Born Electric Guest Blogger: Meet Harold From California

My name is Harold and I was born electric on August 19^th, 2014. 

There are two parts to my story here. The first is about my path to selecting and buying the i3, and the second is about my experiences owning and driving the i3.

PART 1:  

“IF YOU’RE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION, THEN YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.”

When it comes to global warming, I’m embarrassed to say that for far too long my wife and I were part of the problem.  We’re a two car family, and over the years we’ve driven a series of big, luxury, premium fuel guzzlers. As recently as 2007 we each had one of the full-size Range Rovers. Yikes, and yuck!

I gradually realized this was not tenable, but I found it very, very hard to give up the comfort (I’m 6’3 and don’t fit in most cars) and sportiness of a big luxury SUV. The very thought of shoehorning myself into the ugly and painfully boring Prius hybrid was enough to make me puke.

So my first tentative step in the right direction was to sign up to make annual contributions to one of those carbon-offset charities. I even got vanity license plates that said “I OFFSET.” Wow, how big and how brave of me!

Then BMW came out with a diesel version of their X5 so I dumped my Range Rover in favor of that on the theory that at least I would be burning a lot less fuel. As nice a car as the X5 was, it ended up only getting about 16mpg, and I also came to understand that the diesel wasn’t as clean as I had thought it might be.

Meanwhile, there were more hybrid cars coming on the market, but all still seemed to frumpy for me.  I’m sorry, but I live in California and I spend a ton of time in my car and I want it to look and feel great!

And then Audi launched their stylish little Q5, and I dumped the X5 in favor of this smaller, more fuel efficient vehicle. But even that only got around 20mpg. 

So about a year ago I started the search for my next car. I did my first exploration of EV’s. The RAV4 was too clearly a Toyota. The Leaf, which a neighbor of mine happily drives, drove like a turtle to me.  The Volt was claustrophobic – and a Chevy to boot. The Tesla was way cool, but I actually don’t fit very well in it and, at least in the San Francisco area, driving one has already become interpreted as a sign that you are an obnoxious snob.

So, I had resigned myself to getting the new edition of the X5 diesel, which promised to deliver significantly better – and cleaner – mileage than the original one. And then one day while I was checking out the new X5 on one of the BMW forums, I saw something about the coming of the i3. It looked weird as hell in the photo, but it sounded intriguing. I started to follow stories about it. 

I went to a car show in San Jose to see it in person. I fully expected to discover that I could not fit in it, but when I sat down in the model on display I discovered that it had more head room and leg room and better visibility than my Q5. (Of course at this point, BMW was showing it with a sunroof – more about that later….). Plus, the interior design was stunning. And the exterior, while weird, was weird in a sexy way.  So I was hooked.

When the test drives started happening in the Bay Area, I went to them at three different dealers.  Driving the car was a total blast (all the more so with the sunroof open…..) and I had to have one. I went to my dealer and said I’m willing to pay MSRP for one of the first ones you get, I just need to get two key options – the sun roof and the REX. Can you arrange that please?

And then things started to fall apart. For one, it turned out the sunroof was not going to be offered in the US.  No reason for this has ever been provided, but that alone was enough to put me off.  I’m claustrophobic, and I always felt I needed a sunroof to have the feeling of openness they give. And then some negative stories started to appear about the REX – a review in Europe said driving with the REX was like driving in limp-home mode, and then it was revealed that the REX was being modified in the US in ways that made it seem even less desirable.  And,  being new to EV’s, I was at that point too chicken to go the full BEV route.

So, I abandoned my quest for an i3. I signed off of the i3 forums and facebook group. I went back to my dealer and started haggling over prices on the X5 diesel again. But the x5 diesel remained in hot demand,  and I couldn’t get what I thought was a reasonable price. And then the i3’s actually arrived. I saw two in one day “in the wild.” I went behind my dealer’s back and went to another dealer to test drive an i3 again.  I found that even without the sunroof it still felt very open. And it was just as fun to drive as I had remembered. 

