Possible 100+ mile range in ECO PRO+ ?

[SanJosei3]

I have a 2014 BEV i3 and live in San Jose California. I've had my i3 for a year and it's been great. The dealer replaced my charging unit for free a few months ago due to the known issue and recall. Other than that no problems. I've always believed my max range with Comfort and ECO PRO modes was around 80 miles. Tracking my range and mileage between charges has always been consistent with that. Yesterday I took my first long drive using ECO PRO+ and the results still are a bit of a head scratcher - so interested to know if others have had the experience I had. Until yesterday I had not driven my i3 to San Francisco. From where I live it's about 50 miles each way and so I thought charging would be required either in SF or along the way there or back to make it home. What I found yesterday seems to show I could easily make it without charging. I did recharge in the city, but the range and mileage numbers seem to show I could have made it without it.

I fully charged overnight before leaving in the morning. I had found several charging stations near my destination, but in case they were not working or occupied when I arrived I knew of two fast charging stations I could use as fall-backs on the way home that were within the 80 mile range I expected. I was heading to a work related meeting in the city, so I left early on a week-day morning, but I expected traffic. I put the car in ECO PRO+ from the start. There was moderate to heavy traffic the entire way. Here in California, I have carpool lane stickers and so driving in the car pool lane helped and was one of the reasons I took my i3 rather than my gas car. Still with the moderate traffic, the 56mph limit in ECO PRO+ mode was not much of a problem. You can override it, but then you might as well be in ECO PRO instead. I have not used it before on the freeway because of this, but the with traffic, most of the time, I was going 40-50 mph so not a problem. When I started, and put the car in ECO PRO+, it showed 77 miles of range. When I arrived at my destination - amazingly - I had traveled 47 miles, but had 51 miles of range left. This means only 26 miles of range had been used to go 47 miles! It took 1 hour 10 minutes, so my average speed was 40 mph due to the traffic. I found the Blink L2 charging station I had planned to use, it was free and worked perfectly. The car was fully charged in 3 hours. The return home in the evening was repeat of the trip up. The fully re-charged range in ECO PRO+ showed 82 miles of range, when I arrived home, the mileage was the same at 47, travel time was the same with 1 hour 10 minutes and the remaining range was 55. So on the return trip I had used 27 miles of range.

Here is the surprising part. It is easy to see from these numbers, that I could have easily avoided recharging. I had 51 miles of range left when I arrived in the morning. If I had left in the evening without recharging, I would have used 27 miles of range on the return trip and I would have arrived with still 24 miles of range after having driven 94 miles. This shows that it would be easily possible to drive well over 100 miles on a charge in ECO PRO+. Also the ratio of miles driven to range used is very interesting. It's 47/26 = 1.81 and 47/27 = 1.74. This means I was driving 1.74 - 1.81 miles for each mile of range used. This implies that starting out with 77 miles of range in the morning, I could have driven 133 miles until I got to zero range. If I wanted 10 miles of range left, I could have gone 116. This means I could drive up to the city and even drive a little there and be able to drive home without recharging. Charging in SF is still a little chancy in my opinion - so being able to go without it completely changes how I think of driving there and back. The only reason I had sometimes wished I had a Rex was for the San Jose to SF drive. Now it seems I don't need it.

I think the explanation for all of this is the speed - and average of 40 mph. And the use of ECO PRO+. I am also assuming that the range indication is linear - that means that range miles near the top of the range scale mean the same amount of remaining energy as ones as the range gets lower. But I think that's a fair assumption. The weather conditions were also perfect in the mid-70's. So no need to run the climate control and warm enough that range was impacted by the cold.

Has anyone else seen this kind of performance and range in ECO PRO+. Am I missing something here?

 

[jadnashuanh]

That's in line with BMW's predictions based on a compounded 10% increase for each Eco mode engaged. Maybe a good backup indication on range is to watch your miles/Kw use. If you use a nominal 18.8Kw (you may have more or less usable capacity), you can get a very good idea if you continue at your current discharge rate as to how far you can go.

 

[mindmachine]

I have a 2014 BEV i3 and live in San Jose California. I've had my i3 for a year and it's been great. The dealer replaced my charging unit for free a few months ago due to the known issue and recall. Other than that no problems. I've always believed my max range with Comfort and ECO PRO modes was around 80 miles. Tracking my range and mileage between charges has always been consistent with that. Yesterday I took my first long drive using ECO PRO+ and the results still are a bit of a head scratcher - so interested to know if others have had the experience I had. Until yesterday I had not driven my i3 to San Francisco. From where I live it's about 50 miles each way and so I thought charging would be required either in SF or along the way there or back to make it home. What I found yesterday seems to show I could easily make it without charging. I did recharge in the city, but the range and mileage numbers seem to show I could have made it without it.

I fully charged overnight before leaving in the morning. I had found several charging stations near my destination, but in case they were not working or occupied when I arrived I knew of two fast charging stations I could use as fall-backs on the way home that were within the 80 mile range I expected. I was heading to a work related meeting in the city, so I left early on a week-day morning, but I expected traffic. I put the car in ECO PRO+ from the start. There was moderate to heavy traffic the entire way. Here in California, I have carpool lane stickers and so driving in the car pool lane helped and was one of the reasons I took my i3 rather than my gas car. Still with the moderate traffic, the 56mph limit in ECO PRO+ mode was not much of a problem. You can override it, but then you might as well be in ECO PRO instead. I have not used it before on the freeway because of this, but the with traffic, most of the time, I was going 40-50 mph so not a problem. When I started, and put the car in ECO PRO+, it showed 77 miles of range. When I arrived at my destination - amazingly - I had traveled 47 miles, but had 51 miles of range left. This means only 26 miles of range had been used to go 47 miles! It took 1 hour 10 minutes, so my average speed was 40 mph due to the traffic. I found the Blink L2 charging station I had planned to use, it was free and worked perfectly. The car was fully charged in 3 hours. The return home in the evening was repeat of the trip up. The fully re-charged range in ECO PRO+ showed 82 miles of range, when I arrived home, the mileage was the same at 47, travel time was the same with 1 hour 10 minutes and the remaining range was 55. So on the return trip I had used 27 miles of range.

