Official BMW i3 thread

[GRA]

I'm not sure that the 'hold mode' hack will be essential from Roseville to Reno, and shouldn't be needed going the other direction. It's 74.5 miles and about 7,085 feet of net gain from Roseville to Donner Summit on I-80, but there's a truck climbing lane (typ. 35-45 mph) for much of the way, so it may be possible to make it on the battery to the Summit (no heater use). When all the side roads (U.S. 40 etc.) are open (spring through fall), I expect you could make it even easier, and from either Donner Summit or Donner Pass it's about 41 miles downhill to Reno, which can be done on the REx. Coming the other way, you should be able to make the ~2,700' climb from Reno to the Summit on the battery, maybe taking it a bit slow (55 or 60). So, while you couldn't do it at the I-80 speed limit going east up hill, it may well be possible to do it it with some inconvenience. Having the hold mode and maybe the larger usable tank capacity makes the trip easier, and certainly if this trip would be one done fairly often, at least the 'hold mode' hack is recommended; if you're doing that one you might as well do the tank hack at the same time, as there's no down side.

I should add that there are J1772s at Colfax, Cisco Grove and Boreal, as well as a Nema 14-50 in Cisco Grove should you need a top-off. Now that longer range BEVs are about to appear, I expect we'll finally start to see some CCS/CHAdeMO appear east of Hwy 49 on both 50 and 80, hopefully next year.

 

[GRA]

Via ievs.com:

Soft Demand Limits BMW i3 Sales

http://insideevs.com/soft-demand-limits-bmw-i3-sales/

 

[surfingslovak]

I just came across this article on leasehackr.com. Quite an entertaining read!
Californians, Lease A BMW i3 For About $130/Month, $0 Down (Yes, Really)

 

[user 10599]

Interesting to hear the discounts they are doing to move these. If I need to replace my commute ICE sooner than expected, this is probably what I would go with as the pure EVs don't yet have the desired range (excluding Tesla which costs too much).

 

[edatoakrun]

That's a larger improvement in range than I've seen in prior speculation.

BMW will boost the range of its i3 electric car by about half for the 2017 model year.

This summer, the lithium ion battery pack of the compact EV will be improved, "which puts it into a much more usable range," Ian Robertson, BMW AG board member for sales and marketing, told Automotive News at the Detroit auto show.

BMW doesn't have the exact figure yet, but a 50 percent increase means about 120 miles on a single charge, up from the current 81 miles. The i3 will get other improvements, which BMW has not yet disclosed...

http://www.autonews.com/article/20160118/OEM05/301189994/bmw-will-boost-i3s-range

I hope BMW can do it without increasing the curb weight or price significantly.

If so, it will probably put BMW back on top of my own most likely to replace my 2011 LEAF list.

I'd almost certainly want to get the BEV version, as for the reasons I've stated before, IMO, adding the ICE to the i3 only makes a lousy BEVx out of a very good BEV.

And it sounds like Nissan may offer another (and hopefully better) BEVx within ~a year, if I decide I want an ICE in my next BEV (x).

 

[edatoakrun]

Good news, IMO, that it sounds like BMW is resisting the irrational trend toward BEVs, that is Bloated Electric Vehicles...

How Much EV Range Is Enough? It Depends Who You Ask

...“I question the race to the 200-mile electric car,” says Jose Guerrero, head product manager of electric vehicles, high-performance models, and connected technology for BMW of North America.He is somebody who looks at the statistics and wonders why someone driving 36 miles a day needs a 200 mile car. “We don’t see exponentially increasing sales with a 200-mile battery,” Guerrero says.

BMW prides itself on building cars that are fun to drive. Guerrero thinks loading an i3 electric sedan down with hundreds of more pounds for a larger battery would diminish the cars handling prowess. “Putting a 60 kilowatt-hour battery in an i3 would kill the dynamism of the car,” he says...

http://gas2.org/2016/02/09/how-much-ev-range-is-enough-it-depends-who-you-ask/

 

[Firetruck41]

Bummer. I'd love to pick up a used 60kwh I3 in 5 or 6 years.

 

[Valdemar]

What about those who needs more than 36 miles and over more than your typical lease duration? Can we at least have an option to pay for a larger battery?

 

[edatoakrun]

What about those who needs more than 36 miles and over more than your typical lease duration? Can we at least have an option to pay for a larger battery?

Read the previous posts on this page.

With ~120 miles Electric range, CARB BEVx regulations will allow a larger gas tank, so it's likely that by later this year the i3 will have a considerably longer range between fuel stops than any ~60 kWh BEV.

That's a larger improvement in range than I've seen in prior speculation.

BMW will boost the range of its i3 electric car by about half for the 2017 model year.

This summer, the lithium ion battery pack of the compact EV will be improved, "which puts it into a much more usable range," Ian Robertson, BMW AG board member for sales and marketing, told Automotive News at the Detroit auto show.

