made a direct attack on the BMW i3. Still it's a little surprising that they seem so obsessed with pointing out why you don't want to buy an EV, instead of telling you why you would want to buy one of their hybrids. It seem to me that it's kind of like when a politician has nothing good to say about themselves, so they run their entire campaign on spreading FUD about their opponent. Let me recap what has led up to this latest attack.
Back in May Lexus put out some questionable information and videos on their consumer website that was highly criticized for having incorrect content regarding electric vehicles. In fact the information was so outdated and incorrect that it brought about a response from Plug In America:
Hey, Toyota, the 1990s called. They want their outdated anti-EV attack ad back. Plug-in electric vehicles charge while you're sleeping at home, far more convenient than making a trip to a gas station and coming away smelling like carcinogens. Driving on electricity costs about one fifth what it costs to drive the average gas car and about a third what it costs to drive the most efficient hybrid. An electric drive has smooth, instant acceleration which can't be matched by any gasoline engine. If you don't believe me, just ask anyone driving a Toyota RAV4 EV. (disclosure: I am currently a board member of Plug In America)
Lexus got the message and a company spokesman pulled the incorrect information from their website and issued an apology. However about four months later they ran an ad that showed a lonely EV charging station, alone in a dark parking lot with the 8 steps to driving electric:
1) Closely monitor charge status 2) Turn off A/C and radio to conserve power 3) Download app to locate charging stations 4) Get lost searching for charger 5) Experience surge in range anxiety 6) Finally find charger 7) Plug in and wait four hours 8) Repeat
OK, so after it was clear this was a full-on mudslinging campaign, and certainly an indication Lexus was worried about the pressure they were getting from their electric competition. So now they put out this five minute long video, aimed at showing how miserable it would be to take a BMW i3 on a long drive. I'm not arguing the fact that the i3 isn't the perfect road trip vehicle, and using the BEV version would make a 300+ mile trip an adventure of sorts, especially today without the availability of DC quick charge stations. However it's kind of silly to think someone would head off into the desert on a 302 mile trip with an 81 mile EV without thinking about it first. That would be like taking a smart car on a fishing trip up a dirt-road mountain, knowing you have to cross a few streams and rocky passes along the way. Horses for courses, they say. In any event, yes we know the BEV i3 would take a long time to make this 302 mile trip, but how about if the i3 they used had the optional range extender?
It's very hard to see in this screen shot, but the outline of the top of the gas filler door is right behind the guy on the right, about waist high. If you watch the video and pause it at the 4.23 mark, you can see it better.
*Hat tip to Inside EVs reader Martin B. He was the first one to notice the outline of the gas filler door in the video.
While it still wouldn't be the perfect vehicle for this type of trip, the i3 REx could have done it much faster than the BEV i3. Yes, they would have had to stop five times to fill up the tiny gas tank, but since it's so small, it only takes about two minutes total (I've timed it!) for a gas station pit stop. So figure about 10 to 20 minutes added to the trip as compared to the Lexus hybrid. However as depicted in the video they took a BEV i3 by mistake, not knowing they'd have to stop to plug it in right? Maybe not. If you watch the video very closely, at the 4.23 mark for a brief moment you can see the top edge of the gas filler door just as one of the actors moves. So Lexus actually used an i3 REx for at least this scene and perhaps the entire video. Could they have used multiple i3's or did they photoshop out the gas filler door for most of the video, but missed it on this one brief scene. To me, that makes it so much more egregious. If the car they were driving in the video actually could have done that road trip without any issue, and Lexus lied about its capabilities, photoshopped out the evidence and presented it as incapable of making the trip in a reasonable time frame then they should be taken to task.
In this picture you can also see the corner of the gas filler door. It is difficult to see here in this low-res picture but when enlarged the corner of the filler door is clear to see.
While Lexus has indeed been spreading electric vehicle FUD for a while now, this is definitely a step up in intensity. Perhaps they took a look at October's sales data and realized for the first time since its launch six months ago, the BMW i3 outsold the CT-200h in the US. How could such a crippled, limited-range car that costs $10,000 more than their hybrid outsell it? Could Toyota actually have been wrong about EV's? Do people actually want them? Whatever the case it's clear Toyota is very concerned and has resorted to scare tactics in an attempt to steer people from buying EV's and lead them to their hybrids. Good luck with that Toyota.
