Hi everyone - new to the forum. Thanks to all the contributors.

[knute kovach]

I would like to get everyone's opinion on what to do to my 2015 I3 with Rex to maximize the life of the car. What's an idea of cost to replace the battery? I have 73,000 miles on the car and have done nothing except basic maintenance. With normal wear and tear (15,000 miles per yr) how long can I expect the battery to last on average? We love the car for around town use and want to keep it for a long time.

 

[mojo]

Compared to any other car, I don't think you need to do anything much specific. You probably won't need to even think about replacing the battery for years to come, unless your use is such that you need its full range all of the time.

Like any other car, you'll reduce the relatively slow rate of corrosion if you regularly wash away any salt-laden winter road crud - some areas of the suspension are vulnerable to aluminium-on-steel corrosion, but that's not likely to be any worse than an equivalent car built mainly from steel.

You can help the brake disk/rotor life by occasionally doing heavy braking (e.g. on highway off-ramps) so that they don't build up too much rust.

And you may get longer life out of the engine if you use it for longer periods occasionally - in some respects the standard "maintenance mode" running may be a little shorter than desirable.

Battery life may be slightly longer if you only rapid-charge it when you need to, rather than all of the time, and also if you avoid going into the bottom 20% of the battery capacity too often. But the general consensus is that battery management on the i3 was ahead of its time, compared with contemporaries such as the original Nissan Leaf.

For "around town" use, you should expect it to last for a lot more years to come.

 

[knute kovach]

Compared to any other car, I don't think you need to do anything much specific. You probably won't need to even think about replacing the battery for years to come, unless your use is such that you need its full range all of the time.

Like any other car, you'll reduce the relatively slow rate of corrosion if you regularly wash away any salt-laden winter road crud - some areas of the suspension are vulnerable to aluminium-on-steel corrosion, but that's not likely to be any worse than an equivalent car built mainly from steel.

You can help the brake disk/rotor life by occasionally doing heavy braking (e.g. on highway off-ramps) so that they don't build up too much rust.

And you may get longer life out of the engine if you use it for longer periods occasionally - in some respects the standard "maintenance mode" running may be a little shorter than desirable.

Battery life may be slightly longer if you only rapid-charge it when you need to, rather than all of the time, and also if you avoid going into the bottom 20% of the battery capacity too often. But the general consensus is that battery management on the i3 was ahead of its time, compared with contemporaries such as the original Nissan Leaf.

For "around town" use, you should expect it to last for a lot more years to come.

Thanks, I'm learning a lot.Seems that the cold affects the battery more as it's gotten older. On a full charge with a 120 v slow charger range is indicated in the low 80's. I really don't know if charging on my 220v line will extend battery life or reduce it. My 220 charger recently died so I'm charging on120v for a short time and their doesn't seem to be much difference in indicated distance.

 

[mojo]

I doubt if charging at 220V (versus 120V) will make a significant difference to battery life. Yes the cold affects the battery a lot, even on my 2021 car, and it's at its worst if you only do short journeys - on longer trips the battery heats itself up.

If you regularly do early morning cold starts it may be worth considering using the battery pre-conditioning option, which pre-heats the battery before your departure time. I can't do that because I'm on a cheap electricity rate that ends at 05:30!

 

[alohart]

If you regularly do early morning cold starts it may be worth considering using the battery pre-conditioning option, which pre-heats the battery before your departure time. I can't do that because I'm on a cheap electricity rate that ends at 05:30!

The battery pack mass is pretty high, so it might not change temperature very fast. If you set a 05:30 departure time with battery pack preconditioning, would the pack still be warm enough when you depart to increase its range?

 

[mojo]

The battery pack mass is pretty high, so it might not change temperature very fast. If you set a 05:30 departure time with battery pack preconditioning, would the pack still be warm enough when you depart to increase its range?

For "normal" users, probably so. But I don't do anything much before about 11:00 in the morning! By which time I suspect that most of the heat will have dissipated. And there is the other problem that the charging scheme that I use (Intelligent Octopus Go) does not - indeed cannot - support battery preconditioning. So it's likely to remain a feature that I will never use - a small price to pay for electricity that is less than a third of the cost of normal daytime rates, I guess...