BMW i3

zoom_cool

Just bought a BMW i3 REX 94Ah collecting it Saturday from the UK cant wait

I got rid of my VW Golf Diesel hope to save a fortune on my 170km daily commute to work hope it will do it without the range extender coming on.

I will keep you guys posted. The commute is 70% motorway driving.

Excellent, well wear, you'll absolutely love every Km in it !

How many total Kms is your commute ?

Even if you have to use the Rex a bit it's great having the option.

unkel

Well wear

zoom_cool wrote: »

I got rid of my VW Golf Diesel hope to save a fortune on my 170km daily commute to work

You will save a fortune alright!

I doubt you can do your commute doing 120km/h on motorways without the REX kicking in. But that's not the end of the world, is it? That's what it's for.

Ah ok 170 Km commute, no you won't do that at 120 Km/h, especially this time of year. But at 100 Km/h I can mate 142 Kms with maybe 30-35% % to spare so if you can restrain yourself from pressing that throttle which is quiet hard to do in the i3 then you should use the rex very little, that's not bad really. That beats the crap out of any diesel. I'll be interested to read how you get on with it.

I've still just over a quarter of a tank of petrol since about 2 weeks before Christmas haha that's some efficiency !

The beauty of the Rex is that you don't have to restrict your speed if you don't want to. You'll get familiar with it after a while to know how much you'll get out of a charge with the Rex at a particular speed. If I remember correctly, and it's vague in my mind , I think I wrote it here in this thread a while back but I think at 120 km/h I lost about 6% battery after 40 odd Kms.

If there's an AC point near by you can charge at 11 Kw provided you buy the 3 phase charge lead. That will be highly useful.

You can activate the Rex from 75% battery so if you know you need to use the Rex for xx Kms then do it on the motorway and use the battery for slower speeds.

zoom_cool

Thanks all for the well wear comments. I have also purchased the 11KW cable as my house is about 500 meters from a 22KW charging post. I will keep you posted on how it works out I have to do a 300mile trip to Hollyhead on Saturday so I will have loads of time with my new toy

482 Kms no problem as long as you keep petrol in the tank.

That's cool being so close to an AC point, especially with an 11 Kw charger !

Where did you get the cable ? I need to get one.

zoom_cool

Deleted User wrote: »

482 Kms no problem as long as you keep petrol in the tank.

That's cool being so close to an AC point, especially with an 11 Kw charger !

Where did you get the cable ? I need to get one.

I got it from the BMW dealer in the UK which I bought the car from.

It is a BMW i New AC quick charging cable 3 phases part no. 61900003163

Its not cheap but I got them to give me a good deal on it since I was buying the car.

the corpo

What will the VRT be like on a Rex?

Patser

zoom_cool wrote: »

Thanks all for the well wear comments. I have also purchased the 11KW cable as my house is about 500 meters from a 22KW charging post.

I genuinely misread that as being you'd bought a 500m long cable, and your later post about the price had me thinking 'I'm not surprised it's half a kilometre long!!'. I was also worried about where you'd store it in an i3's boot.

zoom_cool

Good one no I don't think I3 boot could store that.
It's good that the i3 can take 11kw from post so never stuck for quick charge.

Patser

To be fair a 500m lead could qualify as a range extender......

jhegarty

the corpo wrote: »

What will the VRT be like on a Rex?

I paid just over €1k on 142 a year ago.

zoom_cool

Quick question if you connect the AC side of a FCP on a BMW i3 94ah does it draw the 11kw that it's capable of doing?

ewj1978

had a look on mobile.de at i3 prices.. wow. saucy.

stesaurus

zoom_cool wrote: »

Quick question if you connect the AC side of a FCP on a BMW i3 94ah does it draw the 11kw that it's capable of doing?

Should do yeah but probably not the best use of an FCP

TBi

zoom_cool wrote: »

Quick question if you connect the AC side of a FCP on a BMW i3 94ah does it draw the 11kw that it's capable of doing?

Yes. But you’d be blocking it from a Zoe that can take full advantage. A regular esb charger should charge at 11kw too.

zoom_cool

Just asking if you where waiting in the Car for the DC obviously I would unplug if a Zoe came along.

stesaurus

zoom_cool wrote: »

Just asking if you where waiting in the Car for the DC obviously I would unplug if a Zoe came along.

Depends on the charger also. Not all can dual charge but if waiting on the Chademo you may as well. Might save a few mins.

cros13

Yes, 11kW... and it will put enough in to be worth it if you are waiting for a while.
But only the efacecs (which are the majority of CCS rapids).

