Born Electric Guest Blogger: Meet Scott From California

Hi, my name is Scott Lawson and I was Born Electric on August 11, 2014.

I confess: I am not a ‘car guy’. For me, cars are dirty explosion factories full of toxic liquids and endless grime. Oil changes, frequent fill ups, dusty air filters, and a noisy engine seemed to be an unnecessary evil. If I was to get an EV, I wanted it to be 100% electric, no engine, no gas, no oil, no going back! At times, I have even thought that if I lived in the city I would outsource my transportation to taxis, buses, and trains. But living in the so-called mega-city of SoCal (from San Diego to Santa Barbara) with inadequate public transportation options, a car is required. And since I am confessing, I should say I love traveling fast and zipping around in a driver’s car. Over the years BMWs have fit my needs well but were still powered by gas. I considered the LEAF for a fleeting moment and the Tesla Model S seemed like a car for executives or super models! And costs twice as much as any car I have ever owned.

My i3 in the mountains

BMW decided several years ago to create the BMW “i” sub brand and delve into creating a new kind of transport which they call ‘sustainable mobility’. More than just making an electric car, BMW is looking to change how personal transportation is defined. When the i3 hit the market I was excited to learn more; and the more I learned, the more I felt one with the design principles and philosophy. I am a system architect and strive to make technology useful to people and efficient for business. As I discovered more about the BMW i project and their first product, the all electric i3, I appreciated the innovative use of technology both in the machine and for the consumer.

At the San Antonio dam

The i3 driving machine’s body is made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) including fibers from the Kenaf plant (Hibiscus cannabinus), a form of hemp, for the interior. The manufacturing of the car is computer-controlled and ultra clean using robots, clean rooms, heat-activated glue welds, an all aluminum body, and powered by wind and hydroelectric power. As I read how BMW designed the car as ‘electric first’, I appreciated the lack of a large front hood, the use of tall skinny tires for less rolling resistance, that the ultra-light CFRP and aluminum construction allowed more efficient range. The opposing doors are possible because of the structural integrity of the material and the short overhangs on the front and rear help parking the car in a busy city. All of this adds us to a futuristic design not only in looks but in function. All of the thought that was put into the sustainability and design impressed me even before the first torque-filled test drive.

As an explorer of new technology I was impressed with the consumer technology built into the car. Integrated sensors and computers help in safety and convenience from the door locks to the theft protection to active cruise control to the integration with internet applications. The maps not only have traffic, but charging stations, mass transit stations and other points of interest. The i3 can listen to you with voice commands and read news and social media updates. The iDrive controller even has one-finger handwriting recognition so you can spell destinations or peoples names. The 20 GB music storage is fast and you can even play video from a directly connected USB drive (while parked, of course!). All of this adds up to the i3 being more than just the ultimate driving machine and turns it into the ultimate transportation machine. I feel it can transport me in time by delivering information to keep me efficiently connected to my social circle and work activities.

Up at Mt. Baldy

This is a new way of thinking. Just as cloud computing and mobile have changed the way we think about file storage, applications, installing software, and upgrades, the i3 alters the way we think about driving. It is something you have to not only experience, but something you have to work with and adapt to. It is a new way of driving. The “one pedal” experience is awkward at first, almost annoying, until you get the feel of it and think about electric propulsion. Driving one pedal is the best way to accelerate and decelerate and you begin to think about gliding to a stop and working with the force of the car. Your right foot is always active but never leaves the main accelerator pedal.

You have to change your thinking about “fuel” and trip planning. You can charge in your garage with a ‘level 2’ 240v charging station. While it relieves you of having to get gas, you do have to remember to plug the car in when you get home. This behavior is becoming familiar as many, if not all, i3 owners will have some form of mobile phone or mobile device that they plug in everyday. When it comes to trip planning, that requires a deeper shift in thinking. With an EV you just cannot ignore this aspect. Most technological shifts require new modes: you have to plan to record your show if you want to watch without commercials, you have to sync your laptop files if you want to work on them while on a flight, you have to schedule a PC virus check at night to avoid malware. Going on a trip up a mountain in the i3, you need to plan to see if there are charging stations, what kind they are (to make sure you are able to charge on them), and to figure the most efficient path there. The i3 itself helps with this by warning you on your state of charge (SOC) and showing you charging locations near you. But with only 25 miles of range to every 1 hour of charge, this is a slow process. More ‘level 3’ charging stations (also called DC Fast Charge) are coming and the i3 can be configured to use them to get charged up in 20-30 minutes. Unfortunately only in some places in the world today have a large enough concentration of DCFC stations to make longer trip travel carefree.

Cooling off in the shade for a bit

To get the most out of the i3, subtle shifts in thinking make all the difference. To save your potential range you can pre-condition the cabin for comfort while it is plugged in. To save on electricity you can set it to charge when your electricity rate is low. To more easily find your destination you can search online at your desk and send the address to the car via the internet. How you navigate these subtle shifts in thinking is the key to success in the modern EV world.

The i3 has taught me that driving an EV is not just changing how your vehicle is powered. It requires that you accept a new type of mobility and adjust how you approach your car. Many people will say an internet news site is just an electronic newspaper or that Google is just an electronic yellow pages, or that cloud file storage is just a “hard drive in the sky”. All of these ways of thinking miss the point that new paradigms like the i3 are a leap into something new. James May of Top Gear recently wrote this about the i3: “Being a car is just one of its apps”. A famous petrolhead, he sees the paradigm shift, too. You have to challenge yourself and think different. And owning an i3 will help you do just that.

