Hold charge function

[mjk]

IMHO, the only bad part of the "hold" feature being disabled in the U.S. is the fact that there is no official mention of the possibility of degraded performance using the vehicle to climb grades at full the posted speed limit. That is information, I believe, should be in big, bold, red letters displayed somewhere where potential buyers will see it—maybe an "I acknowledge I have been informed of this limitation" disclaimer should be signed during the sales transaction.

I don't care if I have to use gas to complete a trip; I do care if my life might suddenly be endangered by crazy California drivers who insist on traveling 85 MPH in the right-most lane of Bay Area freeways with me driving in front of them and not being able to keep up to even the speed limit.

 

[Idleup]

Regretfully - someone is going to get killed with this stupid revision and running the battery down to 6% - some poor sap is going to be passing a car and when the I3 goes into limp mode because the battery went down to 6% and reduces the speed to 45 mph someone is going to be in a head on collision or in a field somewhere!

 

[dkpurple]

Thinking about getting the Hold Charge Function. (not found on DVDinmotion site).
We rarely use our REX feature (due to the wife's reluctance to drain the car down to only a couple of miles remaining). But before Christmas, dressed formally, heading to special event, we thought we could find a place to recharge. Instead (with only 20 miles remaining) the "REX Maintenance cycle" came on and failed - displaying a take me immediately to the dealer message. After powering off / On to clear - thinking hopefully this is a glitch - i3 did the same in a few miles. I wanted to continue on to event (which we had waited for 2 months to attend) - instead my wife said please no - we have get it to the dealer 20+ miles away.
Bottomline: We never made it the event, just rolled into the dealer on dashes for several miles - vehicle kept by dealer for 4-5 days. They said they had to "swap out" the spark plugs.
All-in-all the wife has little faith that the REX will be available when we need it - on a vehicle with less than 3k miles and only charging at 70%.
So - looking at the dvdinmotion.com website, no where do I see the Hold Battery State Fix, or mention anywhere or battery charge state for i3 - only sales of playing your DVD player while driving

My exact thoughts - and the reason I went for the fix!!

How does this fix affect BMW's i3 warranty?

 

[michaelbmw]

IMHO, the only bad part of the "hold" feature being disabled in the U.S. is the fact that there is no official mention of the possibility of degraded performance using the vehicle to climb grades at full the posted speed limit. That is information, I believe, should be in big, bold, red letters displayed somewhere where potential buyers will see it—maybe an "I acknowledge I have been informed of this limitation" disclaimer should be signed during the sales transaction.

I don't care if I have to use gas to complete a trip; I do care if my life might suddenly be endangered by crazy California drivers who insist on traveling 85 MPH in the right-most lane of Bay Area freeways with me driving in front of them and not being able to keep up to even the speed limit.

You are right about the drivers. I can be going 60 or even 65 in the extreme right lane, and someone will invariably rush up behind me and start pounding on his steering wheel.

 

[Idleup]

If you have to take your car to the hospital you just stick the USB back in the car and it un-installs the software.

 

[WoodlandHills]

Thinking about getting the Hold Charge Function. (not found on DVDinmotion site).
We rarely use our REX feature (due to the wife's reluctance to drain the car down to only a couple of miles remaining). But before Christmas, dressed formally, heading to special event, we thought we could find a place to recharge. Instead (with only 20 miles remaining) the "REX Maintenance cycle" came on and failed - displaying a take me immediately to the dealer message. After powering off / On to clear - thinking hopefully this is a glitch - i3 did the same in a few miles. I wanted to continue on to event (which we had waited for 2 months to attend) - instead my wife said please no - we have get it to the dealer 20+ miles away.
Bottomline: We never made it the event, just rolled into the dealer on dashes for several miles - vehicle kept by dealer for 4-5 days. They said they had to "swap out" the spark plugs.
All-in-all the wife has little faith that the REX will be available when we need it - on a vehicle with less than 3k miles and only charging at 70%.
So - looking at the dvdinmotion.com website, no where do I see the Hold Battery State Fix, or mention anywhere or battery charge state for i3 - only sales of playing your DVD player while driving

My exact thoughts - and the reason I went for the fix!!

How does this fix affect BMW's i3 warranty?

Nobody knows! We are all pretending it just won't come up, even removing the software won't do much. The memory in the car will show the REx coming on at above 6% SOC if they want to look.......

 

[dkpurple]

Thanks WoodlandHills. So, if you have a lease instead of a purchase, this fix is not a good idea. When you turn-in the car, BMW might check to see
if this software had been installed. I wonder what their reaction will be.

 

[WoodlandHills]

I have a 3 year lease, so stay tuned.......