Of course if a Zoe comes along let them in....

billy few mates

cros13 wrote: »

Yes, 11kW... and it will put enough in to be worth it if you are waiting for a while.
But only the efacecs (which are the majority of CCS rapids).

Of course if a Zoe comes along let them in....

What’s so special about a Zoe...?

TBi

billy few mates wrote: »

What’s so special about a Zoe...?

It’s French!

unkel

billy few mates wrote: »

What’s so special about a Zoe...?

They can't fast charge DC, so no fast charge on CHAdeMO or CCS. They can only fast charge on what we consider the slow charger: AC

So if you are slow charging on AC (waiting for a fast charger to become available), it would be rude not to disconnect and let a Zoe charge

A bit like a tax compliance PHEV charging on a FCP when a BEV comes along. Gotta love these acronyms, I haven't seen as many since the time I was in the army in the early 90s

cros13

Some Zoe's can charge at up to 43kW from AC and at least 22kW in all trims.

Unless you are driving a vehicle that can pull that kind of power and can't use another connector, the AC43 is their side of the rapid charger and on balance everyone will get charged quicker if you let them on.

billy few mates

unkel wrote: »

They can't fast charge DC, so no fast charge on CHAdeMO or CCS. They can only fast charge on what we consider the slow charger: AC

So if you are slow charging on AC (waiting for a fast charger to become available), it would be rude not to disconnect and let a Zoe charge

A bit like a tax compliance PHEV charging on a FCP when a BEV comes along. Gotta love these acronyms, I haven't seen as many since the time I was in the army in the early 90s

Thanks, so in real terms what does this mean?
They can't fast charge at any of the public charging points, so if they need a charge away from home it's going to take them ages?
Is this peculiar to the Zoe or something to be considered with other models as well?

ewj1978

no, they can charge up to 22kw on a slow charger, but some have the capability to charge on an FCP at 43kw too.. confusing aint it.

Casati

cros13 wrote: »

Some Zoe's can charge at up to 43kW from AC and at least 22kW in all trims.

Unless you are driving a vehicle that can pull that kind of power and can't use another connector, the AC43 is their side of the rapid charger and on balance everyone will get charged quicker if you let them on.

What is the legal position with this? If you leave your car charging can anybody legally unplug you if they pull up?

Of course they can unplug you, there's nothing illegal about it but if there's a car on the DC side and you're on the AC side it would be pretty pointless because they couldn't park in the space because you'd be there.

So in reality you can use the AC side as much as you want and no one can tell you otherwise. However it would be quiet unfair to plug in and walk away leaving a Zoe owner waiting. That's not the intended purpose of the chargers, neither is walking away for over an hour.

The problem we're going to face now is that as batteries grow and charger power stays the same a car with 60 Kwh for instance will take 1 hr 20 mins to get to about 90%. on a 45 Kw charger.

Nissan claim 40 mins to 80% on 50 Kw DC for the new 40 kwh Leaf which isn't too bad considering it can take a 24 Kwh leaf 40-45 mins to get from 18-85 % in cold weather.

With complete abandonment of new installations the last 1.5 years means it could be years yet before we see any 100+ Kw chargers.

Matt Simis

On a vaguely related note, who else charges from the Type 2 connector? I would like to use it to charge my i8, which unlike the i3 can only charge on Type 2 and only at 3.3Kw. It takes 1hr 45min to charge its fairly small 7kWh battery.

Currently I can only charge at my parents house (via granny cable) as I live in an apartment!
I don't want to be "in the way", but with relatively terrible stats like that Im at the bottom of the EV charging pecking order in every situation..

liamog

If you can only charge at 3.3kW then you need to be plugging into one of 1000 SCPs where you use your own cable.

stesaurus

Matt Simis wrote: »

On a vaguely related note, who else charges from the Type 2 connector? I would like to use it to charge my i8, which unlike the i3 can only charge on Type 2 and only at 3.3Kw. It takes 1hr 45min to charge its fairly small 7kWh battery.

Currently I can only charge at my parents house (via granny cable) as I live in an apartment!
I don't want to be "in the way", but with relatively terrible stats like that Im at the bottom of the EV charging pecking order in every situation..

Buy a type 2 cable and use one of the SCPs. Please don't waste an FCP charging at such pathetic speeds for 2 hours.
I'm in the same boat since moving from my i3 to a 330e. I wouldn't dream of plugging in at an FCP.