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Well, from a weight standpoint, an equal amount of available energy stored as hydrogen, is going to be way less than the equivalent in a battery. Storing hydrogen in a high pressure gaseous state still takes some volume, whereas storing the same amount in a slurry, along with the equipment to...

From a maximum convenience standpoint, you may want to be able to recharge the i3 at its fullest capacity. Power=volts*amps. The maximum power the i3 can use is 7400W/hr. To achieve that, you may need a 32A device (which, in the USA, would require a 40A circuit to abide by the 80% rule for...

The batteries can be damaged if you let the SOC drop that low and let it sit in the cold prior to recharging. I think I read that the 20% is the minimum you want to let it sit and cold-soak in the winter. There's logic in the vehicle to override a time window you may set for low-cost charging...

BMW does a few things (probably more) to help maintain the batteries' lifespan. - active heating/cooling to keep them within a safe range - limit the min/max of use usable versus factual SOC - tapers the charge both at the beginning if hot or cold, and at the end to help prevent thermal problems...

Most places have both electricity and water, so it could be said that making hydrogen that way could be pretty universal, too. There's been a lot of progress in the electrodes and how pure the water needs to be to do electrolysis. That doesn't make sense today for most places, as it takes a...

Places where 220-240vac is standard have it better when it comes to plugging in their EV...people also tend to want bigger batteries, and charging them will take longer when you let it get down. If you don't drive much on a daily basis, and can get back to full in between uses, you may not need...

Off topic, but BMW demonstrated a home power storage system using removed i3 battery packs years ago. Given what the selling price of one from say Tesla is, and the selling price of a 2014 i3, personally, if the rest of the 'kit' required to use the battery pack was reasonable, I'd be willing...

On something like a cellphone or a laptop computer, yes, the battery will last longer if you never charge it to 100%, or leave it on charge for a long time, but an EVSE and an EV do not leave the power connected...the incoming acv is totally disconnected once the vehicle thinks it is as charged...

Saw this article today about research a company in Germany has been doing regarding making hydrogen easier to transport and use. The hassle still is that getting the elemental hydrogen is currently, not all that green, but IMHO, as solar, geothermal, wind, tidal power develops more, storing...

FWIW, BMW has some automatic buffers in their battery logic both at the top and bottom. Tesla, under some circumstances, will let you use more, and limiting maximum charge most of the time has some advantages. Unlike say a cell phone, the smarts in an EV disconnect the incoming power once they...

Electrical code only allows you to use a max of 80% of the rated circuit with something like an EVSE, so on a 30A circuit, you could put a max of a 24A EVSE, which may limit your choices some. If you were going to share that circuit with your dryer, you may want to install a transfer switch so...

No, I read it somewhere on the forum. You can probably get an answer from the Genius line or from your service manager. Someone may remember, and post it (again).

People talk about programming on BMWs, and that scares many people off. It can get messy, but BimmerCode is pretty simplistic...essentially, pick things off of a menu then tell it to program, wait, and it's done. It keeps a backup of the original, so you can revert back, if you change your...

You'll get several advance warnings if your SOC gets low prior to the system starting to shut down functions to try to preserve power. The time you'll notice you can't keep charging up a long grade will be as the SOC gets into the low single digits. On the flat, the vehicle can hold charge up...

The AUX18L is an AGM battery, so not as likely to short out as a typical wet cell.

It used to be, if you wanted to trickle charge the battery, you had to pull the HV disconnect first. Supposedly, that changes, depending on what system software is in your vehicle. Because the vehicle disconnects the 12vdc sockets in the vehicle, you can't use them to maintain the...

My X5 45e has enough battery range for 95% of my driving needs, but should I need or want to go further, it can easily continue on for 300-extra miles, and go again with a 5-minute stop at a gas station. The X5 has their largest hybrid battery pack (bigger than the original i3's), and I've seen...

MOst items fail upon power application, so you have to decide if the low wattage draw is worth the risk of the EVSE failing when you turn it on. Now, always being on also exposes the electronics (admittedly small in an EVSE) to spikes and noise on the power line that I use a whole-house surge...

The REx is nearly $4K more than the BEV version. Not sure about the resale value when it comes time to sell, but assuming you take out a loan, and how long, that price will be higher (and, if you take it out of savings, a potential loss of investment income on it). That could pay the rental...

No, they are very different. With ISTA+, you have essentially complete control of the software in any module and not understanding what you're doing, you can really mess things up! Well, in expert mode, you can mess things up with BimmerCode, too, but it's more extreme with ISTA. For simple...