still searching for my Unicorn 2021 i3S

[Mustrum Ridcully]

So don't give up searching!

Your encouragement kept me looking, and I hope what I bought will be a winner, but I will be saving my ducats for a respray. I still like the Blue Ridge Mountain,
which I gather was never sold in the USA.
I first saw it in this Facebook post
https://www.facebook.com/oceanbmw/p...s-car-will-be-available-to-/3921938754507568/

 

[eNate]

Oy, it's not playing by the rules to name a color after something so quintessentially American and then not sell it here!

I'm a sucker for blue, but my favorite so far is this British Racing Green wrap, but I don't think I could ever justify spending the money.

 

[Mustrum Ridcully]

Oy, it's not playing by the rules to name a color after something so quintessentially American and then not sell it here!

I'm a sucker for blue, but my favorite so far is this British Racing Green wrap, but I don't think I could ever justify spending the money.

View attachment 1161

I have been driving my MINI Cooper for 20 years, and its BRG has held up beautifully, but I think it is time for a change. What will it be? I have not decided on the final answer.. how much did that wrap job cost? The outfits doing them in Maine are mostly around our largest city, Portland, which is not that large, and their reviews are not awe-inspiring
https://cdn.imagearchive.com/mybmwi...bf4074c9f2bca1d354b4e9ae4709c432df8bb1199c06c

 

[alohart]

Yes, I understand the technical and physical aspects of a heat pump, just not exactly how it is applied to the i3. So you have a conventional A/C compressor that cools the battery only, and a heat pump that does the cabin heating/cooling, apart from having also a ptc heater when it is too cold for the heat pump to operate? Or is the heat pump only for the heating of the cabin in winter and in summer, the conventional A/C takes care of the cooling? There are two on board compressors then, or only one (the heat pump)? i3 models without a heat pump have only the A/C compressor to cool both the battery pack as the interior?

A heat pump system includes a compressor to compress gaseous refrigerant, a condenser to cool the hot gaseous refrigerant enough that it liquifies releasing heat, an expansion valve that controls the system pressure such that the cooled liquid refrigerant evaporates into a gas, and an evaporator where cold gaseous refrigerant absorbs heat. All i3's have this heat pump system.

All i3's have only one compressor whether they have the misleadingly-named "heat pump" option or not. Only those i3's with the "heat pump" option have the valves and tubing necessary to reverse refrigerant flow to transfer heat to rather than from cabin air. In cooling mode, the i3 heat pump transfers heat to ambient air from cabin air thus cooling it or from battery cells thus cooling them. In heating mode, the i3 heat pump transfers heat from ambient air into cabin air. At ambient temperatures below -10 ºC/14 ºF, heat is no longer transferred to cabin air by the i3 heat pump but is created by a PTC heater.

A heat pump in cooling mode is described as an "air conditioner" in English. However, a heat pump that transfers heat to cold air in the winter conditions air as well. "Air conditioner" isn't a very descriptive English phrase because it is applied to a heat pump only in cooling mode. Maybe other languages have a better description.

I found the attached pages from BMW's I01 Heating and AC Systems Training Manual to be very helpful in my understanding of the i3's refrigerant system in i3's without the heat pump option and with the heat pump option in cooling, heating, and mixed modes.

PS. in the Netherland, the popularity of heat pumps has quickly diminished, due to high electricity prices and consumption in an already overloaded electricity network, high initial costs to install them, the noise they make in crowded neighborhoods etc. We have the best domestic natural gas network in the world and natural gas is a very clean fuel (only water and CO2) so we better continue using natural gas until we have a better solution. Heat pumps do not cut it. The people that benefited from heat pumps as early adopters where wealthy people that have solar panels and could profit from big tax incentives, poor people usually live in bad isolated houses and could not profit from incentives aka the usual story.

Natural gas isn't a clean fuel if one is trying to reduce CO2 emissions which we must do to avoid catastrophic climate change. The transition away from fossil fuels is difficult and expensive but absolutely necessary. The pipe dream of extracting CO2 from air in tiny <500 parts per million concentrations and sequestering it forever is folly.

CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels must be prevented from entering the atmosphere in the first place. There's some hope that this might eventually be economical at power plants and other point sources of significant CO2 emissions. However, it almost certainly would never be economical from ICE vehicle exhaust pipes, from natural gas home heating systems, and other distributed sources of CO2.