I'd like to thank Scott for sharing his i3 story here. One last thing I'd like to point out is that Scott created a BMW i3 Owners map. You can enter your location and add yourself to the map HERE.  I'm going to do a dedicated post on this soon though because it was a great idea and something I think other i3 owners will enjoy. 

Scott is the tenth Born Electric guest blogger I've featured here and I appreciate the time everyone has spent to tell the readers about their i3 experience. Previous Born Electric posts can be found below:

Andy from The UK
Hil from Holland 
Toni from Belgium 
Jan from Belgium 
Steven from The Netherlands
Jon from Norway  
Ross from The UK

Bill from The UK

Christopher from Massachusetts 

If you own an i3 and would like to participate here in the Born Electric guest blogger series, email me at: tom.moloughney@gmail.com

After 2,000 Miles Part Two: Dislikes

I have to say that overall I am very pleased with my i3. It's living up to what I had hoped it would be, and after a month of ownership I'm convinced it was the right electric vehicle choice for me. However that doesn't mean it's perfect. In fact it's far from perfect, but so is every other car out there. As much as I really love my i3, I can probably list a couple dozen things that I would have done differently. Listed below are some of the top things that I'm not particularly fond of.

I took this picture from an i3 display at the LA Auto Show. Somehow 100 miles turned into 82 miles once the production i3 was revealed.

The Range. So let's just get this out of the way now. I'm disappointed that BMW didn't deliver a real "100 mile" electric vehicle as they had been promising. The 81 mile EPA range on the BEV i3 and the 72 mile rating for the REx, falls a little short in my opinion. If the BEV i3 had an EPA range of 95 miles per charge or greater then I wouldn't have ordered the REx, and I think a lot of others share that opinion. I hope I'm wrong, but I believe this is going to hold back BEV i3 sales significantly. I think 82 miles falls just short of what many US customers will find acceptable for a premium electric vehicle.

Looks like the battery is 3 & 3/16th's out of 4 bars full. Wonderful.

No Proper State of Charge Gauge. When I first found out that the i3 wouldn't display the state of charge in numeric form, I was dumbfounded. Instead, the i3 state of charge display is just four bars that slowly erode as the range diminishes, and it displays the predicted amount of miles the car "thinks" you can travel. In other words, a Guess O Meter. When Nissan initially offered the LEAF, this is basically the same way they displayed the state of charge. Their customers complained so much, that after a couple years Nissan finally realized they made a mistake and added a proper state of charge display. I dedicated an entire blog post to this back in December of last year when it was revealed that the i3 wouldn't display the SOC. Still to this day I am in denial and refuse to believe it's not coming in a future software update. There is absolutely no logical reason for omitting it. It was simply a mistake on BMW's part and like Nissan they will indeed realize that and add it to the display at some point. I'm not saying they need to eliminate the bar system they have, just give us both and let the customer decide which they prefer to rely on.

Like the MINI-E before it, the ActiveE had a clear state of charge and battery temperature display. It's puzzling why both of these important features were omitted on the i3.

No Battery Temperature Readout. Like the state of charge gauge but to a lessor degree, this is a little puzzling. Maybe the majority of i3 owners might not really care what their battery temperature is, but I do and I know quite a few others who do too. It's further puzzling because both of BMW's beta test cars that I drove, the MINI-E and the ActiveE, had battery temperature displays. I like to see how well the thermal management system is performing, how hot the battery may have gotten while baking in the direct sun of a parking lot for a few hours, or how cold the cells are after parking outside overnight in the dead of winter. Knowing the battery temperature helps me know what to expect of the car performance-wise and can also help me to keep the cells from getting too hot in certain circumstances. The car knows the battery temperature, just provide that somewhere on a screen buried in iDrive somewhere and I guarantee many i3 owners will appreciate it.

When you are in "Glide Mode" the white bar is in the position it is shown here. As you use power the bar moves to the right (ePower) and if you are recuperating energy with regenerative braking, the bar moves to the left (Charge) of center.

Glide Position Difficult to Achieve and Maintain. BMW describes the i3's glide feature as such: "The BMW i3’s accelerator has a distinct “neutral” position; i.e. rather than switching straight to energy recuperation when the driver eases off the accelerator, the electric motor uses zero torque control to decouple from the drivetrain and deploy only the available kinetic energy for propulsion. In this mode, the BMW i3 glides along using virtually no energy at all." I've only had the car for a month, but it seems more difficult to find the glide (or coasting) position and then hold it, than it was on the ActiveE. A few years ago I was talking with a BMW engineer about this and I suggested there be a switch to turn off regen completely if the driver wished. I would prefer to do this on long, high speed highway driving where I want to coast as much as possible. I was told that they probably wouldn't offer such a switch to disable it because they would be worried the driver would forget they deactivated the regen, and possibly have an accident because they expected  it to engage later on. I still think this would be a good solution for maximizing efficiency by coasting at higher speeds.  

The kenaf deck in direct sunlight

You can see the reflection of the dash

Windshield Glare. The majority of the top deck of the dashboard is made of compressed kenaf fibers. The use of this material has garnered some criticism because some people think it looks cheap, and not worthy of being in a car made by a premium automaker. I actually like the look of it but what I don't like is that in direct sunlight I can see the reflection of the entire dashboard up on the windshield. After a few weeks I'm getting used to it and it isn't as annoying as it was when I first noticed it, but it definitely isn't ideal. The shiny kenaf surface does cast a pretty clear reflection on bright, sunny days.