BMW doesn't have the exact figure yet, but a 50 percent increase means about 120 miles on a single charge, up from the current 81 miles. The i3 will get other improvements, which BMW has not yet disclosed...

http://www.autonews.com/article/20160118/OEM05/301189994/bmw-will-boost-i3s-range

I hope BMW can do it without increasing the curb weight or price significantly.

If so, it will probably put BMW back on top of my own most likely to replace my 2011 LEAF list.

I'd almost certainly want to get the BEV version, as for the reasons I've stated before, IMO, adding the ICE to the i3 only makes a lousy BEVx out of a very good BEV.

And it sounds like Nissan may offer another (and hopefully better) BEVx within ~a year, if I decide I want an ICE in my next BEV (x).

 

[finman100]

So it still uses gas. huh. some 'electric car' ya got there BMW.

 

[pkulak]

Good news, IMO, that it sounds like BMW is resisting the irrational trend toward BEVs, that is Bloated Electric Vehicles...

How Much EV Range Is Enough? It Depends Who You Ask

...“I question the race to the 200-mile electric car,” says Jose Guerrero, head product manager of electric vehicles, high-performance models, and connected technology for BMW of North America.He is somebody who looks at the statistics and wonders why someone driving 36 miles a day needs a 200 mile car. “We don’t see exponentially increasing sales with a 200-mile battery,” Guerrero says.

BMW prides itself on building cars that are fun to drive. Guerrero thinks loading an i3 electric sedan down with hundreds of more pounds for a larger battery would diminish the cars handling prowess. “Putting a 60 kilowatt-hour battery in an i3 would kill the dynamism of the car,” he says...

http://gas2.org/2016/02/09/how-much-ev-range-is-enough-it-depends-who-you-ask/

Well, that does make sense. In my experience, most families that own a BMW also own at least 2 other cars.

Of course, my family has absolutely no intention to ever own more than one car, and having a 70-mile car as your only ride is a really bummer.

 

[edatoakrun]

Edmunds gives a positive long-term review, but with one major caveat:

As-tested MSRP for our vehicle was $54,800, which we negotiated down to $49,999...

After one year and 10,400 miles...we sold the car for the best price offered, a disappointing $26,000 from CarMax...

http://www.edmunds.com/bmw/i3/2014/long-term-road-test/wrap-up.html

After federal+CA incentives of ~$10k, that still means ~$14k depreciation in just one year, about the same as the total depreciation for my LEAF after five years.

Sounds like a used i3 might be a bargain right now, though.

 

[mkjayakumar]

Good news, IMO, that it sounds like BMW is resisting the irrational trend toward BEVs, that is Bloated Electric Vehicles...

I hope you are saying this tongue in cheek.

120 mile range is on good day under good conditions. And that reduces to 75 miles in 10F and snow, and some of us would like to have a 20 mile buffer before reach our homes, which means effectively ~50 mile effective range.

Not to mention, anything less than 200 miles range is useless for long distance inter-city driving.

 

[edatoakrun]

Good news, IMO, that it sounds like BMW is resisting the irrational trend toward BEVs, that is Bloated Electric Vehicles...

I hope you are saying this tongue in cheek.

120 mile range is on good day under good conditions. And that reduces to 75 miles in 10F and snow, and some of us would like to have a 20 mile buffer before reach our homes, which means effectively ~50 mile effective range.

Not to mention, anything less than 200 miles range is useless for long distance inter-city driving.

If you really believe all that, and that you need what no BEV can deliver today (except at prohibitively high financial and environmental costs) why don't you just buy an ICEV, rather than repeatedly milking government subsidies to drive BEVs, just so you can waste your time complaining about the consequences of your own actions?

 

[mkjayakumar]

Attitudes like this completely disconnected with reality is what is keeping short range BEVs in the niche segment.

You could cry hoarse till you turn blue that an 80 mile BEV is good enough, but I can tell you with that kind of myopic thinking, BEVs will be begging for Govt dole for a long time - scratch that, forever - because they will never become main stream. And I speak that from experience, having driven a Leaf for over 70k miles. For over 4 years of my ownership, my wife wouldn't touch the Leaf for anything more than 25 mile round trip and even then only if it is fully charged.

I am glad atleast two players - Tesla and GM - are thinking otherwise.

(except at prohibitively high financial and environmental costs)

This doesn't deserve a response except to say that you speak and think like an oil shill.

 

[edatoakrun]

="mkjayakumar"... I speak that from experience, having driven a Leaf for over 70k miles. For over 4 years of my ownership, my wife wouldn't touch the Leaf for anything more than 25 mile round trip and even then only if it is fully charged.

Amazing how you managed to drive 70 k miles in just four years, in a car you seem afraid to drive over 25 miles on "100%" charge...

