Driving near El Dorado Hills, CA

[jaguar77]

I have to drive from Rocklin to Jackson, which is ~50 miles one way and also goes through some hills. I'm considering leasing an i3, but based on what I'm reading on various threads it seems doubtful the i3 would be able to make it on pure electric one way, and might run into problems going up hills if the SOC is too low. The drive back would start consuming gas, as it's past the electric mileage limit. Unfortunately I don't have an easy way to recharge before heading back. For those that live in the area (or similar terrain) is it doable? The BMW dealer of course says it's not a problem, but I doubt they've actually done the drive to confirm it. If I'm going to end up using a lot of gas, it seems like I might as well stick with my current ICE car. Thanks for the help.

 

[Jeffj]

The ~1400 ft. that you have to climb to Jackson will consume ~2kWh of battery. You'll get some of that back on the way home, but its not 100% efficient. Say its 60% efficient for some margin so 1.2 kWh of battery on top of the horizontal distance. A round-trip of 100 miles is certainly beyond the range of the BEV, except in the most favorable conditions. I'd guess you could average 4 mi/kWh of consumption on the round-trip, maybe slight higher, so you will need 25 kWh of juice for the round-trip plus the extra 1.2 kWh for the elevation gain for 26.2 total. If you could average 4.5 miles/kWh, then you'd only need 24.4 kWh total. The battery is about 19 kWh effective, so you are short by 5-7 kWh. You can get that from ~1/2 gallon of gas, or by plugging into a 120 v outlet for ~5 hours.

2.5 gallons of gas per week doesn't sound like much to me, and it could be less if you can plug into a normal outlet during the day while you are there (assuming its at work).

 

[MarkN]

I've successfully driven my i3 (with REx) round-trip on battery alone from my house up to Rocky Mountain National Park twice. The further of the two trips was 45 miles one way with a 3500 foot altitude gain. We arrived at our destination with about 15% battery charge. Speed was mostly between 35 and 60 MPH. Coming down the battery got up above 25% charge from regeneration. We got home with just over the 7% charge where the REx turns on. This was with nearly 600 pounds of load (two adults, two teens) in the car. I doubt I used heat or AC. I had expected I would need to use the REx when I started out and was pleasantly surprised that I didn't.