No AM Radio. I like to listen to AM talk radio and I am a Mets fan (unfortunately). Mets games are only broadcast on AM so I was disappointed to find out that i3 doesn't have an AM radio. BMW spokesman Dave Buchko recently told Jim Motavalli the reasoning for excluding the AM radio was primarily due to interference from the electric motor: “We learned from our experience with MINI E and BMW ActiveE that the electric motor causes interference with the AM signal. Rather than frustrate customers with inferior reception, the decision was made to leave it off. HD Radio is standard on the i3 and through multi-casting, many traditional AM stations in key markets are available on secondary and tertiary HD signals.” I admit the AM radio in the MINI-E had really bad interference, so much so that I rarely listened to it, but it wasn't bad on the ActiveE. Other electric cars have AM radios and they don't seem to be all that bad. This is a little bit of a head-scratcher to me. I'm learning to live without it, but why should I have to?

Grooves like this in the pavement can be felt more in the i3 than in other cars. I believe it's because of the vehicles light weight combined with its narrow tires.

The Thin Tires Can Get Caught in Pavement Grooves. When roads are paved, unless they are narrow secondary or tertiary roads, they are usually done in multiple strips. This also allows the street to remain open with one lane of traffic flow at a time during the paving process. The problem is, the line where the two sections of the new pavement meet has tiny gaps and over time the road degrades with the help of water and ice and a groove develops. The i3's tires are so thin that they are effected by these grooves and uneven pavement more so than most cars that are heavier and have wider tires. It doesn't present a safety problem; the car doesn't lose any control, you just have to be cognizant of this and make sure you have a grip on the steering wheel when one wheel dips into pavement grooves - which is a good idea in any event. I also believe the very sensitive steering of the i3 adds to this sensation that the grooves are trying to steer the car for you. The i3 has very tight and sensitive steering. You only need to slightly lean in one direction or the other to make a turn, and it is something that takes a week or so to get used to. It has by far the most sensitive steering I have ever experienced on any car. The turning radius is also a freakishly-short 32.3 feet.

The Key FOB will open the front trunk, but not the rear hatch.

Key FOB Doesn't Open the Hatch. This is a minor complaint, and since my i3 has comfort access I can open the locked hatch just by grabbing the hatch handle as long as I have the key in my pocket. I would still prefer to have a button on the FOB that remotely opens the hatch. There is a button that opens the front trunk, which I will rarely ever need to open, I don't know why BMW didn't use that button for the rear hatch, or just add a button and have one for both.

Regen Braking is Less Aggressive. Before I start complaining, let me say that I've driven just about every modern electric vehicle and plug-in-hybrid and I believe the i3 has absolutely the very best regenerative braking system on the market. Telsa probably comes in second and the Volt, when driven in low mode, is right behind the Model S. BMW dialed back the regen on the i3 a bit, probably in the vicinity of about 10% when compared to the ActiveE. People who never drove the ActiveE or MINI-E won't understand what I'm complaining about because the i3's regenerative braking is still strong and very smooth. It can bring the car to a stop without using the friction brakes faster than any regenerative braking system on any other EV will. Still, I liked it stronger like it was on the ActiveE and MINI-E. I guess regenerative braking is like coffee. Some will prefer the Blonde Roast with cream while others want the Dark Roast served black. Give me my regen as strong as possible please. I recommended to BMW that they offer different regen settings and let the customer decide how strong they like it, but that didn't come to pass on the i3. It's still very good, and integrates seamlessly when decelerating, I would just prefer it a bit stronger.

When the car is locked the connector will not release, even when charging is finished

Locking Connector. While charging, the connector is locked to the car as long as the vehicle is locked. The connector cannot be released unless you unlock the doors, even when the charging session is complete. I've found this very annoying and so have many other i3 owners. The ability to lock the connector to the car should be configurable in iDrive, giving the owner options like "Unlock when charge is complete" and "Do not lock connector". Allow the owner to decide what works best for them. Many people like to share chargers, especially in EV-friendly California. These people will leave a note on their dashboard telling others it's OK to unplug them and use the EVSE once they have finished charging or after a specific time. The locking connector prevents any charger sharing unless you leave your vehicle unlocked, which is not a viable option in most circumstances. I can understand this locking feature would be necessary in Europe because the charging cables are not tethered to the EVSE like they are here in the US and this prevents theft. It seems BMW may have built the i3 for the European charging process and didn't consider the inconvenience it would cause for US customers. This is another feature I believe we'll see changed in a software update at some point in the future.

When I navigate this bend in the road by my house, the regenerative braking disengages. Since the road is also downgrade I find I have to use the friction brakes to keep from accelerating down the  hill. I didn't have to do that in the past while driving my MINI-E or ActiveE as both would allow the regenerative braking system to hold back the car during turns like this.