So I went back to my CA, said you’re not going to believe this, but I want the i3 after all. He laughed very heartily. We worked the numbers for a while. I ended up doing the two year version of “owner’s choice.” (Went with owner’s choice vs. lease to get the full advantage of the federal tax credit,  and went two years rather than three just because I expect the EV technology is going to advance pretty rapidly over the next couple of years and I may want to move to the next edition sooner rather than later.) And within just a few weeks I was driving my new Andesite Silver Terra i3, loaded up with everything except for the 20” wheels.  And, surprise surprise, I even got over my fear of running out of juice and went with the BEV instead of the REX.

PART 2: 

“WHO SAYS MEDICINE HAS TO TASTE BAD TO BE GOOD FOR YOU?

As I mentioned earlier, a key factor that kept me from switching sooner to a more environmentally correct car was that they all just seemed too ugly, too uncomfortable, and too boring. I wanted to do the right thing for the planet – but I wanted to still be able to enjoy driving at the same time.

Thankfully, my i3 has solved all three of those problems for me. 

While I will admit that the exterior is a bit of an acquired taste, there can be no denying that the interior is stunning. Yes, the materials are all very environmentally friendly, but more important to me – they are gorgeous. The design is very fresh,  very high tech,  and yet very simple. Among the features I like most are the floating high definition screens (one for the instrument cluster stuff, one for the navigation and multimedia stuff) and the eucalyptus dash. I also really appreciate the openness of the cabin and the great sight lines.

The interior is also quite comfortable. I was initially skeptical about the thinness of the seats.  As a veteran business road warrior, I have equated the steady thinning down of airline seats over the years with an equally steady decline in the comfort of those seats. Well, I can only hope that the designers at Boeing and Airbus get to drive an i3 soon so they can see how to make a thinner seat super supportive and comfortable.

And as for the driving experience, well, I haven’t had so much fun driving a car since the very first one I owned.  First comes the peppiness. As the folks at BMW are fond of saying,  the i3 is the fastest car they make from 0 to 30 mph.  And I believe them now!  Zipping in and out of city traffic is as easy as can be – aided by how tight the turning radius is. Likewise, accelerating on to freeway ramps and passing at freeway speeds is also quick and easy. When we had a meet up of Bay area i3 drivers recently,  I had t-shirts printed up for everyone that carried this message: “I drive a BMW i3.  So you can eat my dust, not my exhaust. You’re welcome.” Trust me, the message is appropriate: this car hauls ass.

It's hard to see in the picture, but the blue T-Shirts everyone is wearing are the shirts Harold made up for the Crissy Field i3 meet. He was even gracious enough to send me a couple in the mail. Photo credit: Dino Ignacio

The steering is also very tight. I’m sure it has some degree of electronic assistance, but it doesn’t feel in the least bit mushy or vague. If anything it’s too responsive – you have to be attentive or it’s a bit too easy to oversteer.

The ride is firm, but in a good, BMW way. If you don’t want to feel the road at all, then this is not the car for you. But if you like to get some feedback from your driving, you should like this.

I really like the quietness of the car. If you keep the windows rolled up, it is super quiet; there is of course some wind noise at higher speeds, but I have not found it to be objectionable. And, at the same time, if you drive with the windows open, you can actually hear the sounds of nature!

I’m still learning all the fancy new tech tools.  Love the Harman Kardon stereo, love being able to use apps like Pandora and TuneIn. Appreciate that iDrive has gotten clearer and more manageable, though it still requires a learning curve. Love the collision avoidance system and the adaptive cruise control.  Haven’t yet tried the self-parking thing – but haven’t felt the need either, as this is the smallest car I have driven in ages and I would feel like a total wimp if I couldn’t park it by myself.  : )

As for downsides of the i3, anyone who buys this car has to accept that they are on the bleeding edge of technology and that things may go wrong. And they have for some of the early owners. But, knock on wood, after just about 1,000 miles, the worst thing that has happened to me so far is that one morning while I was driving along a nearly empty six lane freeway a warning message popped up on my screen that said something about “Danger – objects detected in roadway.” There were no objects to be seen, so I ignored the message and kept on driving and the message ultimately disappeared.

Also, if you choose as I did to go with the BEV instead of the REx, you will probably find yourself being more than a little bit paranoid about monitoring how much charge you have left. I have been running somewhere around 75 miles per full charge – a little less than what the EPA says, but then I drive with a bit of a lead foot and I leave the AC on all the time. So far I’ve only once gotten the dreaded verbal warning “you have 15 miles of range left,” and thankfully that happened when I was only about a mile from my house.

