Buying a used i3 94 Ah

[Pythagoras]

I'm looking for some advice from existing BMW i3 owners. I have a need to travel 70 miles round trip once per week, primarily at highway speeds. I live in the Pacific Northwest so the temperatures will range from 40F to 80F most of the time. I am not interested in the range extender for philosophical reasons.

What I would like to know is whether the 94 Ah battery is capable of the 70 mile round trip. I've read that the range in city traffic is greater than advertised, but I don't know whether I could rely upon the 94 Ah battery to consistently provide sufficient range as the battery degrades with use.

What Batt. Kapa. max value should I look for on a used i3 94 Ah?

Should the percent degradation be based upon the 33.2 kWh or the maximum usable of 30 kWh?

What is the effective max range available at highway speeds when the 70% battery warranty would apply?

Thanks for the help. I've been reading through some of the postings but haven't seen answers to these questions.

- Jeff

 

[eNate]

That commute would be a well suited for a 94Ah i3.

I've gotten 130 miles.-plus freeway driving in my 2017 BEV, and worst case my estimated range has never dipped below 100.

 

[EvanstonI3]

I bought a 2017 94ah BEV two months ago. It had 20K miles
Batt.Kapa was 29.5

While the Traction Battery does have a 33.2kWh capacity, we are only allowed access to about 30kWh of it.
BMW advertised "27.2 useable" but I am pretty sure that just advertising and a means of De-Rating the battery in advance so for everyone feverishly checking their Batt.Kapa, BMW can still claim that "70%" is from 27.2 kWh and not 30 kWh. But that is just a W.A.G. on my part.
It also possibly explains why my Batt.Kapa. shows 29.5. (which is higher than the 27.2 "usable")

I cannot provide any RealWorld™ range insights as we primarily use the car around town and travel less than 12 miles/day.

 

[RexMan]

I'm looking for some advice from existing BMW i3 owners. I have a need to travel 70 miles round trip once per week, primarily at highway speeds. I live in the Pacific Northwest so the temperatures will range from 40F to 80F most of the time. I am not interested in the range extender for philosophical reasons.

What I would like to know is whether the 94 Ah battery is capable of the 70 mile round trip. I've read that the range in city traffic is greater than advertised, but I don't know whether I could rely upon the 94 Ah battery to consistently provide sufficient range as the battery degrades with use.

What Batt. Kapa. max value should I look for on a used i3 94 Ah?

Should the percent degradation be based upon the 33.2 kWh or the maximum usable of 30 kWh?

What is the effective max range available at highway speeds when the 70% battery warranty would apply?

Thanks for the help. I've been reading through some of the postings but haven't seen answers to these questions.

- Jeff

I drive the 2017 94 Ah Rex here in Ireland and this time of the year when it's cold, Windy and wet I can drive 100 miles if I slow down in the worst of weather, if I drive 60 mph sometimes a bit more, a bit less for part of the trip so 70 miles is no problem especially in warmer fine weather at faster speeds and the BEV is a little bit more efficient.

My commute is around 90 miles and I can make it on battery alone if I slow down more in Winter.

I have 64,000 miles and it will be 4 years old in March and it's showing no sign of battery capacity loss, I'm extremely impressed, it's doing way better than my 2015 Leaf did.

When the weather is warmer and I'm not on the highway I can drive up to 136 miles at between 40-50 Mph slower roads. It's quite efficient at slower speeds.

My Battery Kappa Max is around 28.8 Kwh and it will go up slightly in the Summer. Though an Irish climate is kind to batteries, it rarely hits 77 F and if it does it's only a couple of days a year with exception some years and I can hammer it and charge on DC all day and the battery never gets hot because it's cooled by AC, it's quite an efficient cooling system.

The Rex is fantastic , I drive up to 20,000 miles a year and I don't have to worry about charging, broken chargers or queues or a poor public charging infrastructure, + I don't have to slow down on the Highway, I got all the benefits of BEV with the backup of ICE and it's a perfect system, in fact so good I have decided that at the end of my PCP in November 2020 to keep it until something just as useful comes along or there is big improvement in charge times and public charger availability.

