Shall i buy one.

[tornado864]

HI,

I currently commute 96 miles approx four times a week to London and back.

all motorway between 60 and 70mph normally.

I was after some advice. I do approx 25000 miles per year. i was looking at a 2016 i3 rex with 25000 miles on it.

Do you think the car will be ok for this kind of commute or will the range not be enough.

thanks

Jamie

 

[eNate]

I'd be looking for a 2017 with a 94Ah (33 kWh) battery. That'll cover your commute on all battery with 30 miles to spare.

 

[derekgates]

I'd be looking for a 2017 with a 94Ah (33 kWh) battery. That'll cover your commute on all battery with 30 miles to spare.

I certainly recommend this advice as well. My daily trip is ~102 miles and the battery in my 2018 i3s is baaaaarely enough to spare. I normally have ~20 miles spare but sometimes hotter days or slight route changes make for <=10 miles left. I am glad I got a newer i3 (except for the price jump, haha).

 

[jfran2]

How much city driving do you do? The i3 Rex is a decent highway car, but if that's the majority of your driving, there are plenty of other cars that will handle better on the highway and still get you 40 mpg (which is what you'll get driving with the Rex on the highway). If you do quite a bit of city driving in addition to that commute, though, you'll love the i3's city manners.

 

[sipabit]

That's quite a bit of driving. You'll want the REX version. The low range i3's will be significantly cheaper than the mid range 94ah that people are recommending so it's really a balance of price and range. I drive about 75mi day and charge at both ends with my 2016 low range battery. If i hyper mile it, i might be able to make it round trip. I think I was off by maybe 2-3 miles one time. Not good to be running the battery so close to zero regularly, so either get the low range one with REX or the 94ah BEV. I'm always more comfortable with the REX though.

 

[tornado864]

thanks,

i do limited city driving. its all motorway.

i looked into it from what you all said and am i right in saying the better battery is the 2017 one with rex too.

is the 94 a/h one the same as the 33 kWh. i haven't quite worked out the figures yet.

regards

jamie

 

[Obioban]

94ah and 33kwh are two different ways of describing the same battery.

You want the bigger (94ah/33kwh) battery for sure. I also do 100-120 miles per day, mostly highway. I have a (94ah) BEV, but I can charge at work-- if I couldn't, I'd want the bigger (94ah) battery AND the rex (with the hope of never using the REx, but to have it days that things don't go 100% to plan).

Or, if you can spring for it, a BEV 44kwh car (2019 or later). But, no way I'd get a 60ah/22kwh car in your situation-- you'd be on the REx every day, which kind of defeats the purpose of having an i3.

100 highway miles/day is pretty much using 100% of a 33kwh battery, so if it's abnormally cold or abnormally hot or there's a detour, you'll be in trouble. Good to have the REx for the what if situations, but rarely need to ever use it (or the bigger 2019 battery).

 

[tornado864]

thanks for the help all. really appreciated

 

[bwilson4web]

The only problem I've had in the USA is long repair times getting parts. There is a centralized source in the USA and for specialized parts, they get them from Germany. I've had a loaner from BMW which instantly confirmed the wisdom of the BMW i3-REx.

In a few days, I'll take our 2014 BMW i3-REx out to cycle the battery, engine, and de-rust the brakes. As for your commute, I would not worry about a blended EV/REx drive:

• 72 mi EV - no problem on EV but start the REx early at 75% SOC. If there is a problem, you've got 75% SOC remaining to deal with it.
• 78 mi REx - at highway speed, 39-40 MPG (USA gal) would be no problem. Unlike what we in the USA have to do, you'll have the full gas tank capacity.

Your 2016 is pretty similar to our 40,000 mi 2014 BMW i3-REx. My family has taken 650 mi (1,040 km) vacations, each way.

Bob Wilson

 

[jadnashuanh]

Those of us on this side of the pond, remember, use a US gallon. One day, we might end up using the metric system, but probably not in my lifetime!

 

[user 6664]

I have a similar question... except my drive is longer. I was researching the idea of an electric car, and the i3 really caught my eye.