One other downside is that, to my way of thinking, the i3 is not practical as a family car. The “suicide”  doors (aka coach doors) make access to the back seat just too awkward for regular use, especially if you are trying to cope with child seats.

OK, so the i3 is good looking, it’s comfortable, and it’s fun to drive. But how does it do on my original overall reason for getting it, which is to help address the problem of global warming?

Well,  for one thing I have not been to a gas station since I got the car. And will never have to go to a gas station with it. Take that, Exxon and BP and the rest of you big oil companies! (The vanity plates I have on order for my car will read: “I86DGAS”) And, at least according to the i3 mobile app, so far I have already saved 530 pounds of CO2 from being pumped out into the air.

So,  in sum, thank you BMW for giving birth to the i3 so that I can at last do my part for solving global warming – but do it in a way that fits my own selfish needs for style, comfort, and fun!

PS- The i3 may not be right for everyone, but there are now plenty of EV’s on the market – surely one of them will be right for you!
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Thanks for participating Harold! If you drive an i3 and want to share your Born Electric story here, just send me an email and we'll set it up! 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. :)

First i3 REx Road Trip: Hotels, BMW Dealerships & Wraps

Charging up at Hampton Inn in Turnersville... but for how long?

Ever since the i3 colors were announced, I had thought about doing a custom color wrap for my i3. The colors offered just weren't very inspiring and other than the Solar Orange, they were all white and shades of grey or silver. I chose the Laurel Grey because I liked how it made the car look more like one solid color. It minimized the "Black Hand" design that BMW used to try to give the appearance that the i3 is slimmer than it actually is.  It's a short car that is tall, and definitely has unusual lines and BMW believed that using black on the top surfaces would make it look less "chunky".  I also liked the idea of having a custom color so my car would be easily identifiable in pictures. I'll be writing i3 reviews for quite a few websites, and having my car a distinct color will let the readers know immediately that it's my car they are looking at.

Once I got to see my car in person I realized how much I really do like the Laurel Grey

That being said, once I got my car I realized how great the Laurel Grey looks, especially with the Frozen Blue accents and I started having second thoughts about doing the wrap. I decided to go through with it anyway because I really like the idea of having a distinctive color that no other i3 has. Plus, when I take it off it will feel like I got a new car again because the wrap protects the paint perfectly underneath. Since I'm wrapping a new car the paint will remain pristine and in a year or so when I decide to take it off I'll be able to enjoy the Laurel Grey with Frozen Blue color scheme.

After doing some research I decided to get the wrap done at Designer Wraps in Millville, NJ. It's about a 130 mile trip from my house and while there are closer wrap shops, I want to get it done somewhere that has a great reputation and has been doing wraps for a long time and Designer Wraps fit the bill. So I plotted the trip and since the wrap takes 3 or 4 days to complete, I told my wife I'd need her to drive down with me separately so I could drop off the car and we'd drive back together. The funny thing about it is she initially said, "How long will that take? Is there a charging station along the route where you can stop and charge?" She momentarily forgot I have the range extender on the i3 so she was thinking this would be an all day road trip. After driving pure EVs for five years now, she had been conditioned to think a long trip meant 80 miles or so of driving, and then four or five hours of charging in order to continue. After staring at her and smiling for a few seconds, she realized her error and we just laughed. Only two days of ownership in and the REx is immediately a game changer.

Then I realized I had also overlooked something, but not anything with regards to the car though. We were planning on driving down early on the morning of Saturday, May 24th, and that turned out to be the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. If you live in New Jersey, you know how bad traffic is going south on the Parkway or the Turnpike during either Memorial Day or Labor Day weekends, as tens of thousands of people migrate to the Jersey Shore for these two weekends that bookend the summer. A two and a half hour drive could easily take five hours under these traffic conditions. So we came up with plan B. We would drive about 100 miles late Friday night which would get us passed the major traffic areas, stay in a hotel and continue on the next morning.