Regen Braking Disengages During Hard Turns. I'm a little surprised with the second complaint I have with the regenerative braking. While negotiating turns, the regen sometimes disengages which will give the sensation that the car is actually speeding up. Of course it isn't (unless you are going downhill), but when you are in full regen and it suddenly disengages, it does feel like the car is accelerating when if fact it just isn't being slowed down by the regenerative braking. During the MINI-E and ActiveE programs, I personally spoke to dozens of people who contacted me asking if my car ever suddenly surged ahead. What was happening with those cars was different though. If the regenerative braking system was operating and the car hit a pothole or a bump that caused the wheels to lose traction, the traction control would disengage the regen in an attempt to prevent the loss of control. When this happened, it would give the driver the sensation of sudden acceleration, especially when driving downhill. This was unsettling if you didn't understand what was happening and typically when this happened the owner would take the car to the dealer for service. The dealer would look it over and find nothing wrong and give it back to them. Frustrated, many of the drivers then contacted me to ask if anyone else had complained of this sudden acceleration problem. After explaining what was actually happening to them they understood what was going on. I would also caution them to always have their foot ready to press the friction brake when they were using regen to slow the car down, especially if they were approaching the car in front of them as they were decelerating.

BMW has indeed improved the whole traction control/regenerative braking system communication and the i3 performs much better than the MINI-E or ActiveE did when the tires lose traction during regenerative braking. However it now disengages during cornering, and neither of its predecessors ever did this. I can tell by how it's working that it isn't a flaw in my system, it was intentionally designed to do this, perhaps to prevent the thin tires from losing traction while negotiating hard turns. Again, it's not a problem as long as you know it's going to happen and you are ready to use the friction brakes if necessary. I've found it mostly happens while I'm taking a highway off-ramp that circles down under the highway overpass. It seems the speed I'm traveling combined with the sharp, constant turn is too much and the traction control preemptively disengages the regen in an attempt to prevent the loss of traction. I believe this is something the dealers need to communicate to the customer. It can be a safety issue if new i3 owners aren't prepared for it. Just like with the MINI-E and ActiveE, I'm certain there will be customers that believe there is something wrong with their car and will take it to the dealer for service. And just as I'm sure that will happen, I'm sure the service departments won't have a clue what the customers are talking about and will tell them they checked it out and car is fine. Unless the service manager happens to read this post ;)

I haven't had this happen to me, but a couple people have reported it.

Software Bugs and Various Glitches. There have been a number of various software bugs and other issues reported since the car launched here in the US about two months ago. For example, all of the i3s with the range extender option have had their check engine light (CEL) come on sporadically. Evidently there is nothing actually wrong with the engine, it's just a software bug and BMW has just released a patch to stop the light from coming on, but it's still not something you want to see on a new car. I've also heard of a couple people have their onboard charger fail, and a few others report that the car flashed a "Drivetrain Malfunction" warning. In the cases I've heard about, it just cleared itself and the owner was able to take it to the dealer to be checked and there was no problem found. Honestly I did expect there would be some initial glitches, and it's really too early to tell if these are isolated cases or if it's an indication that there are indeed going to be more problems to come. Other than the phantom CEL warning, my car has been perfect so far, but I'll be watching it closely and reporting on what I experience as well as what I hear from other i3 owners as time passes.

Minor Annoyances:
There are a few things that really don't bother me that much, but I know other i3 owners who have complained about these things:

The dangling plastic charge port cap seen here isn't really too high on my list of annoyances, but I have heard quite a few other i3 owners complain about it. I even know a couple that have cut it off.

1) Charge port plastic caps. After you open the watertight charge port door you need to remove a plastic cap before you plug the car in. It really doesn't bother me, but I agree it isn't the best solution. a spring loaded cover that flips over and snaps in place like the ActiveE had would be better. Is this really even needed though?

2) The adaptive cruise control system will sometimes disengage for no apparent reason. When it works, it's really a great feature, but it does have a tendency to disengage by itself. It seems like driving in the rain, in direct sunlight and going under overpasses give it the most trouble. I have used it a couple dozen times now and it has disengaged four times by itself. Not a big issue, but one that BMW will hopefully improve.

3) The "Door Ajar" warning light is very sensitive. If you don't close the doors pretty hard, the door ajar warning light will come on while you are driving. The doors aren't in any danger of opening, I just think the warning trigger is just too sensitive.

4) BMW advertises that for home charging "a maximum charging power of 7.4 kW can be reached".  I have yet to be able to crack 7kW's and usually see my charge rate at around 6.7 kW to 6.9 kW. Sure, this is a minor complaint, but my supply is more than adequate to accommodate at least 7.2 kW, so why won't the car pull it? I've talked to other i3 owners about this also, and 6.9 kW is about the most anybody has seen the car pull.

5) No programmable button on the key FOB to initiate battery and cabin preconditioning. The European i3s have this feature, but for some reason it was left off the US i3s. You can still initiate cabin and battery preconditioning via the smartphone app, but having it on the key FOB is easier. Some people (you know who you are!) have told me it was a deal breaker and wouldn't buy an i3 without it.    

I'm sure I'll come up with more dislikes as time goes on, and I'll continue to post them here. Even considering everything I've detailed here, I'm thoroughly enjoying my i3. I drove it a total of 162 miles today and less than 2 miles was with the REx running. The range extender allows me to really push the range limit without worrying if I'll make my destination. Oh yeah, that reminds me of one more complaint. I want the ability to turn the range extender off if I know I'll make my destination. Twice so far the range extender turned on when I was less than a 1/4 mile from my house and once it turned on while I was pulling up my driveway! I believe the European i3s do allow the operator to turn it off manually, so that's just another feature (sunroof, programmable key FOB, REx hold mode) that we don't get here in the States. Yeah, I know... first world problems. :)

"Monroney Hold" Has Hundreds of Range Extended i3s in Limbo

i3s lined up at the port in New Jersey

For a little over a month now, cargo ships from Bremerhaven, Germany have been arriving weekly at the port in New Jersey to unload anywhere from dozens to hundreds of shiny new i3s. My i3 arrived last week on the Fedora, which left Germany back on April 30th. Back when I learned it was booked on the Fedora and would arrive here on  May 15th, I assumed that by the 20th or 21st of May, I'd be at the dealer signing the paperwork and driving my i3 home. I was wrong.

