Range: Can I make it 80 miles? What about 89?

[ryandesign]

The i3 that I want is at a dealer in another city a couple hours away. I don't want to pay to transport it; I'd rather take the opportunity to enjoy a road trip and get familiar with it on the drive home. It's a BEV, not a REx, so I'll need to charge on the way back. On the most direct route, it's 89 miles between the two level 2 chargers I'd need to use, but I could take an hour detour to another charger; then the longest distance between chargers would be 80 miles.

The big question is: Can I make it without running out of juice? Would you chance it on the direct route or play it safe to have a shorter distance between chargers? I would drive as efficiently as I know how, in Eco Pro+ mode, but can't avoid driving at night, so the headlights would be on. Temperatures should be in the 50s or 60s. I'll use battery and cabin preconditioning toward the end of charging. Anything else I should do to maximize range?

Before you tell me I should get the REx if I plan to make this kind of trip: this would be a one-time thing, just to bring it home. It doesn't need to be quick, I just need to not run out of power on the way, and not take so long that I fall asleep.

I'll have the professional navigation system, which I understand should let me know if I can make it to my destination or, if not, will direct me to a charging station. Have you found its range estimates to be reliable or has it ever left you stranded? Is it smart enough to guide me on a non-direct route, if that route will have more chargers on it?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

[jadnashuanh]

It somewhat depends on the roads you use. If you were cruising at 70mph, no, I don't think you'd make it. If you were at 55mph and they had the vehicle inside so it was warm and preconditioned (i.e., sitting on the EVSE) before you left, you'd have a good chance. At that temperature, you don't lose too much, and the estimated range probably won't give you a good indication at the beginning, since it will not have had enough miles for a decent prediction. Worst case, you use your L1 unit if you can beg a connection someplace, but that is like watching ice melt. Keep in mind, you might find other charge points if you search using some of the other networks - the functionality in the car does not know about all of them. Also, try to get the sales guy to help you enroll in the BMW Chargepoint card, otherwise, if you tried to use one of those, it wouldn't work (and those are the ones the car knows about). It's free in most cases, but you still have to supply a credit card number in case you use one that isn't. The card is buried in the car's documentation.

 

[rtanov]

How about you drive as far as you can and then call Roadside assistance to tow you home.

 

[I33t]

Or have a mate ready to pick up a car trailer and bring you the last few miles if required.

Towing is expressly verbotten in the manual, P196.

! Do not tow the vehicle
Have your vehicle transported on a load platform, otherwise damage might result.

 

[Schnort]

We yanks refer to any time some guy in a truck (tow truck) comes out and gets you as 'getting a tow'.

Even if it's on a platform, which most tow trucks are these days.

 

[I33t]

Sure. Just being absolutely clear for a new owner of a new vehicle. Imagine how he'd be feeling if he took the 'get a tow' advice literally and managed to damage his new vehicle.

 

[rtanov]

Yes, that's the "towing" I meant, it's actually listed in the brochure - up to 50 miles:
http://cache.bmwusa.com/Pdf_335e64e...8.arox?v=4aa17591-8aee-41a6-99d5-d3e9c8225d17

 

[Blue20]

You are getting a new car....Just drive it as you normally would (within the speed limit I presume) and enjoy it. If there is a level 2 EVSE on the way, it doesn't take long to top up 10 miles...half hour may be.

 

[alohart]

I would be sure that my tires were at least inflated to spec. In fact, I would overinflate them up to 10 psi each which could reduce their rolling resistance.

I would set the nav screen to split screen with the nav map on the left and the trip info on the right. To be able to drive 89 miles, you'd need to average at least 89 mi/18.8 kWh = 4.7 mi/kWh which will be shown in the trip info. I would drive in Eco Pro or Eco Pro+. I would also drive with adaptive cruise control (ACC) on, set to the speed limit initially, and allow ACC to accelerate and brake whenever possible. If you're not able to maintain the required efficiency, you could reduce your speed a bit.