Since we would be spending the night, I figured I might as well find a hotel that would let me plug in 120v while we were there. After all, the goal is to drive on electric as much as possible, even with the REx and an overnight stay would give me enough range to make the final 40 miles or so without the REx kicking on. After making some calls, I found an Hampton Inn in Turnersville, NJ that said I could plug in and it was just about perfectly along our planned route.  The hotel was about 100 miles into the trip and we would then be 40 miles from Designer Wraps. An overnight charge would give me just enough to complete the trip the next day without the range extender. If I really wanted to, I could have probably found a hotel that was only halfway there, and tried to complete the entire trip without the REx, but then I would have needed to find a L2 240v EVSE, as overnight charging on 120v wouldn't have been enough to fully replenish an empty battery. It just wasn't worth the trouble, and if everything worked out, the 140 mile trip would end up with me using only a little more than a half a gallon of gas and without any inconvenience.

I drove nearly 90 miles before the REx came on

It was raining heavily for most of the drive there so I wasn't expecting to beat the car's predicted 75 mile electric range but I did. I was shocked when I drove 89 miles, mostly at speeds of 60 to 65 mph but occasionally faster, before the range extender turned on to hold the battery charge for the final 9 miles. There was traffic so we did occasionally drive for a while at about 50 to 55 mph and I did activate Eco Pro mode about halfway into the trip. I didn't really do so to extend my range because driving at constant highway speeds requires a certain amount of energy regardless of what mode you are in and I don't think Eco Pro will really help out much at all with this kind of driving. I really just wanted to see if there was any noticeable difference in the driving behavior and found out something very interesting that I haven't seen reported anywhere before. When driving in Eco Pro mode the car tries to keep you from driving faster than 75 mph. If you are in Eco Pro and accelerating, when you hit 75 mph the car holds at 75 mph momentarily, and in order to go faster you need to really push the accelerator further than you would normally have to in order to continue accelerating. It's kind of like the car is coaching you to not exceed 75 mph because of how inefficient it is to drive at that speed. Once you continue to push the pedal further, it realizes you really do want to go faster and it takes off with a bit of a surge. I then tried this in Eco Pro+ mode and found out it does that same thing at 55 mph in that mode. This is a nice feature to "remind" you that driving faster will consume more energy than you may want to. This only happens in Eco Pro and Eco Pro+, and not in the default Comfort driving mode.

We arrived at the Hampton Inn around 1:00am with 98.1 miles on the trip odometer, and only the last 9 with the range extender in operation. The gas gauge barely moved and looked like I only used about 1/12 of the tank. The gas gauge showed 62 miles of range remaining and if that held true, then I would have had 160 mile range total; 89 on pure electric and 71 on gas.

Plugged in at Hampton Inn

After checking in and confirming it was OK with the front desk attendant I went outside and pulled my car to the front door where there were two brand new 120V outlets, one on each side of the front entrance. I checked around the rest of the building and didn't see any other outlets that were assessable. I'd prefer not to be plugged in right in front and draw attention, but it was the only outlet available and I was able to pull over to the side and well passed the entrance so the car wasn't in anyone's way.  I got up around 7:30am and checked my app to see the state of charge and noticed the SOC was at 30% but that the car was no longer charging and had a "charging error" at 5:07am. I went out to the car and saw it was unplugged from the wall so I plugged it back in and went to the front desk to ask if there was a problem. It was a different person than when we checked in and she told me the owner came in and unplugged the car. I explained to her that I called ahead to ask if I could plug in and was told it wouldn't be a problem and that I told the person the night before that if there was indeed any problem to please call my room. I also asked if I could speak to the owner was was told no, I could not. With that I told her that I plugged the car back in and if the owner has a problem with it to please call my room as I would like to discuss this with them.