The BEV i3s Monroney label

I now have no idea when I'll be getting my car, and neither do the hundreds of other people that ordered an i3 with the range extender and whose cars are currently here in the US sitting at a port somewhere. Officially the holdup is a "Monroney Hold" - the fact that the EPA certification has not been completed so BMW doesn't have a Monroney label (window sticker) to post in the window before the car leaves the port, which is required by law. The range extender option changes (shortens) the car's electric range, and also requires an official MPG rating so BMW couldn't use the same Monroney label as they did for the all electric i3. The i3 REx would need to be fully tested and certified as a completely different car. To make matters worse, the majority of i3's sold in the US have the range extender option. For example, my client adviser Manny Antunes of JMK BMW has sold thirteen i3s so far and only two of them are the BEV version. Eleven of the thirteen have the range extender and his clients are beginning to call him frequently now, wondering when they can expect delivery. He has no information to offer other than he'll contact them as soon as he hears something from BMW - or a truck somehow magically pulls up to the dealer with a load of i3s with range extenders!

Where's mine?

BMW is indeed delivering i3s to customers now, but all of them sold so far have been the fully electric BEV i3. The i3 RExs keep arriving in the US alongside their BEV brothers, but they cannot be released and trucked to the dealerships until they have the EPA Monroney label. BMW isn't communicating the exact reason for the lack of EPA certification, but it appears to be a combination of BMW providing the EPA with the required information a little late, and the fact  that the i3 REx is different than anything the EPA has certified before so they are taking their time to make sure they get the certification right. The closest thing to the i3 REx would be the Chevy Volt, which for most of the time the gasoline engine is running is a series hybrid and only charges the battery. However under certain conditions the gasoline engine of the Volt does indeed directly power the wheels, and in those conditions it is a parallel hybrid, like a Toyota Prius. The i3 REx is the first (second actually. The Fisker Karma was also a series hybrid - thanks to reader Andrew Chiang for pointing that out to me. Fact is, I've tried to block out all memory of the Karma!) true series hybrid the EPA has ever certified and the range extender will only serve to charge the battery. I don't see why that would be a problem because to me it seems like the Volt would have been even harder to certify because it is both a series and a parallel hybrid depending on the driving conditions. In any event, BMW claims to have furnished the EPA with everything they need for certification and are cooperating with the EPA in an effort to get this issue resolved as quickly as possible.

Battery log sheet courtesy George B

This is clearly an example of a "first world problem," but those who have been waiting patiently for their car are growing anxious as the days pass and their car is simply sitting at the port and waiting for the label. Some have even wondered what the state of charge of the cars are, and if by sitting so long (some have been sitting at the port for over a month now!), have the "vampire loads" reduced the charge level to dangerously low levels? Personally I don't believe this is an issue, and I'm sure BMW is monitoring them. BMW ships the cars with only about 25% state of charge and charges them up at the port. All of the cars used for test drives had a battery log sheet in the glove box which shows BMW is certainly monitoring the SOC of all the cars from manufacture to delivery. Plus, if the i3 is anything like the ActiveE, then the car will hold the SOC very well when not in use. My ActiveE would only lose about one percent per week when sitting unused. I doubt sitting for a month or so will have any noticeable reduction in charge and unless the cars arrived with less than 10% SOC and weren't monitored and charged I doubt there is anything to worry about. However, let's hope this "Monroney Hold" gets resolved soon and BMW can begin deliveries of the i3 REx cars that are already here and waiting - and mine in particular!

Real World Range Test: BMW i3 vs BMW ActiveE

Now that BMW has begun to deliver some BEV i3s to the ActiveE Electronauts, some of those in the ActiveE trial lease program who haven't yet gotten their i3 have been asking how the i3 compares to the ActiveE. Questions on ride quality, acceleration, handling and charge rate have been asked, but the biggest concern is: How does the range compare? After all, with electric vehicles, range is paramount.

So I got together with Michael and Pamela Thwaite who just last week picked up their Ionic Silver i3 and we mapped out an 80 mile loop that would include roughly 50% highway and 50% secondary and tertiary roads. While everybody has different driving needs and patterns, it was our hope that this course would provide an evenly balanced mix of different driving conditions. That being said, this wasn't a carefully controlled scientific experiment. We didn't weigh ourselves to make sure both vehicles were carrying the same weight, we didn't calibrate our speedometers or record the barometric pressure so please don't bother commenting on why this was a flawed experiment because it wasn't perfectly controlled. We did make sure we had proper tire pressure, we took turns following and leading each other and we tried our best to maintain the same constant speeds. We drove in the default (Comfort Mode) driving mode and didn't use Eco Pro driving mode at all. We met on Saturday morning at my restaurant which has two ChargePoint EVSEs in the parking lot and after about two hours of charging we set out with Pamela driving their i3 and my wife, Meredith, driving my ActiveE. Michael and I were the co-pilots so we could live blog the event, post pictures on social media sites and make sure we stayed on course.

Both cars charging up for the challenge at my restaurant in Montclair, NJ.

With both cars fully charged, the ActiveE showed an estimated 86 miles of range, while the i3 predicted 98. Which will be more accurate?