Here is the surprising part. It is easy to see from these numbers, that I could have easily avoided recharging. I had 51 miles of range left when I arrived in the morning. If I had left in the evening without recharging, I would have used 27 miles of range on the return trip and I would have arrived with still 24 miles of range after having driven 94 miles. This shows that it would be easily possible to drive well over 100 miles on a charge in ECO PRO+. Also the ratio of miles driven to range used is very interesting. It's 47/26 = 1.81 and 47/27 = 1.74. This means I was driving 1.74 - 1.81 miles for each mile of range used. This implies that starting out with 77 miles of range in the morning, I could have driven 133 miles until I got to zero range. If I wanted 10 miles of range left, I could have gone 116. This means I could drive up to the city and even drive a little there and be able to drive home without recharging. Charging in SF is still a little chancy in my opinion - so being able to go without it completely changes how I think of driving there and back. The only reason I had sometimes wished I had a Rex was for the San Jose to SF drive. Now it seems I don't need it.

I think the explanation for all of this is the speed - and average of 40 mph. And the use of ECO PRO+. I am also assuming that the range indication is linear - that means that range miles near the top of the range scale mean the same amount of remaining energy as ones as the range gets lower. But I think that's a fair assumption. The weather conditions were also perfect in the mid-70's. So no need to run the climate control and warm enough that range was impacted by the cold.

Has anyone else seen this kind of performance and range in ECO PRO+. Am I missing something here?

I frequently get 99 to 103 mile range in my Rex in comfort mode during the summer.

 

[alohart]

I have averaged 5.6 mi/kWh since purchasing our i3 BEV, almost always with ACC on and set to 5 mph over the speed limit in Eco Pro+. Assuming an 18.8 kWh useable battery pack capacity, our i3's average range would be 105 miles. In our extended test drive of an i3 BEV, I drove 100 miles with my wife with an estimated 5 miles of range remaining including 20 miles ascending ~1000 ft. at 65 mph and descending ~1000 ft. at 50 mph, 10 miles at 65 mph on flat terrain, 10 miles at 50 mph, and the remainder at 40 mph on flat terrain, all with climate control off. Being able to drive 100 miles without charging was a requirement of our replacing our Mitsubishi i-MiEV with an i3 BEV since we had moved to a location that made our i-MiEV's range insufficient by about 20 miles. So if one's speed is not too great, the route is fairly flat, and climate control is off, an i3 BEV is easily capable of a range of slightly greater than 100 miles.

If one drives in Eco Pro+ with ACC on and set to greater than 56 mph, ACC will control the car's speed at greater than 56 mph but will display a warning that one's speed is greater than 56 mph, so one needn't override the Eco Pro+ speed limit as when ACC is off. But if climate control is off, I don't think that the efficiency of Eco Pro is any less than that of Eco Pro+, and the accelerator's sensitivity is identical (i.e., less sensitive over the first part of the accelerator travel than in Comfort mode but more sensitive in the latter part of the accelerator travel than Comfort mode).

 

[MikeS]

One of the key things that maximises range is using the car for one single journey. I get 95+ miles on a single journey but nearer 70 when I do loads of short trips. Always AC and fan off in comfort.

 

[psquare]

Taken in June this year. Outside temperature was 37.5 deg C at the time.

 

[archieb]

When I purchased my 2014 i3 BEV demo in January 2015 the avg miles per kwh was 2.4. With 5500 miles now on the i3 it shows 5.7 miles per kwh. During the warm weather months, June thru September, the i3 routinely displays a range of 95-110 miles. The highest I ever recorded was 128 miles after taking a 142 mile round trip in August with about one hour of charging half way thru the trip. This was not a typical trip as I traveled back roads and stayed under 55 mph with most travel at 45 mph or less. At the end of the trip the trip meter showed 6.9 miles per kwh. While this is my personal high the i3 normally gets about 6.1 to 6.4 miles per kwh. 90% of my driving from May thru October is in Eco pro +.

Temperature has quite an affect on range and miles per kwh. The i3 seems to like 75-80 degrees for maximum efficiency. With temperatures now dipping into the 50s and 60s I am already seeing a drop in range to the low to mid 90s. Once temperatures drop into the 30s and less I know range will drop 25% or more. Preconditioning helps but most days you operate in Eco pro or comfort modes.

I drove a 2012 Volt for 3 years before the i3. As far as efficiency the i3 is far superior to the Volt. The best I ever got in the Volt was 5.5 miles per kwh. Average was about 5.0 miles per kwh during the warm months. Range was rated at 34 and I got about 48-50. Getting over 5.0 was rare while getting over 6.0 in the i3 is routine.

Being on time of day rates means my cost per mile is less than $0.01 per mile. I also participate in a renewable energy program so the source of the power used is clean. For me the i3 has exceeded all my expectations.

Archie