I average 5.6 mi/kWh, but I typically drive in ideal conditions which you won't quite have.

 

[ryandesign]

Thanks for all the advice, especially how to configure the screen. I haven't had a chance to see either of the i3 navigation systems in person yet so I wasn't sure what exactly they can do. I took a 3-day extended test drive, but the REx they let me use was one of the early ones that was erroneously built without any navigation system. Not sure why the dealer would lend out a "try it out" car in an unorderable configuration, missing one of the features a customer is likely to want to try out, but that's what they did.

My total trip will be 160 miles going the direct route, or 198 miles to take the detour. It's 50 miles from the dealer to the first level 2 EVSE where I have to make my choice, so I'll drive to there in Eco Pro+ and if I can stay above 4.8 mi/kWh I'll try the direct route home.

 

[user 1536]

My total trip will be 160 miles going the direct route, or 198 miles to take the detour. It's 50 miles from the dealer to the first level 2 EVSE where I have to make my choice, so I'll drive to there in Eco Pro+ and if I can stay above 4.8 mi/kWh I'll try the direct route home.

Gonna be a long day, especially if you also have to travel on the same day just to get to this dealer.

Depart
Drive 50 mi (1hr)
Charge (L2) (2+ hrs?)
Drive 89 mi (2hrs)
Charge (L2) (3+ hrs?)
Drive 20 mi (.5hr)
Arrive

Based on my experience and what I've read from others here, I think you have zero chance on the 89mi leg that you have described. 80mi leg is probably pushing it as well.

My advice: Check out plugshare.com and see if there are any folks along the route offering to share their charger or make an outlet available for you to grab a charge. Maybe you need it, maybe you don't, but it's best to have some other options.

 

[ryandesign]

Yup, I'll have to travel to the dealer as well. I know it will be an all-day adventure, with multiple multi-hour charging stops. I'll bring books. My plans are already based on PlugShare data. There are no other chargers. The only additional option would be an RV park with a NEMA 14-50 plug, but I don't have anything I could plug into that yet.

 

[Cartman]

Have the dealer deliver the vehicle to you! I would imagine most would at no additional cost.

 

[ryandesign]

I could perhaps have had it delivered, but I didn't ask. It seemed contrary to the purpose of an EV to have it delivered by a gas-burning truck. I decided I wanted the adventure of bringing it home myself, and I was not disappointed.

I decided to modify my route and charge at another BMW dealership as my first stop, because I could not be certain that the EVSE I originally planned to use would actually work. (It shows as available, but a network representative said the last charge there was in September!) Even if the charger worked, I wasn't sure how fast it would charge.

The temperature was 55-70°F, it was overcast, with a touch of very light rain. If you want to know how my day unfolded:

• 7:30am: left home for bus station
• 8:15am: got on bus
• 8:35am: bus departed
• 11:45am: bus arrived
• 11:55am: arrived at dealer; car is fully charged
• ...financing department could not give me the terms I had negotiated in advance with the client advisor and as an aside had also "never heard of" Owner's Choice with Flex
• ...dealer could not generate activation code for navigation system, which I had intended to rely on for my trip
• ...BMW concierge could not register my vehicle; asked me to call tomorrow
• 3:15pm: started driving to first charger at other dealership 34 miles away
• 4:15pm: arrived at first charger, blocked by a dealership i3 loaner not charging
• 5:00pm: dealer moved their i3; started charging (free)
• ...charge rate lower than expected because a Tesla was using the charger's other port
• 7:25pm: finished charging; started driving to second charger 71 miles away
• ...eco pro+ 55mph for the first half, but then had to keep up with other traffic going 65-70mph
• 9:10pm: arrived at second charger with 6 miles remaining
• 9:15pm: found second charger; started charging (free)
• 1:25am: finished charging and preconditioning; started driving to third charger 80 miles away (guess-o-meter says 124 miles)
• ...eco pro+ 45-50 mph
• 3:20am: arrived at third charger with 11 miles remaining; started charging ($2/hr)
• 3:25am: drivetrain error: "Do not turn off engine, engine restart will not be possible. Consult nearest service center."
• ...could not find this error message on google
• 4:15am: finished charging (exited passenger side so as not to turn off car by exiting driver's side), but cannot shift out of park
• 4:20am: called BMW concierge
• ...difficulty looking up my information because my vehicle was not yet registered
• ...they wanted to set up a tow truck, which wouldn't arrive until 6:45am
• ...they wanted to get me a taxi, but i have to stay with the car to sign tow truck paperwork
• 5:25am: finally off the phone with BMW, I try turning off the car, getting out, locking it, waiting a couple minutes, and getting back in; car works fine
• 5:30am: started driving home
• 6:00am: arrived at home