It was a warm, cloudy day with temperatures in the 80's. We knew we would need the air conditioning so we agreed to both use it only when we were driving over 45mph and under that we would just open the windows. The first stop, about 20 miles in, was the headquarters of BMW of North America. We figured it was an appropriate destination and since it was a Saturday they wouldn't mind us parking in front of the main entrance for a photo op. We were pleased to find a life sized i3 decal applied to the glass of the front doors. BMW is evidently proud of their first all electric vehicle. At this point we had both used 19% of the available battery. I was surprised the i3 was holding its own, especially since that leg was about 75% highway. We did drive the speed limit on the Garden State Parkway though, and stuck to about 60mph. I'm sure if we drove faster the i3 would have used more battery than the ActiveE. Still, I really expected the ActiveE to jump out to an early lead since we were driving at highway speeds for most of the first leg.

At BMW HQ in Woodcliff Lake NJ - Note the i3 overlay on the doors

The next leg of the journey would be about 40 miles, with the first 30 miles or so on all secondary and tertiary roads and we would end up in Denville, NJ. Michael and I were trading texts during the way and for at least the first 20 to 25 miles of this leg (a total of 40 to 45 miles driven) we were still nearly dead even in battery state of charge with the ActiveE having a 1% advantage with battery state of charge.  On route to the Route 80 leg (which would be our highest speeds of the day and all uphill) we were driving on Route 23 at 50 to 55mph and the ActiveE started to gain an advantage of a few more percent.

Driving the back roads of Bergen county was a pleasure on a nice sunny Spring day

We took turns following and leading each other for the entire route.


Then came the blow that the i3 couldn't recover from. Driving on Route 80 upgrade at the 65 miles an hour speed limit for about 10 miles finally gave us the separation we expected. We were 60 miles in (59.8 exactly) and the ActiveE now had a 6% state of charge lead (46% to 40%) and a predicted range of 9 more miles (40 miles to 31 miles). This clearly reinforces what many of us imagined. The i3 is a warrior on low speed driving, but at faster highway speeds it's a bit out of its element and the range will be substantially compromised.  At highway speeds the weight of the car isn't nearly as important as its aerodynamics, the exact opposite of low speed driving where weight influences energy use much more. The lightweight i3 has a respectable Cd of .29, but it is tall and has a large frontal area which increases its CdA (the combination of drag coefficient and frontal drag area) making it less than ideal for cheating the wind resistance at highway speeds.

The final 20 miles were about 30% highway (this time down hill most of the way) and 70% secondary roads with about 4 miles of stop and go, traffic light to traffic light driving. We decided to make one last stop at an appropriate destination which happened to be along the way. We stopped at the Thomas Edison National Historic Park in West Orange. What would be more appropriate for an electric car challenge anyway?

After the quick stop we headed back to Nauna's and finished the day driving exactly 80 miles. The ActiveE won the range challenge by 6 miles. Here are the final statics:

2011 BMW ActiveE
Remaining SOC: 27%
Estimated miles remaining: 22
Trip efficiency: 4.1 miles per kWh
Total miles: 102

2014 BMW i3
Remaining SOC: 20%
Estimated miles remaining: 16
Trip efficiency: 5.4 miles per kWh
Total miles: 96




So adding the mileage driven to the remaining mileage the i3 ended up with 96 miles of range and the ActiveE with 102. The i3 actually came very close to predicting the actual range and was only off by 2 miles since it predicted 98 miles of range when it was fully charged that morning. My ActiveE actually beat its range prediction by 16 miles, but that is because my regular driving routing is mostly highway so the car has learned to predict the range based primarily on high speed highway driving. All in all the i3 fared about as well as I expected. It is an incredibly efficient electric vehicle and is in fact now the most efficient car sold in America. However the ActiveE has a battery that is nearly 50% larger (21.6kWh's to 32 kWh's) than the i3's battery and in the end battery size beat efficiency. If the i3 had just a couple more kWh's, I'd be writing a different ending. BMW has been billing the i3 as its "Megacity" car. That was even the codename during development and they weren't kidding. It is much better suited to live its life on congested city streets than it is roaming the high speed highways of the US and the Autobahns of its homeland. I would speculate the i3 will only go about 70 miles if driven all highway, and that's at the 65 mile speed limit. If you were to increase that to 70 or 75 miles than the range will likely drop to 60 to 65 miles. However if you were to drive on secondary roads at around 35 to 40mph, I suspect 100 to 110 miles would be easily attainable in moderate temperatures when you don't need the air conditioning or heater much. So if I were rating the range of the all electric BMW i3, I'd say 60 to 110 miles, conditions provided.

The Thwaite's i3 topping off after the range challenge

One last no-so-small detail. The i3 we used is brand new, while my ActiveE is 28 months old and has 20,100 miles on it. Based on my recorded data I believe its battery has lost between 8% and 9% capacity. If you factor that in, it's clear that while my two year old ActiveE has a slightly better range than a new i3, it had a substantially better range when it was new. Probably about 15% more, which actually coincides with the EPA range ratings for both vehicles.



Some more pictures of the day:

More Range Extender Details Uncovered At BMW i Dealer Training

BMW has been hosting i3 training events to get their client advisers up to speed and ready to sell the car. I'm very happy to hear they are doing this because I was really beginning to get concerned that they wouldn't properly prepare their sales staff for this unique vehicle. I even dedicated a post a few months ago to this very topic. I've now talked to a few client advisers that have done the training and they reported that they did indeed get a lot of useful information which will help them service their clients.