My gut feeling is that BMW will cynically look the other way at all of this thus cheating the state of California out of the credits issued for cars that later get altered, like mine. Another complication is that as a Californian it is against the rules to alter an emissions device although it is done all the time (induction or exhaust mods, chipping of ECUs, etc).

On the other hand, if CARB takes a hardline and threatens to withhold new credits or even to revoke existing ones due to non-compliance, I expect BMW to get involved. If they do, expect it to be quite a scandal with much attention drawn to BMWs sacrificing customer safety in order to get those credits. If the general public became aware of the whole sad tale it would very hard for BMW to not look like the turd in the punch bowl for sanctioning people trying to restore a safety feature offered in other markets and removed here.

How would BMWs image not be the loser in either of those scenarios.....?

 

[lsteiner]

Well I think everyone's comments are important wither you agree with them or not.

Don't get me wrong - I love my I3 even in stock configuration, I just made it better by installing the DVDinMotion mod - now I can start the engine at will and save my battery for when I feel I want to use it instead of some computer routine.

My i3 is on order and I know that the same day I take the car off the dealer lot I will be installing the mod for hold mode. I currently have a Chevy Volt and this same conversation was happening with the 2012MY Volt. So many people complained that they put the Hold Mode into the 2014MY cars. Any time that I am on the freeway and going my typical 75 miles per hour, I am in Hold Mode because at this speed the battery is drained fairly quickly. As soon as I am off the freeway, I go back to normal battery mode.

 

[Tomasz]

I have a 3 year lease, so stay tuned.......

My gut feeling is that BMW will cynically look the other way at all of this thus cheating the state of California out of the credits issued for cars that later get altered, like mine.

Where is it a cheating? As long as the i3 leaving dealers' lots are confirming to the law all credits are fully earned. BMW (or any other manufacturer) can not be held responsible for modifications done to the car by owners.

Coding, though relatively easy for any technically minded person, is still way more advanced modification than e.g. replacing H11 bulbs with non certified illegal LED bulbs, yet nobody goes after BMW (or any other manufacturer) for selling cars that can be so easily modded with illegal parts.

My gut feeling is that BMW will cynically look the other way not because of the credits, but because the ability to code became a part of brand's vibe and there is a lot of people buying BMWs with coding in mind in the first place. Keep in mind that you can code any recent BMW, not only i3. That and in real life coding is very rare, it's forum like this where coding seem to be more common skewing our perception. I know a few BMW owners. Some heard of coding, some would maybe even like to do so, but out of about 10 cars only mine is coded.

Stay calm and keep coding....

 

[Idleup]

Yeah its good to know we're nothing other than a credit point to BMW! lol

 

[Nicholai]

So, just to clarify/better understand, if I held charge at, say, 75%, the idea is that, during the average day, I will likely be dipping into the gas tank, yes? Wouldn't I only be getting 10-20 miles of pure electric?

I definitely understand the idea of wanting to hold it at something like 25% to ensure that you'd be able to get somewhere safely if the REX died, but 75% seems high.

For those of you that set it high, are you essentially just consciously turning your i3 into a standard plug-in hybrid (crappy electric range, but great gas mileage)? I don't see anything wrong with that. I'm just really curious what the more detailed reasoning behind it is.

 

[jadnashuanh]

FWIW, the REx gets decent fuel economy, but not great...there are lots of cars in Europe (and some imported to the states) that can get significantly better mileage than if you run the REx in hold mode a the earliest opportunity. The i3 is only great if you run it primarily as designed - the REx is your anti-anxiety crutch if you need to go further than the battery can take you by itself. Sure, you CAN take it on a longer trip, but I find it not well suited, but then I'm spoiled having a second car that is nicer for those instances. I really enjoy it for what it was designed for, running around the city and short forays out of town. My ICE gets me much further with less compromise than the i3 otherwise. On a good day, the REx might add 80 miles and use 9l of fuel (if you can use the whole tank).

 

[Jeffj]

Nicolai - a better use case is if you want to take a trip of maybe 70 miles, with the last part significantly up-hill. If you reach the bottom of the hill with a very low SOC (eg. having run on full battery), the REx doesn't have enough power to both keep you going at speed and keep the battery charged high enough. In other words, you will use the battery much faster than the REx can keep up. If you have the Hold State of Charge function, you can choose, for example, to turn it on with 40% of the batter left (its just a toggle switch, when you hit it, it tries to keep the charge at the level at which you hit the toggle). You'd burn some fuel, but you'd hit the bottom of the hill with enough battery that the combination of REx and battery will get you up the hill. In the end, you've used the same amount of battery and REx, you just engaged the REx earlier to make sure you have enough battery to climb the hill. I don't think people who have activated this regularly keep it 75% charge, especially for short trips. That just doesn't make sense. But there are relatively common occurences where having control of the REx will enable you to make the trip with no loss of power.