 

[Dutchi3]

Ah yes, thank you. I saw that diagram in the past, I forgot to look it up again. That is a lot of tubing and switching, but very clever otherwise. With one compressor, the car may cool the batteries and at the same time heating the cabin. That is why I wondered if there are two compressors.

Natural gas isn't a clean fuel if one is trying to reduce CO2 emissions which we must do to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Well I dare to differ in opinion, as there is a lot of recent "peer reviewed" scientific evidence provided by independent and very respectable scientists (not sponsored by big oil), that climate change is only very loosely related to the amount of CO2 in the air and that mankind does not have a real impact on climate, i.e. by emitting CO2. Of course, the chemical pollution that comes with burning fossil fuels should be avoided as it makes people sick, but the CO2 component is not polluting in itself and the absense of CO2 would make our planet a dead planet. In fact, nature does benefit from more CO2 as NASA satellite images proved the earth is becoming greener. In the Netherlands they pump CO2 in greenhouses so there is more yield, f.e. If you want to catch CO2, plant more trees.

And I can back my statements up with proven science and am willing to provide links to scientists and scientific research that show that there is a whole other story than mainstream science (IPCC f.e.) wants us to believe. I do understand that having this opinion does not make me very popular, but I want to confirm to the truth, not to some unproven fairy tale.

The problem is that only one approved narrative is allowed in the mainstream media and mainstream science, while other science that speak against the general narrative is suppressed. It is groupthink.
There is in fact no consensus in science that the earth is warming up due to human input, but there are trillions of money to be made to "counter" climate change, which is an absurd idea in itself. In the end it is about control, power, making money, not saving the planet.

I realise this discussion is out of the scope of this forum and this thread, I apologize, but the actual science makes me realise that driving an EV does not make me an "earth saver" and the fabrication of an EV is quite polluting on it's own, let alone the enormous holes in the ground we have to make to extract Lithium and rare metals from the earth, using masssive amounts of fossile fuels to fuel the enormous trucks and other mining equipment (that is out of sight of the average "earth saver"). And our electricity in general still comes from fossil fuel like coal and gas, let's face it.

 

[mojo]

There is in fact no consensus in science that the earth is warming up due to human input,

It's an intriguing subject, and it's good that we don't all have the same opinion on it, because it means that the science is always subject to scrutiny.

But your statement "There is in fact no consensus in science that the earth is warming up due to human input" is only true to the extent that science can't positively link any warming to human input. The worrying fact is that the earth is warming up. This is not just theory or prediction. You can clearly see it in the historic data.

So... it's true to say that science cannot ~prove~ that human activity is causing this warming - but human activity is the only thing that science can currently identify as an input that is changing rapidly enough to explain the warming.

Perhaps science will eventually come up with a different, credible explanation for the current warming trend - but at the moment there is no such credible alternative explanation.

 

[Dutchi3]

But your statement "There is in fact no consensus in science that the earth is warming up due to human input" is only true to the extent that science can't positively link any warming to human input. The worrying fact is that the earth is warming up. This is not just theory or prediction. You can clearly see it in the historic data.

Thank you for replying. Yes, that is correct and I do not deny any global warming. Over millions of years earth has cooled down or warmed up. We as humans better adapt to it, than fight it.

Perhaps science will eventually come up with a different, credible explanation for the current warming trend - but at the moment there is no such credible alternative explanation.

There is an explanation for the trend, it is solar activity, the way we orbit around the sun and the influence of cosmic radiation. Like it always was, even when there was no human life on earth.
The role of CO2 in this plays a very minor role. It has f.e. been stated that the amount of CO2 follows the rise of temperature, not the other way around. All solid research. I once was a follower of the mainstream narrative, but I did my own research over a number of years, and found out that the mainstream narrative is very one-sided. The focus on CO2 serves a whole different agenda, I am afraid and most people buy it.

 

[robthebold]

Next up: Chemtrails!

 

[alohart]

Well I dare to differ in opinion, as there is a lot of recent "peer reviewed" scientific evidence provided by independent and very respectable scientists (not sponsored by big oil), that climate change is only very loosely related to the amount of CO2 in the air and that mankind does not have a real impact on climate, i.e. by emitting CO2.

It has been known for over 100 years that CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas (i.e., that it traps infrared radiation preventing it from re-radiating into space thus heating the atmosphere). Without some CO2 in our atmosphere, Earth would be much colder, but its concentration needs to remain over a relatively small range to make much of the Earth inhabitable.