The i3's tiny fuel tank is seen here at right in front of the battery pack in the center of the car.  This is where the heat pump is located and why you cannot get the heat pump if you have an i3 REx

This week the latest round of training sessions are being held up at BMW headquarters in Woodcliff Lake, NJ and details of what is being taught are starting to leak out from some of the client advisers that are there. A couple things of interest shared were details about the range extender the i3 will offer as an option.

First, it was learned that the range extender is automatically activated once the state of charge drops below 6.5%. At that moment, it turns on and it's function is to bring the state of charge back up to 6.5% and to maintain that level of charge. It will not charge the car much above 6.5%, and it will not run if the car is stopped, unless the state of charge is critically low. Therefore you can't it in a stationary i3 and wait for the state of charge to increase. I knew the automatic turn on point was around 5% to 6%, but now we have an exact level when it engages.

US i3 REx customers wish they had the European "hold" feature available

You cannot manually turn the range extender off. This is contrary to what I was told by an i3 product manager at the i3 debut in New York City last July. I remember asking this specific question by saying "What if I knew I'd make it home on electric, say I only had a mile or two to go and the REx was about to turn on, could I just turn it off so it's doesn't fire up?" I was told yes, there will be a setting that will allow you to turn it off before it engages, but that setting will reset once you turn the car off. The reason for that is so that the next time you get in the car you won't forget that you had turned off the REx and you may end up needing it. I would have definitely preferred to be able to turn it off manually, and honestly can't see why that isn't going to be allowed.

The range extender exhaust is tucked away under the car so you can't see the tailpipe unless you crawl underneath to look

We also found out that the client advisers have been told that while the range extender is in operation the speed of the car will be electronically limited to 70mph. I'm not buying that; I think they were misinformed. I really think there was a miscommunication on this one because I have had conversations with people at BMW that know a lot about this and even very recently they assured me that there isn't an electronically governed speed limit while the range extender is in operation. I believe the confusion about 70mph is based on the fact that 70mph is basically the top speed that the range extender can comfortably maintain the 6.5% state of charge at while driving on relatively flat ground. The people I've talked to in Europe that have i3's with the range extender say they can drive on the highway at just about 120 km/hr (75mph) and maintain the SOC, but anything higher and the SOC will gradually diminish. It's my contention that the people running the training sessions either aren't 100% clear on this, or they really meant for the client advisers to warn the customers that 70mph is really the fastest they should drive at if they need to drive for a long distance. In any event, I believe they got this one wrong and there isn't an electronic limit, we'll find out pretty soon since the US i3 launch should be in about two weeks.

The BMW i3 range extender is located next to the electric motor and power electronics, over the rear axle.

I saved the biggest news for last. It was learned that the US version of the i3 REx will have not have a 2.4 gallon gas tank as the European version does. Instead it will have only a 1.9 gallon gas tank. I'm going to pause for a moment to let everybody scream bloody murder now...... I know it's only half a gallon, but in the case of the i3, that just reduced the gas tank by 21%! For me this is a non-issue, but I know there are a lot of people that will not like this at all. 99% of the time I use the added range of the REx it will likely be for less than 40 miles. Yes, this does reduce the utility of long range trips even more, as you will now probably have to stop for gas every 40 or 50 miles. There was no reasons given for the smaller gas tank but as far as I can imagine, this comes down to one of two things. Since BMW wants needs the i3 REx to qualify as a BEVx and one of the qualifications of the BEVx is that the car has a smaller gasoline range than it does electric range, my thinking is that one of these two things led to the smaller gas tank:

1) The EPA rating for all electric range on the REx came out lower than they believed it would. If they used the 2.4 gallon gas tank, the gas range would be slightly longer than the all electric range, therefore causing it to be disqualified for the BEVx designation. The only simple way to make the gas range less than the electric range was to reduce the gas range by using a smaller gas tank.

2) The EPA rating for the MPG while in range extender mode came out higher than expected, creating the same problem cited above; a longer range in REx mode than in all electric mode. I've heard it gets anywhere from 36mpg to 46mpg from people driving REx's in Europe so this is a possibility. If the range extender got rated at 40mpg, and was using a 2.4 gallon gas tank, then the electric range would need to be 96 miles per charge, which is highly unlikely. If they cut the tank down to 1.9 gallons, then the electric range would only need to be greater than 79 miles per charge, which I believe is attainable, even considering that the REx version will have 6.5% less battery to use than the BEV i3 does, as this is held in reserve as a buffer.

So what do you think? Has any of these new revelations changed you mind about the REx?

BMW i3 Range Extender: How Robust Will It Be?

There are still many unanswered questions about the i3. What will the EPA range rating be? How will is fare in NHTSA and IICA crash tests, will it cost more to repair, and so on. However there is one particular feature of the i3 that continues to dominate the discussion boards and forums: What can and can't you do with the REx?

Back in June before the i3 was officially introduced, I did a blog post on this very topic which turned out to be very popular. In fact, it's one of my top viewed posts and has been viewed over 5,000 times so  far. We now know a few more details since then so I thought it was a good time to give an update here. While I have driven in REx i3's, unfortunately I haven't had the chance to thoroughly test on while it was in range extender mode. That wasn't a coincidence. BMW has still be fine tuning the software for the REx and hasn't allowed the press access to them for complete testing. However, somehow over in the UK The Telegraph got hold of one and was able to take to for a long drive and use the range extender. Overall the review was pretty favorable and the author gave the i3 four out of five stars. However that's not the whole story. The real "story" within this story is that the author reported this about the range extender and it's caused a but of a stir:

"I thrummed along at 70mph, but it soon became clear that at this kind of speed our comfortable range between fill-ups was more like 40-50 miles. Still, it was impressive how, even when it says it’s flat, the car maintains enough battery power to give an instant shove of torque. Only if you really run it down, which you’ll have to try pretty hard to do (or so I’d been told), would you compromise the performance. Which is what happened next. 