Another great thing about the Rex is that when the battery is cold and you want to use a public DC charger charging time increases dramatically, what is 50 Kw when the battery is around 21 Deg C is 20 Kw when it's 4 or 5 Deg C. You can check the temp in the same menu you find "battery Kappa Max" Even when the battery is around 10 Deg C charging times increase notably.

I wish more electrics had the Rex, 40-60 Kwh and a ICE backup is just a fantastic idea and would convince anyone who doesn't want to bother with the hassles of EV to change because they get all the benefits of ICE and BEV.

There is nothing like the Rex out there, there is absolutely no mechanical connectivity from the ICE to the wheels and it's the only PHEV with so much battery range.

+ the Rex will make up any loss in battery capacity in the future which is something to greatly consider but so far any capacity loss I may have isn't noticeable to me and the specs for the Samsung cells suggest a 550,000 Kms to 70% capacity but this is also time dependent so we will see but so far I am extremely impressed with the battery life.

Sorry for going on about the Rex , I know you said you're not interested in it but I mentioned it for someone who might not be aware of it or it's advantages and because I have driven it for 3 years.

 

[3pete]

I agree that you should be fine with the 94ah battery. Looking at it from a worst case scenario: the 70% "warranty threshold" of a 27.2kWh battery pack is 19.04kWh. In order to go 70 miles with that capacity, you'd need to average 3.7mi/kWh. Considering that your climate is pretty close to ideal for an EV, you should be able to hit that with minimal effort. And that's the worst case scenario, so realistically you'll be working with a much bigger 'fuel tank' and shouldn't have any range concerns.

What Batt. Kapa. max value should I look for on a used i3 94 Ah?

As high as possible But, keep in mind the batt. kapa. max value is just an estimate and has some variation day-to-day, charge-to-charge or depending on the color of the car you last saw. On my 60ah, I'd say there's almost a ~1kWh margin of error on this metric but I'm not sure how that relates to the 94ah kWh ones. Based on what other folks have said, I would expect a 2017 to have at least 25kWh and would be skeptical of a car below that.

Should the percent degradation be based upon the 33.2 kWh or the maximum usable of 30 kWh?

My line of thinking is that BMW will probably use the 27.2kWh 'advertised capacity' when calculating the 70% threshold, so you should use that too. But also, I'd suggest ignoring the % value and going back to my answer above.

What is the effective max range available at highway speeds when the 70% battery warranty would apply?

This depends a lot on how you drive. Are highway speeds 55, 70, or 80+? The EPA rates the highway mileage at 106MPGe which by my math is 3.14 mi/kWh or 59.9 miles assuming that same 'worst case scenario' of 19.04 kWh. I know their test is sometimes optimistic, but it also is easy for hyper-milers to achieve much better results than the EPA. Going back to your climate, I think you could easily beat the EPA rating if needed.

 

[Pythagoras]

Hi Everyone,
I thought that I should get back on-line to update everyone on what I decided to do. I greatly appreciated all the input from other i3 owners. It helped me get over my anxiety about jumping in and making a commitment.

With a little bit of sleuthing on-line, I found a 2018 BEV Deka World available in Richland Washington, about 250 miles away from Seattle. It was a good value after coming back from a 2-year lease with ~13000 miles on it. Battery Kapa. was right in-line with what everyone was saying. There was a gap of about 90 miles between charging stations over Snoqualmie Pass so I had the dealer trailer it over to me after I made the purchase.

The deal that I got was roughly $17,200. The state of Washington will waive sales tax on a used EV up to $16000 as an incentive. So walking out of the dealership, I paid about $18000.

Took the car up to my parents house just north of Seattle and back, about 60 miles round trip, and had over 50% battery capacity when I plugged back in (4.4 mi/kWh). The drive is about 2/3s highway (~60 mph) and the remainder suburban streets. I didn't run heater much or air conditioning but I'm not too concerned about insufficient charge or gradual loss of capacity.

I am still getting the hang of the car but feel like I made the right choice in sticking with the BEV rather then the REx.