That being said, my opinion (and only my opinion) is that the safety issue is overblown with regard to the REx. If you are driving a ICE car up a long slope and you run out of fuel, the car goes into "limp" mode as long as your momentum carries you and then stops. This is, in my opinion, the same scenario - sudden deceleration from highway speed to 0 is a dangerous condition, but no one talks about suing the auto company if the ICE car runs out of gas. I don't get the up-in-arms reaction to the i3 running out of charge. Its personal responsibility, not the manufacturers responsibility.

That being said, the REx functionality was absolutely changed for the US market to benefit BMW with CARB credits. That's an issue, but its not a safety issue.

 

[WoodlandHills]

Like a few other issues with the i3, the problem with the REx Hold is the lack of documentation. If BMW had been clear from the beginning that the car could slow without warning to a dangerously low speed when the SOC drops to zero despite running the REx, then no one would have been surprised. We are all trained to expect a car with no fuel to also slow dramatically, but how were we supposed to know the details of how BMW programmed the REx system if we were never informed? That is whole purpose of a country specific Owners Manual, to document the details about YOUR car, not some generic worldwide car......
If there is a caveat to the concept of extending the range through the use of the Range Extender, then BMW has an obligation to make it damn clear to the customer before the sale and not just bury that information in a generic worldwide manual.

One could also mention other "details" that are barely covered in the documentation: such as the severe loss of range in the cold, the whole 20" snow tire fiasco, the deletion of self-steering below 25mph from the ACC, and possibly others.

 

[Idleup]

AS I mentioned, BMW is more concerned on getting their Good Boy points than concerned with the safety or operation of the car. Its an absolute joke why we have to deal with dead batteries and having a fuel tank on my riding lawn mower larger than my car! Hello . . . .

 

[GeorgeJ]

I took delivery a couple of days ago and I am truly pleased with my i3 REX. The pure electric range will get me around in my daily driving without issue. That being said on a weekend where I need to travel a bit without the ability to recharge then engaging the REX at 75% is essential. Basically it allows the car to be used temporarily as a so-so hybrid making gas stops every sixty miles +/-. Given the infrequency of this I am guessing I will burn less than ten gallons a year but at least I have the flexibility. I see no point in engaging the REX early if the daily driving in going to take you < the electric range, I certainly wouldn't.

The aftermarket has provided all manner of 'tunes' for turbo BMW's and I have not heard of many issues. The 135i that I previously leased had a Dinan software update. At the end of the lease I bought it as a CPO and the dealer re-tuned it to the PPK I also bought. They knew it had been modified and could care less and could care less when I traded it in for the i3 with the Dinan tune reinstalled. All of these tunes clearly have an adverse effect on mileage and must increase wear and tear a bit though in spite of all that neither the government agencies or BMW seem to feel compelled to go after anyone. I think this bodes well for i3 owners that desire to add a bit of flexibility to their car.

 

[jadnashuanh]

In the case of tuning your ICE, BMW didn't get paid by the government because it operated in a certain manner like they do with the i3. So, in that case, it is not apples and apples. Now, whether they or the government really care or will do something about it, is another story altogether. Even if you have tuned your car, at least in many states, it still must pass an emissions test (in my case, annually), so in theory, at least, most of the time, it would not impact the implied EPA clearance it had.

 

[WoodlandHills]

There are differences between the incentives and attitudes of the Federal EPA and those of the state CARB. BMW made their deal with California not Washington, DC and CA IMHO has a reputation for aggressively pursuing revenue. If there is a way to levy a massive fine against BMW for not making a good faith effort to police their customers in regards to the PHEV credits than CARB will do so. Or perhaps they will investigate and direct their attention to the next PHEV BMW submits for approval and address the issue there.

 

[Idleup]

You know all that stuff is worthless to the owner and the lack of ability to maintain a reasonable charge on the battery for safety purposes - you can sit here for weeks explaining the all the tree hugger reasons - but there is no reason why an owner is not allowed to start his or her car at will as long as the battery is below 75% SOC. Why is it OK in the UK and not here?

In addition, the UK does not have to put up with this government crap which is rectified even further with BMW shutting off our fuel pump at 1.9 gallons when we have a 2.4 gallons in our tank in the US cars - this could strand a customer on the road when there is actually 1/2 gallon of fuel remaining in the tank!

Thanks