I could go with a different model but I can’t help wondering why so many car manufacturers make their electric models in a style that’s not so fun to own... it’s like they make the car as goofy looking as possible, or purposely try to make it look unnecessarily futuristic. The i3 is different yet steers clear of the usual goofiness. Lol

I have a similar long commute however, I drive 80 miles, each way. It’s probably 70 miles of highway speeds, of which 50 miles of that is 65mph, and 20 being 55mph.

I did find a model that I like for price, it’s a 2016 with range extender. I’m wondering how the Rex works...? Is this a generator that charges the battery? And, will this model/year/combo get me there reliably in one direction? Or better yet, both?

This is year round driving, and I don’t yet have a daytime charge except for a free spot I found that I could hit for an hour at lunch time. But it’s also a 7-8 mile round trip to the charger and back to work.

I am currently working to secure on-site charging during office hours which would be optimal.

My questions/concerns are mainly about highway speeds, length of commute and cold weather. Of course also want to hear info from current users that might pop up that I’m not considering as I’m an electric car newbie.

Thanks in advance!

—JH

 

[JackOakley]

I wanted to get into an EV last year, but had a limited budget. I purchased a 2016 REX with 7,800 Miles, it was off a 2 year lease from a dealer. $20,700 with 5 Year CPO unlimited miles. My daily commute is 72 miles each way. I installed level-2 charger at home and have access to level-2 charger at work and now a 50kW DCFC around the halfway mark - Opened in June of this year. I purchased the car 7/28/2018 as I said about 7,800 miles - I now have 52,000 miles. My REX died at 36,000 - Dealer replaced the whole REX unit and generator - I believe this to be a very rare issue -the crank in the rex engine cracked. Since then all good. In the winter I have to use the REX for approximately 30-45 miles out of my total 144 round trip commute. My longest trip to date is 1,400 miles round trip. No issue, just a lot of REX stops since there were very few Level-2 chargers along the way and no DCFC. DCFC is a game changer, hope to see more soon. You will need to code the i3 - very easy with BimmerCode and a $20 adapter. Need to make fuel take capacity reflect the max capacity which will give you more REX range and enable the ability to manually turn on REX below 75% battery. The REX will hold state of charge at highway speeds under 65 MPH. Above that you will see the battery slowly drain. I have no issues with REX other than I am burning gasoline. If you live in a snow-belt area, consider snow tires. No issues last winter in heavy snow with 4 snow tires. REX can be loud at times but radio covers it up. My Cons: Tires - they tend to attract nails like a magnet and they wear out around 20K miles, base radio is garbage, no heated steering wheel, no apple CarPlay (available now on newer models, but BMW charges and annual fee to use), halogen headlights (just ordered LED bulbs).
It's been a year and a half for me and an still absolutely love driving the i3. Would like a 2019 with the extra range.

 

[user 6664]

Thanks for the info!
So... I want to make sure I understand you properly... are you saying that you can make the 144 mile round trip on a single charge with some Rex use?

Reason I ask is I don’t have a level 2 charge available at the moment but expect that may be the case in the future. I’d love to get into the car now and perhaps run the Rex a bit in the short term, knowing I’ll have a charge during the day sometime in the future.

What’s this bimmer code you mention?

Thanks again!

 

[jadnashuanh]

Bimmercode is an app that runs on both Android and iOS. So it can talk to the car, you need an adapter that plugs into the OBD-II port. You can download the app and use it in demo mode. To unlock its use, you have to pay a one-time fee.

Many things in BMW cars are data table driven. Bimmercode (and other systems) allow you to change the data. This isn't actually programming in the manner that you're changing code, just the parameters the code uses to make things happen.

Depending on the model year, and the size of the battery you have, you will get about the equivalent of around 34-40 mpg while running the REx. The tank is 2.4g. As long as you keep filling the gas tank, you can continue to drive, but you're using a 34Hp driven generator minus conversion losses to make electricity. It will allow a decent progress as long as you don't push it too hard. So, you'd have the battery capacity, most people average around 4-miles/Kw of battery capacity, plus the distance you can drive with the REx.