 

[3pete]

Congrats on the new ride! EVs tend to work for more people than originally would think so, and it seems that people are generally happy after getting the BEV i3 even if they were waffling between that and the REX. That's not to diminish the REX or anyone who's bought one. I really like the concept and have a lot of respect for the engineering that went into it.

That sounds smart to get it trailerd to you and as you get to know your car, you'll get a better idea of whether you could've made that trip home from the dealer, whether you would have been sweating bullets the whole time, or if you would've been stranded on the side of the road. One weird shift of going from an ICE to EV is that arriving home with 5-10 miles of range sometimes is "plenty".

 

[Pythagoras]

There is an epilogue to this story. After driving my i3 for awhile, I got more comfortable doing cross-country from my home base in Seattle. This past week I took it upon myself to take the trek from Seattle to Bozeman Montana for a get-together with extended family which encompasses 680 miles of driving with an elevation gain of 6000 feet passing over the Continental Divide at the Idaho-Montana border. The longest and most challenging segment was between Missoula and Butte Montana which is a distance of 125 miles and an elevation gain of 2200 feet. This is in early summer and the temperatures are in the just-right category for getting the most capacity out of the battery.

I had done an experiment the week before where I drove up to the nearest mountain pass, Snoqualmie Pass, and back to figure out about what the mileage roughly be as a function of elevation gain per mile, using cruise control set at 60 mph.

On the segment from Missoula to Butte, I dropped the speed down to 55 mph for most of the distance and ended up averaging 4.9 miles/KWh, which actually left me about 20 miles range remaining. I ended up being a bit conservative in the end here.

Heading back from Bozeman was supposedly going to be easier because it was all downhill. Of course, one still has to get over Lookout Pass.

All was going well on the way back and then this happened.

A ladder came off a pickup truck in front of me just outside of Couer d'Alane Idaho. Having neither option to go right or left, I stopped only to be rear-ended by a Chevrolet Silverado pick-up truck and camper. I have no idea on how fast he was traveling. I was going about 70-75mph at the time.

So, now I'm looking to find a 2019 BEV just so that I can do these types of cross-country trips a bit more comfortably.

 

[eNate]

Ooof! I hope you aren't too banged up. Looks like the car did what it was supposed to.

Having looked around recently for 2019 BEVs, I can tell you that it's slim pickings and the prices are borderline ridiculous.

I expect the high prices will be somewhat offset by a high market valuation on your former car.

Cool that you're considering sticking with the i3!

 

[Anonymous]

Having looked around recently for 2019 BEVs, I can tell you that it's slim pickings and the prices are borderline ridiculous.

Yeah, I don't know if it is the general market conditions right now, ie. new car limited inventory because of the chip shortage, used car limited inventory because of the pandemic, or that BMW letting Dealers know that July will be the end of the i3 for the North American market, but prices for used i3s seem to be climbing. Same year low mileage well equipped i3s are currently selling for as much as I paid for mine three years ago.

 

[Pythagoras]

Yeah, valuations are crazy. I'm waiting on my settlement from my insurance dealer, which I hope to get the next day or so. Hopeful that the insurance company will take into account that valuations have increased from when I bought my car in January. Legally, the law states that the actual cash value should be established at the time of the accident.

I got on-line and pulled a search from Cargurus.com for the nationwide selection of 2018 i3 BEVs. There were 31 2018 i3 BEVs Deka available as of June 22, 2021. My i3 had 16500 miles on it. According to the data, cars are selling between $20,579 (New Jersey) and $22,995 (Santa Clara, CA) with mileage between 15000 and 20000 miles, which is quite a premium above the $17,200 that I spent in January.

I thought that I had a 2019 BMW i3 lined up in the California Bay Area for $26000, but that got swooped up from under me while the sales associate was on his day off. My hunch is that the 2019s are still out on lease and haven't been returned yet. As of tonight, I have one lined up in the Silicon Valley/Bay Area at a really good price which I am closing on. Don't want to jinx the deal yet.

Yeah, the car did great. My wife is freaked out though about the damage because the car seems small to her. I reminded her that her car, a Maxda CX-3, weighs the same as the BMW i3 at 2960 lbs, and that my older small SUV is only 10% heavier.