The fact that humans have released into the atmosphere in a period of a century carbon that had been buried underground for millions of years without any effect is absurd. Yes, plants can absorb CO2 and release O2, but humans are also destroying much of the plant life that could absorb some of this ancient carbon. However, there was never enough plant life to absorb all of the additional ancient carbon, and once CO2 rises above the surface of the earth, there are no natural processes to destroy it, so it will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds and probably thousands of years.

I have a Ph.D. in chemistry and worked for 3 years at the premier atmospheric research facility in the world, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Atmospheric scientists around the world, the people who understand what's happening to the atmosphere better than anyone else, are almost unanimous in their belief that humans are the main cause of catastrophic climate change that is occurring way faster than at any time on the past on earth other than after a huge meteorite impact. The natural processes that you allege are causing climate change occur over a much longer period of time and can't explain what it happening today.

Mere mortals like us can't intelligently argue about climate change; we can only cherry-pick "facts" to support our beliefs. Instead, we must depend on experts who study the climate for a living, and these experts have overwhelming evidence of many different kinds that human activity is the dominant cause of climate change.

Anyway, good that we drive EV's which result in less CO2 being added to the atmosphere. Good that so many in the Netherlands ride bikes rather than driving vehicles.

 

[robthebold]

It has been known for over 100 years that CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas (i.e., that it traps infrared radiation preventing it from re-radiating into space thus heating the atmosphere). Without some CO2 in our atmosphere, Earth would be much colder, but its concentration needs to remain over a relatively small range to make much of the Earth inhabitable.

A fun linear-scale depiction of recent changes in climate. Requires a lot of scrolling, but I don't wanna be that "spoiler" guy . . .

 

[tongsli]

I don't drive an i3 because of climate change or because of carbon footprint.

1.it's a great City vehicle, and I live in the City
2.I don't have to put gasoline (REX exception) or diesel into it
3. I love the technology of electric vehicles, batteries and the like

those are my top reasons why I like and bought this vehicle. everything else, I could care less about and am certainly not going to argue with anyone on this forum. I also don't dismiss your reasons why you like the I3.

 

[Dutchi3]

It has been known for over 100 years that CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas (i.e., that it traps infrared radiation preventing it from re-radiating into space thus heating the atmosphere). Without some CO2 in our atmosphere, Earth would be much colder, but its concentration needs to remain over a relatively small range to make much of the Earth inhabitable.

True, with CO2 below 182 ppm life will not survive. But there is also a limit where adding more CO2 does not cause more temperature rise. Some (The Royal Society f.e.) denies the latter fact, but they tell half of the story.

They say (quote):
"Different gases absorb energy at different wavelengths. CO2 has its strongest heat-trapping band centred at a wavelength of 15 micrometres (millionths of a metre), with wings that spread out a few micrometres on either side. There are also many weaker absorption bands. As CO2 concentrations increase, the absorption at the centre of the strong band is already so intense that it plays little role in causing additional warming. However, more energy is absorbed in the weaker bands and in the wings of the strong band, causing the surface and lower atmosphere to warm further."

When the weaker bands and the wings of the strong bands are saturated as well, temperature rising stops due to CO2. So their story contain only a partial truth which is misleading.

From robthebold diagram above we see how temperature gradually rises, but if you would overlay a graph with CO2 levels over that period of time which are obtained from ice core borings, you will see that CO2 levels lag behind the temperature levels about 800 years. So rising temps caused rising CO2 in the atmosphere in the past. Whether these findings are valid in our time is still debated. That hockeystick diagram has already been dismissed as false. One possible reason is that weather stations that were placed in rural areas long time ago, are now encapsulated by urban development and therefore show a higher reading. So the measured temperature rise on earth is biased and may not be as big as shown to us.

Furthermore, the biggest greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapor, about 3x more potent than CO2 and it's presence is abundant, while CO2 is just 400 ppm at the moment, a very small quantity. Yet nobody talks about removing water vapor to cool down the earth ;-)

We still do not understand the complicated influence of water vapor versus cloud building (reflects solar radiation). Higher temperatures mean more water vapor, means more clouds, mean more reflection of solar heat, means cooler planet. Also, variable cosmic radiation has it's influence on cloud building according to recent research. In my opinion and others, there is not enough knowledge to say that CO2 is the root cause of global climate change. I do not deny that it probably has an effect, but it is limited, let alone due to human activity. Again, science has no overall consensus here.