I’d just come through a heavy but localised rain storm on the M20 when the i3 started to slow. It was a gradual process, from motorway cruising speed all the way down to 44mph. By this time I was travelling up a slight incline and had effectively become a slow-moving obstacle. Lorries were catching me with quite frankly terrifying closing speeds. It was three or four minutes - which was long enough to make me consider pulling over - before the i3 recovered; just as slowly as it had lost speed, so it crept up. “It’s not a limp-home mode as such,” a BMW spokesman later told me, “but once the charge runs down to five or six per cent and the range extender cuts in, if you keep driving at 75-80mph it can’t maintain the charge.” Rather than damage the battery by running it completely flat, the i3 had restricted our performance."

This Telegraph video above doesn't mention the difficulty they experienced with the car slowing down at all even though they show it driving along on the M20 while it was raining like they printed version said. That's strange to me since the article seemed to make a big deal out of it. I would have like to have seen video of the car during the explained "slow down" event.

The i3 REx Engine

I've had quite a few conversations with the engineers and product managers at BMW about the range extender and while they are cautious no to over sell it's capabilities, everyone I have talked to promises it's not anything like a "limp mode", and in fact you can do just about anything with it as long as you understand how it works and drive accordingly - I take that as monitoring your speed and if you know you'll be driving up a long steep incline and take it easy for a few minutes before you begin your ascent so the REx can build up a little extra reserve power for the climb. There has been a lot of talk around the fact that in the US, you can't manually engage the range extender once the state of charge is below 75% as you can in Europe. The concern is with the range extender coming on at such a low state of charge (at ~5% SOC) that there may not be a large enough buffer for those instances when the car needs continuous supply of a lot of energy for high speed driving or to climb long, uphill grades at highway speeds.

I don't have the exact answers as to what exactly is possible and what isn't. In fact, I'm not even sure it's possible to offer such a definitive explanation. Sure, the engineers can offer a formula based on total passenger and cargo weight, vehicle speed, head or tail winds, percent of grade you are climbing, etc but who will even understand that let alone be able to transfer that to an actual real world driving situation? There are so many different situations and roads it's just not possible to give a clear black and white definition of what it can and what it can't do and I believe BMW will likely struggle with how to explain this to their customers - maybe that's why they haven't even tried to explain it yet! I have made a request to the program managers to let me drive an i3 REx for a day once one is available. I'll test it in every possible situation I can come up with in the time frame I have including a 220 mile trip to Vermont. Hopefully my request will be accommodated because I believe I can clear the air on this as much as possible, however as I mentioned above there are endless specific driving circumstances so no test will completely satisfy everyone. My advice: Drive one in REx mode to satisfy your concerns before you plunk down your money. I'm sure you can leave a deposit on one and have it refunded if you are not satisfied with the performance once you get the test drive opportunity.

i3 Product manager Oliver Walter

I can say I have spoken with program managers that have driven the i3 REx extensively, and they have assured me that on flat ground, you really have to purposely try to defeat it in order to use more energy than it produces and that it can easily drive along at 70 mph for as long as you need to and still have enough energy for short bursts of power to climb hills along the way. BMW i3 product manager Oliver Walter in particular has assured me the range extender is robust and will be able to power the car in just about any circumstance without the driver even noticing any difference than when it's in pure EV mode. The question becomes how fast can you drive and for how long, up how steep a grade, and right now, we just don't have definitive answers.

So why can't the i3's in the US have the same ability the European i3's have to manually turn on the REx ahead of time, when you know you'll need a lot of energy for demanding driving conditions like climbing a mountain later in your trip? The answer is in the CARB certification of the i3. BMW needs the i3 to be certified as a zero emission vehicle in order to claim the most ZEV credits they can for each i3 sold. However the benefits aren't only for BMW. BMW has been working behind the scenes to make sure that i3 buyers get the same tax credits, tax exemptions and benefits like HOV access that zero emission vehicles get, which in many cases is better than what is offered to PHEV buyers. For example here in NJ, if I buy a zero emission car like a Tesla Model S, I am not required to pay sales tax, but if I buy a Chevy Volt which has a range extender, it's classified as a PHEV and I have to pay sales tax. So if BMW by getting the i3 REx certification approved, manages to get New Jersey to classify the i3 REx as a zero emission vehicle, then I will save about $3,500 in sales tax. To me, that's worth losing the ability to manually turn on the REx early because there will be so few instances that I would ever need to; it's just simply not worth it. This isn't just for NJ though, there are quite a few other States that offer different incentives for ZEV's as compared to PHEV's. However as far as I know, BMW is still working out these details State by State and they haven't announced exactly what the certification will mean in each particular State just yet. As soon as there is more to report on the certification and State benefits I'll have it up here, and hopefully I'll get to report first hand on how the REx performs sometime soon. Happy Holidays everyone!

Of course a robust network of DC quick chargers like the one pictured here would render the range extender irrelevant. But are they coming?