I'd really like to know how fast the pickup was doing when he hit me. Darn fast I can tell you that. I ended up with a bit of a sore neck, a bruise on my arm, sore shoulders, and a sore rib cage for a couple days where it was a bit uncomfortable every time I coughed. Counting my blessings, for sure.

 

[gt1]

Sorry for your accident. The used car prices are completely off the chart, sometimes with no logical explanation. Earlier this spring I traded in my 2019 Pacifica PHEV for a 21 basically for free- only cost me differences in the sticker prices between the two. I think you need to hurry up and try to snag one of the remaining i3 production slots. This is not advertised, but there is an $11000 factory discount on i3. I have it through my work, but the dealer never asked for my work ID or control #, so you can probably get it. My dealer got me $3000 off on top of that. The total cost for a Giga BEV (it is just not the same without the wood dash!) with the tech package will be under $30k after the tax credit (not counting the sales taxes and fees). IMHO, this is a much better deal than that $26000 2019.
You don't have to take the first offer from the insurance company. Find several examples of similar cars for sale and ask them to match their price, the higher is the better! Carvana gave me a $19500 purchase offer for my 2018 with 19k miles.

 

[Pythagoras]

Update as of July 15, 2021. Insurance company gave me a good settlement for my 2018 i3 BEV for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that Washington state law says that the settlement needs to be the actual cash value at the time of the accident. The valuation can be made based upon comparable vehicles sold within a 90 days on either side of the accident. Furthermore, the valuation can only consider sales within 150 miles of where the car is registered, which means they cannot consider cars sold in Portland. With the extreme lack of inventory, there were only two comparable vehicles on the market whose price reflected the real shortage of used vehicles right now. Both comparable vehicles were being sold at the BMW dealership, which will also reflect a higher price.

The second reason was that I was able to show that my 2018 i3 was similar condition to the vehicles on-sale which were certified pre-owned vehicles. I also benefited in how insurance settlements are made considering the tax rebate that is given for sales tax in this state. The insurance company can't take into account that there is a sales tax rebate on the initial $16000 for EVs under $30000 sale price.

As of today, there are about 40 2019 BMW i3 BEV on the market nationwide. Looking at the BMW Certified Pre-Owned vehicles, there are only 17 listed nationwide, and there are none available in either Washington or Oregon. The nearest available is in the San Francisco Bay area.
Fortunately, I was watching the internet closely and noticed another 2019 BEV become available on June 27 down in the San Francisco Bay area. My daughter is going to school in the Bay Area, and was able to go to the dealership on the next day to test drive. There was some communication issues with the dealer as they'd prefer to keep the deal local rather than have to work more on internet deals, which needed a phone call or two to straighten out.

As I write this today, the car is on the car transport coming up from Bay Area and I'll get it next week. That cost me about $1100 which is a bit higher than normal, and is likely due to the high demand for used vehicles and the fact that I really couldn't wait for a better deal from the transport companies.

I haven't tallied up the final costs as the car still needs to be registered, but it looks like I might have a final cost including transportation, tax, and licensing at just a tad shy of $28,000, which I'm considering a really good deal under the circumstances. Yeah, it is $9500 more than what I paid in January for the 2018 i3 BEV, but I am getting a 2019 i3 BEV with 5000 fewer miles on it and the insurance settlement is covering almost all of that difference.

Really neat thing is that in my little corner of the Pacific Northwest, I am seeing i3s all around the neighborhood. It just might be that BMW missed out by not aggressively marketing the vehicle in the Seattle area. Or it could be that other people are getting wise to what a good value the car is for the type of driving that we do in the urban Seattle area.

A little post-script is that the dealer let me put $5000 on my credit card which earned me a huge amount of frequent flyer miles. I'm all grins.

 

[eNate]

Well congrats on turning that around and hopefully you're not out-of-pocket too much considering you're got some added range in the replacement. I suspect part of the shipping cost is there's a huge demand for truck drivers of all sorts at the moment, and drivers are going to go where the money is. Wishing you better luck with the new ride.

 

[Redi3]

I would highly recommend a 94AH BMW I3
I've had mine for a year and a half and have loved it. I use mine for Town / City driving. And would say it can definitely achieve what you want from it!