JurgT
New member
Hi everybody,
After many years of diving petrol-guzzlers, I am now back driving a electric vehicle. Having messed around in the early 1990is, with building and driving electric cars (Calypso 1 to 3) in Switzerland, I was able to order a i3 some 3 month ago at a BMW dealer in Durban South Africa to my specs. Exactly on the promised date, the car was there. As Durban is 1000km away from my residence, I was waiting impatiently for the car to be transported to me closest BMW dealer in Port Elizabeth, but none was in sight...!
Since I just could not wait any longer "to put me hands into one of these cars", I decided to collect the car myself.
From PE to Durbs, the flight (sponsored by my friendly BMW dealer in Durban!) takes 1 1/4 hour...much faster than back home in a i3...! On the same afternoon, I drove on a full charge and a full REX tank the 260km to Kokstad. Traveling in eco pro+ at 90 km/h, I enjoyed the pretty landscape that I have not seen for many years.
There at a B&B, charged the battery and filled up 7 L of premium and carried on my journey at 08:00 destination East London.
While driving through this part of SA, the old Transkei, (again all in eco pro+mode) I encountered a very good road but as a precaution did set the cruise-control to 80 km/h, as there are animals grazing along the road and one's got to be pretty careful around corners!
At times it was 32,5º C outside, but I did not switch on the aircon, it was bearable, but not to comfortable (years ago we all drove without aircon !!! At Kei-bridge, I filled up another 6,8 L and carried on to East London. On the coastal road to Port Alfred (132 km) there is no filling station, so I had to make use of the 10 jerry can in the boot (provided free by the BMW dealer!) but I never had to worry as I had planed that before in detail (using the data provided by BMW and Google maps).
At Port Alfred I filled up the tank and the jerry can, with 10,6 L of fuel and headed towards Port Elizabeth. Just to be on the safe side, shortly before PE in Colchester I filled up again, another 5,82 L (attendants always look confused by so little fuel purchased!) and that brought me safely home to Aston Bay, where I arrived at 20:00 not even tired, but exited!!!
The journey was tops, the i3 performed as promised and beyond all me expectations.
As I recently have converted our home to solar-power, due our awful power-cuts (called "load-shedding" in SA). And since we now produce much more power than we use in our home, I am using the power for driving this most sophisticated vehicle to go around every day, "for free" and very clean!
I surely must be the oddest owner of a i3, on the South African south coast, as my closest service station is Cape Town (690 km) or Durban (1000 km) ... but I have just been told that Port Elizabeth should get the facilities within a year or so (88 km).
This was the reason why I had to chose the REX!
Regards
Jürg
PS: have traded in my 2 year old Evoque for the i3 (no regrets)
After many years of diving petrol-guzzlers, I am now back driving a electric vehicle. Having messed around in the early 1990is, with building and driving electric cars (Calypso 1 to 3) in Switzerland, I was able to order a i3 some 3 month ago at a BMW dealer in Durban South Africa to my specs. Exactly on the promised date, the car was there. As Durban is 1000km away from my residence, I was waiting impatiently for the car to be transported to me closest BMW dealer in Port Elizabeth, but none was in sight...!
Since I just could not wait any longer "to put me hands into one of these cars", I decided to collect the car myself.
From PE to Durbs, the flight (sponsored by my friendly BMW dealer in Durban!) takes 1 1/4 hour...much faster than back home in a i3...! On the same afternoon, I drove on a full charge and a full REX tank the 260km to Kokstad. Traveling in eco pro+ at 90 km/h, I enjoyed the pretty landscape that I have not seen for many years.
There at a B&B, charged the battery and filled up 7 L of premium and carried on my journey at 08:00 destination East London.
While driving through this part of SA, the old Transkei, (again all in eco pro+mode) I encountered a very good road but as a precaution did set the cruise-control to 80 km/h, as there are animals grazing along the road and one's got to be pretty careful around corners!
At times it was 32,5º C outside, but I did not switch on the aircon, it was bearable, but not to comfortable (years ago we all drove without aircon !!! At Kei-bridge, I filled up another 6,8 L and carried on to East London. On the coastal road to Port Alfred (132 km) there is no filling station, so I had to make use of the 10 jerry can in the boot (provided free by the BMW dealer!) but I never had to worry as I had planed that before in detail (using the data provided by BMW and Google maps).
At Port Alfred I filled up the tank and the jerry can, with 10,6 L of fuel and headed towards Port Elizabeth. Just to be on the safe side, shortly before PE in Colchester I filled up again, another 5,82 L (attendants always look confused by so little fuel purchased!) and that brought me safely home to Aston Bay, where I arrived at 20:00 not even tired, but exited!!!
The journey was tops, the i3 performed as promised and beyond all me expectations.
As I recently have converted our home to solar-power, due our awful power-cuts (called "load-shedding" in SA). And since we now produce much more power than we use in our home, I am using the power for driving this most sophisticated vehicle to go around every day, "for free" and very clean!
I surely must be the oddest owner of a i3, on the South African south coast, as my closest service station is Cape Town (690 km) or Durban (1000 km) ... but I have just been told that Port Elizabeth should get the facilities within a year or so (88 km).
This was the reason why I had to chose the REX!
Regards
Jürg
PS: have traded in my 2 year old Evoque for the i3 (no regrets)