The fact that humans have released into the atmosphere in a period of a century carbon that had been buried underground for millions of years without any effect is absurd. Yes, plants can absorb CO2 and release O2, but humans are also destroying much of the plant life that could absorb some of this ancient carbon. However, there was never enough plant life to absorb all of the additional ancient carbon, and once CO2 rises above the surface of the earth, there are no natural processes to destroy it, so it will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds and probably thousands of years.

I would like to bring the following article to your attention (with actual links to scientific sources):

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/07/20...ts-start-arguing-we-need-to-save-the-deserts/

Atmospheric scientists around the world, the people who understand what's happening to the atmosphere better than anyone else, are almost unanimous in their belief that humans are the main cause of catastrophic climate change that is occurring way faster than at any time on the past on earth other than after a huge meteorite impact. The natural processes that you allege are causing climate change occur over a much longer period of time and can't explain what it happening today.

Yes, I understand that atmospheric scientists have this belief, because from their perspective, that is what they found out. Still they cannot explain what is happening today either, so their point of view must be a limited/partial one. Atmospheric science draws heavily upon modelling and computer models, and we know that with the "right" input you can make a model to "prove" whatever you want. Garbage in, garbage out in other words. It is manipulable, choose a specific set of inputs to show a desirable outcome. Of course, serious scientists won't do this. But scientists are also just humans with a family, a mortgage and a career they do not want to lose. So there is no guarantee that they will be as honest as science want us to believe. That is why I do not trust any scientist or institution just because.

Working for a world famous institute, having a Ph.d. does not guarantee that someone tells or knows the truth. Science does not work that way; a hypothesis may be supported by evidence for some time, until other evidence proves the hypothesis wrong. That is why an open debate is of utmost importance, but somehow this discussion does not reach mainstream science or mainstream media. That brings me to this article about the climate science that has been hijacked bij political and financial interests (hope you will check it out as it may also apply to the institute you worked with):

https://clintel.org/those-who-can-make-you-believe-absurdities-can-make-you-commit-atrocities/

Instead, we must depend on experts who study the climate for a living, and these experts have overwhelming evidence of many different kinds that human activity is the dominant cause of climate change.

We as mere mortals have the moral obligation to question those experts that are dependent on supporting a specific narrative for their living. I do not say every expert is wrong doing, only that they might be biased and we should be aware of that. The above article shows how climate research can be misused for a different agenda, and scientists may not even be aware of this. From the club of Rome:



A link to a lecture from William Happer with interesting climate physics explained (and not how mainstream science tells us):



From astrophysicist point of view:

https://www.freedom-research.org/p/professor-valentina-zharkova-and

Astrophysicist Professor Valentina Zharkova explains that instead of CO2, it is the Sun that drives the climate change and because of its decreasing activity we should be ready for a colder period.​

A climate documentary:


Here is a breakdown of the sixth IPCC report, where many mistakes are identified (free downloadable report/book): https://clintel.nl/download-ipcc-book-report-2023/

To conclude, I value any personal opinion on this subject and what I hope to find consensus on that we still know too little to be able to conclude that mankind and it's CO2 footprint is the root cause of climate change as we see it in our lifetime. Because of the immense consequences for the average citizen in the form of loss of freedom of movement and choice, the tax burden to pay for all the efforts to bring down CO2, the submission to CO2-social-credit systems etc. it better be. Personally, I don't dig it.

 

[robthebold]

Can't rule out the space lasers . . .

 

[BL5]

Back to the topic of buying a unique i3.

Found this one, 2021 BMW i3s REX 2021 David Schulf Special Edition

Look at the photos. Is this a dealer trying to make their own loaded 2021 REx Tera Panda into something special?

Looks like the nameplate was installed near the dash. Also noticed blue calipers, which look out of place in my opinion.

https://www.bmwusa.com/certified-preowned-search/detail/WBY8P8C0XM7H77230

 

[mfogarty]

That is a lovely spec though. Very tidy example.

 

[alohart]

Found this one, 2021 BMW i3s REX 2021 David Schulf Special Edition

Look at the photos. Is this a dealer trying to make their own loaded 2021 REx Tera Panda into something special?

I've never heard of a "David Schulf Special Edition" i3S. Maybe David Schulz was the original owner and had the plate made and attached. It doesn't have any options that aren't available on any 2021 i3S and no special paint or trim color. The only major option it's missing is a HK entertainment system which I would think a BMW special edition would have. Someone painted the brake calipers, but that's not enough to make it a special edition.

I'm surprised that it has light-colored eucalyptus dashboard trim that looks better on a Giga World (Lodge) interior. Dark oak dashboard trim looks much better on the dark brown Tera World (Suite) interior.