I certainly got more adventure than I planned on. If you're thinking of making a similar trip, let this experience show you some of the things that can go wrong.

Nevertheless, mission accomplished. Car and I now sleep our respective sleeps. Good night, all.

 

[cove3]

LOL. Enjoyed the time line very much. Felt like I was on the odyssey with you. Thanks.

Second charger arrival gave you only 77 miles range , but the 3d charger gave you 91 miles with same driving mode. Would the slightly lower driving speed have made that much difference? Did you try to maximize range by coasting to slow down as much as possible and reducing brake regen to a bare minimum?

Ron

 

[websterize]

Good grief. :shock:

 

[jadnashuanh]

Range estimate is based on the last 18-miles of your driving and the current battery SOC. After driving, and then immediately charging, the battery is already nice and warm...things are near optimum, but as it was early in the morning, probably the coldest part of the day, so that affects things a little.

There's no excuse to not have the car registered and the nav working when you pick one up! Sloppy. At least it had a full charge.

 

[websterize]

[*]...financing department could not give me the terms I had negotiated in advance with the client advisor and as an aside had also "never heard of" Owner's Choice with Flex.

Could you elaborate on this bullet point?

 

[cerroo]

You're just like me super excited the first weekend I got my car. Granted I didn't do the almost 200 miles trip. Mine was more like 90 miles roundtrip. I heard people mentioning they gotten 90+ miles with ease. Weather was about 70 degree at the time in CA. My backup plan is that I have a location which is 10 miles from home with least 10+ charging station. I wanted to push the limit so I knew what it can do. 12 miles from my destination I was at 0 miles so went 2 miles on 0 range to get to the charging station. BTW, I had a full load of 4 people. Parked, walked to a restaurant to dine for 2 hours. No regret, it was fun!

 

[ryandesign]

Second charger arrival gave you only 77 miles range , but the 3d charger gave you 91 miles with same driving mode. Would the slightly lower driving speed have made that much difference? Did you try to maximize range by coasting to slow down as much as possible and reducing brake regen to a bare minimum?

At the first charging stop, I didn't charge to 100%, but I figured it was good enough to get 71 miles because the guess-o-meter showed over 80 miles. I also didn't precondition. At the second charger, I did precondition and did wait until the charger shut itself off.

I was still getting using to using the Active Cruise Control. Its driving style is different from mine. If I see a car slowing down ahead of me, I ease off the accelerator, but ACC just kept going until it had to regen pretty hard to stop in time. I feel I could have done better than ACC in these situations, but I was driving unfamiliar roads with varying speed limits and I liked being able to set the speed limit and not risk exceeding it and getting a ticket. It's very easy in the i3 for me to find myself driving faster than I intended.

Incidentally, the speed limit recognition feature seems to be extremely unreliable. It was wrong probably 30-40% of my drive back.

Good grief. :shock:

Correct.

• ...financing department could not give me the terms I had negotiated in advance with the client advisor and as an aside had also "never heard of" Owner's Choice with Flex.

Could you elaborate on this bullet point?

Sure, I posted about it here: http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2297&p=21600#p21600

And I posted more about the drivetrain error I got here: http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2347