I'll only have ~45k miles on my LEAF, after five years by this Spring, and don't expect to have any problem driving 100+ miles at low speed on a warm day using "100%" to VLB capacity. I expect to have lost only a few more miles from a "100%"charge, since last Spring, just as I have every year since delivery.

And I still got 50 or more miles using my usual charge on every trip I made this Winter, starting from "80%" and discharging to between LB and VLB, a far more critical factor for me, since that is almost always my minimum trip length.

mkjayakumar"... I am glad atleast two players - Tesla and GM - are thinking otherwise...

And not thinking very well, IMO, as both seem to be planning on trying to sell overweight, overpriced, economy BEVs, that still have very poor long-range driving performance.

Back on-topic, see my post previous page for more on why a large battery is a foolish way to extend BEV range for occasional longer trips:

...With ~120 miles Electric range, CARB BEVx regulations will allow a larger gas tank, so it's likely that by later this year the i3 will have a considerably longer range between fuel stops than any ~60 kWh BEV...

On the other hand, sounds like many i3 drivers have almost as much irrational range anxiety as some LEAF drivers do.

...Apparently the i3’s optional engine (we tested this version of the car roughly 18 month ago) has tended to be little more than a comfort blanket. “At the beginning of the i3, the [take rate of the] range-extender was much more than we expected,” Wenders said. “More than 60 percent. It’s decreasing dramatically now and what we’re seeing is that people are almost never using it and that it was purely a psychological thing; it is being regularly used in fewer than five percent of i3s...

More from BMW on the nonsense of sizing battery packs to meet drivers' irrational anxieties, rather than their actual driving requirements:

...we need to provide a battery and drivetrain that—from a CO2 investment—still makes sense. We are not going to join the race about maximum range figures. Currently if you compare those figures and see what kind of energy investment is behind it, you often see the total carbon footprint of those models is higher than for a car with an internal-combustion engine. That doesn’t make any kind of sense.”...

http://blog.caranddriver.com/bmw-i-chief-i5-ev-model-coming-will-offer-optional-range-extender/

 

[finman100]

continuing to rely on gasoline is foolish. ymmv. My clean air is necessary for ALL. Sorry to say but more range and a fast re-fueling network (BOTH are required!) are going to make the Tesla Model 3 much more compelling than ANY other mfg out there. Why tote around a gas engine and all of it's faults when a long range EV does the same range? I don't understand why so many others don't understand that 70-90 miles on a good day is NOT getting joe and judy q. public to go all in with EVs. But twice that? now that's a bigger market that want to leave gasoline behind.

 

[cwerdna]

="mkjayakumar"... I speak that from experience, having driven a Leaf for over 70k miles. For over 4 years of my ownership, my wife wouldn't touch the Leaf for anything more than 25 mile round trip and even then only if it is fully charged.

Amazing how you managed to drive 70 k miles in just four years, in a car you seem afraid to drive over 25 miles on "100%" charge...

I think you've confused mkjayakumar with his wife.

 

[mkjayakumar]

Amazing how you managed to drive 70 k miles in just four years, in a car you seem afraid to drive over 25 miles on "100%" charge...

Mine is one of those edge cases that fit perfectly well with Leaf's 80 mile range. I have a 75 miles round trip commute with a charger at home *and* at office. So in my case even a 50 mile BEV would suffice, and I am EV nut, who will go to any extent to drive an EV. I am a great hypermiler, and those skills helped me a few times in rough weather to get me back home. And I have two other gas cars that I use for weekend jaunts.

And my friends who leased Leafs after mine, they are constantly running out of juice, do very little planning, and sit at public stations for hours charging at 15 miles an hour. Out of 6 people who leased soon after me - all of them gave it back (or will be in a month or two) and are not leasing another one.

 

[edatoakrun]

IE claims it has more info on the 2017:

...Sources are confirming that the Model Year 2017 i3 will get a range bump from today’s 200 km NEDC rating to 290 km NEDC. For reference, the 30 kWh Nissan LEAF is rated 250 km on the NEDC test cycle (107 miles EPA).

Doing some simple math reveals that the 2017 i3 BEV should get rated at approximately 120 to 125 miles on the EPA test cycle, which is a vast improvement over the 2016 i3’s rating of 81 miles....

A commenter to the story adds more details, which also might turn out to be correct:

The battery will have 96 cells with 94 Ah and 3,75 V each.

96 x 3,75 V x 94 Ah = 33,84 kWh

In 2017 there will be another upgrade with 120 Ah cells.

96 x 3,75 V x 120 Ah = 43,2 kWh and 160 EPA miles range...

http://insideevs.com/2017-bmw-i3-to-enter-production-this-july-epa-range-of-125-miles-expected/

No word on what the BEVx range will be, but I'd find it hard to believe BMW wouldn't let the driver at least access the full ~2.4 gallon capacity of the present fuel tank, ~0.5 gallon more than it now allows all US drivers, since CARB would seem to have no objections.