New to me i3

[jscifres02]

Hey everyone!

I recently bought my first EV in a 2015 i3 Giga World. I absolutely love the car, as I live in Nashville and have plenty of charging sources around me. I got an incredible deal on the car from Carmax. It does have 45K on it, but its been taken emaculate care of. I'm still learning about the car, but I've began running into "Range Anxiety" which has turned into anxiety about battery degradation. MyBMW app tells me I'm currently at 47% charged with a range roughly of 34 miles. Does that seem good? I scheduled an appointment at BMW to have it checked out while it's still able to returned to Carmax, for any reason. I have anxiety anyway, so maybe I'm just overthinking the whole thing now? I know there's way of checking the battery compacity, but I've also heard it's not very easy to understand or consistent! Let me know what you guys think! I'm super excited to be part of the i3 Team!

Thanks!
Jeffrey

 

[Anonymous]

Advertised range of a 2015 i3, Bev, new, was 81 miles. 47% charge (47% of 81) is 38 miles. So showing a range of 34 miles now is not bad at all. And your range will vary depending on how you drive, where you drive (city, highway, hilly roads) how hot or cold the weather is (AC and Heater use), etc.

If you still have the option (and the funds) the Carmax extended warranty is one of the best in the business. Covers most everything without question, and all work done at a BMW dealership.

 

[3pete]

I agree that based on that one data point, your current car is in pretty good battery shape. But there are quite a few ways to measure capacity and they can all vary from day to day for some logical reasons (weather) and sometimes for seemingly no reason at all.

I think the best way to gauge is to simply drive as far as you can on a full charge and see if that meets your expectations. Bonus points if it's a route that is relevant to what you expect the car to do. If you can drive to a friends' house right now and get back with 5% battery you probably won't be able to do that in the winter. But if your longest round trip gets you back with 40% charge, you should be fine year-round for years to come.

I've gone through a fair bit of concern of battery degredation on my 2014 over the years I've had it (relevant threads here: https://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=17163&p=69333#p69333 and here: https://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=17409&p=69332#p69332 ) and my best advice is to try to not worry about degredation. I know it may be easier said than done but when it comes to the topic BMW is the judge, jury and executioner so any fretting you do can be useless.

I scheduled an appointment at BMW to have it checked out while it's still able to returned to Carmax, for any reason.

How much are you prepared to pay BMW for this? In my experience their standard diagnostics (they look to see if any warning lights are on the dash) seems to cost around $200, and the i3 specific High Voltage Battery Capacity check costs around $500. I can pretty much guarantee that either one will yield a result of "it passed" so you might just want to save your money. But if you want the specific HV Battery Capacity check, they might not know what you're talking about so it could be useful to be prepared to refer to this:
https://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=17400&p=68984#p68960

Either way, congrats on the new car and I hope you like it and it works for your needs. The i3 is a fun little car!

 

[Roark]

Hey, Jeffrey!
I live in Nashville and just bought a 2017 i3 from Carmax. Waiting on delivery ... see you around, anywhere but the gas station that is!

Greetings to everyone else on the forum ... hoping to learn a bunch from you all.

Cheers.
Roark

 

[jscifres02]

@ Roark!

I’ll see you around! Keep me posted on how it does goes for you! My process was fairly easy! Carmax had my car delivered way before it said!

 

[Roark]

@jscifres02 picked it up last night; in and out in a hour. the fun begins!

 

[jer]

To monitor your battery, sign up for a free service that provides monthly reports from Recurrent Motors. The report compares your battery to similar vehicles. You will need to allow them to access your car’s computer remotely.

 

[Arm]

To monitor your battery, sign up for a free service that provides monthly reports from Recurrent Motors. The report compares your battery to similar vehicles. You will need to allow them to access your car’s computer remotely.

That's actually a really cool application. I just signed up for it. Let's see how my car does!

 

[alohart]

To monitor your battery, sign up for a free service that provides monthly reports from Recurrent Motors. The report compares your battery to similar vehicles. You will need to allow them to access your car’s computer remotely.

Unfortunately, for those of us who own early U.S. i3's, no one including Recurrent Motors will be able to access our i3's remotely after February, 2022, when AT&T discontinues its 3G mobile data service.