One last comment. I've owned seven Toyotas in my life, and currently own a 1999 Tacoma which I use to plow my driveway and parking lot, and haul large items for my restaurant. However I'm done with them. I can't support a company that has such an anti electric vehicle stance as they do, going as far as lying about them and continuously reciting the rhetoric that nobody wants them. So I have this question for Toyota: If nobody wants them, why are they outselling your hybrids?
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
The aggressive tread and the specialized rubber compound of Bridgestone Blizzaks should help me get through all the bad weather this winter brings
I live in Northern New Jersey and we can get some pretty bad weather in the winter. The temperatures in January and February are routinely in the 20s (Fahrenheit) and can even dip down below zero from time to time. At those temperatures, you really should have dedicated winter tires for proper traction, even if the roads aren't always snow covered. In fact, most tire experts recommend that you buy dedicated winter tires instead using all-season tires if the average temperatures where you live are below 45 degrees in the winter.
The Rial X10-I that fit the i3 come in the bright silver pictured here, and also painted black.
That's not a plot to get you to spend more money on tires that you really don't need as I've seen some people contend. Winter tires are specifically made for use in cold weather and will definitely outperform all-season tires in cold conditions. The rubber compounds used in winter tires are completely different than what is used in summer or all season tires. Winter tires are designed so that they become stiffer on the inside of the tire, and more flexible on the outside to provide better grip at lower temperatures. They also have stronger bead construction to resist the multiple mounting and dismounting because winter tires are often mounted and dismounted every year, unlike regular tires that quite often stay mounted on the wheel their entire life. Non winter tires become stiff and lose traction, which increases the chance of the vehicle losing control and skidding.
In my case I absolutely needed to get winter tires because I ordered my i3 with the 20" Sport wheels. The tires that come with these wheels are summer tires which mean they are not recommend for cold weather use. The three 19" wheel options for the i3 all come with all-season tires and if you don't live in a really cold area, you can live with all-season tires year round. To complicate things even more, there are no winter tire options for the 20" Sport wheels of the i3. Since there are no other cars that have such tall, skinny wheels as the i3, Bridgestone only made winter tires for the 19" wheel options. Therefore, anyone who has the optional 20" Sport wheels and needs to get winter tires, needs to buy a set of 19" wheels as well. BMW sells a package that uses the base model i3 wheels (#427) and the Bridgestone Blizzak 19" winter tires. However, I opted to buy aftermarket wheels made by Rial, and the Blizzak tires from the Tire Rack. I like the look of the Rial wheels, and I also like that they are different from the stock wheels, giving my car a more custom look. I was actually a little surprised when I found out the Tire Rack was going to offer aftermarket wheels for the i3. Since the i3's wheel sizes are so different from anything used on any other car available today, I didn't think aftermarket wheels would be available so soon.
The Rial wheels bow out in the center. Not good for preventing curb rash or aerodynamics.
I'm sure I'll take a range hit from this modification, but how much I'm not quite sure. The aggressive tread and softer rubber will increase rolling resistance so that alone will make a difference. The weight will also be a factor. The Rial wheels with the Blizzak tires weigh 39.2 lbs, while my 20" Sport wheels with the Ecopia EP500s weigh only 36.2 lbs. Three lbs per wheel might not seem like too much, but it actually will make a difference in the car's electric range. Finally, these wheels aren't nearly as aerodynamic as the stock wheels so I'm sure my drag coefficient just went up. BMW spent a lot of energy designing wheels that are good looking, lightweight and are aerodynamic. These Rial wheels appear not to have taken any of that into consideration when they were designed. The large openings between the spokes are begging for increased wind resistance, and to make matters worse, they aren't even flush with the rims, the center of the wheels actually bows outward and will clearly increase drag. I'm really not worried about this though because safety in the winter, and being able to negotiate the snow covered roads of Northern New Jersey are my primary concerns. Plus, I have the range extender so if my efficiency is reduced by 6 or 7 miles per charge, I'll still be able to get to wherever I need to go without worrying about running out of juice. Bring it on!
My old MINI-E did pretty well in the snow. The front wheel drive and winter tires worked really well, better than my ActiveE in fact. I'm anxious to see how the i3 does, but I'm optimistic it will do well. The thin tires will help, as they will cut through the snow instead of riding on top of it.