After about 15 minutes my smartphone app notified me that the car had another charging error so I went back down to try to straighten out the situation one more time. Again the car was unplugged so I went to the desk to ask to speak to the owner and again was told they are unavailable. So there was nobody that would even address the situation with me. I then very politely informed the person at the desk that I'd be contesting the charge on my credit card and refusing to pay for the one night stay as well as contacting Hampton Inn customer service. Hampton Inn boasts the "100% Hampton Guarantee" that promises "If you are not satisfied, we don't expect you to pay". Honestly, if someone would have just talked to me and given me any reason, even if it wasn't a valid reason like "Due to insurance concerns we can't let you charge" or "Other guests were complaining that you are getting free fuel but they aren't" I would have accepted it and agreed to pay my bill. While I wouldn't be happy and would likely write to Hampton Inn asking them to consider changing policy, I wouldn't have evoked the Hampton Guarantee and told them I will be writing customer service and asking to be refunded. The fact that nobody there had the decency to even talk to me about it, or call my room to explain that they needed to unplug my car tells me they don't care about offering acceptable hospitality. If you don't fit into the box of what services they expect to provide for their typical guest, then you are out of luck and they won't even discuss the issue with you, and that's very unfortunate. I understand this is new territory for many hotels, and that I shouldn't feel entitled to charge my car wherever I want to. However I did ask first and I did make it clear that if there was a problem to please call my room to discuss it with me. I would never lose my temper or get confrontational with anyone in this kind of situation. I believe the early adopters need to be ambassadors for plug in cars, paving the way for the rest and we need to do our best to educate the uninformed as to why this is indeed a better path for us all. I will certainly be in touch with Hampton Inn's customer service this week, and try to encourage them to proactively adopt a charging-friendly policy for all of their locations. So perhaps something good will come us this unfortunate incident.

Will Hampton Inn honor their guarantee? I'll find out soon

Charging at Camden County College

Realizing I didn't have enough charge to make the final 40 miles to Designer Wraps, I pulled out my phone and looked up the charging stations in the area. I found that Camden Community College was only a few miles away and they had two level 2 EVSEs. So we headed over there, found the two Blink stations, plugged in and went out for a bite to eat. After breakfast we went back to the hotel, got our belongings and went to check out. By then there was a new person at the desk and when they asked if everything during our stay was OK I told them it wasn't and explained the charging issue. She seemed a bit confused about what to do but didn't offer any help or even to get a manager so I just thanked her and informed her that we'd be contacting Hampton's customer service to take up the issue with them.

Giving a quick i3 seminar!

We headed back to get my car and when we arrived we were greeted by a security guard who was checking it out. He loved it and wanted to know all about it. After giving him the basic i3 101 lesson, we were off to complete the mission. By this time I was about 60% charged and had plenty of juice to complete the final 42 miles. The whole trip was 140 miles and I finished with a consumption rate of 4.2 mi/kWh. I dropped the car off, was told it will be ready by next weekend and headed home. I know I've only had the car three days, but I've driven it nearly 400 miles already and have loved every mile. I'm really glad I decided to get the range extender, it makes the car immensely more versatile, especially for high mileage drivers like me. I know I only needed to use it for 9 miles out of this 140 mile journey, but just knowing it's there in case I do need it will allow me to take trips I normally wouldn't have with it.

Final stats of the trip

There is one more note to make about the trip. Knowing that I would be very close to a BMW dealership while we stayed at the hotel, I contacted BMW of Turnersville the day before to see if I could plug in to their EVSE overnight so I'd be fully charged the next morning. The receptionist answered the phone and I then said this to her: "Hello. I'm going to ask you a question that I bet nobody has ever asked you before, but I promise you that will will hear it a lot in the coming months and years".  She laughed a bit and I then told her I was driving my electric BMW i3 to the area from Northern NJ and I needed to charge it. I wanted to know if I could plug into the charger at their dealership. She replied that I was correct, and nobody had ever asked her that and that she'll have to ask someone about this. She put me on hold for awhile and then another person picked up from the service department. They had no idea what I was talking about. Even after explaining that I just bought a brand new BMW i3 and that it was electric, they had no clue about the car or if they had the means to charge it there. I assume if the dealership had a charging station the service department would likely know about it, so just as I was about to say thanks anyway and hang up the person said they would transfer me to a manager. So on hold again for awhile and then the phone rang and was picked up by a voice mail system that said they were not available and to leave a message. Since I already confirmed that I could plug in at the hotel, I just hung up at that point. This is really inexcusable as far as I'm concerned. I know the i3 is a new vehicle and perhaps this particular dealership didn't even get on in stock yet, but BMW has known for four years now that these cars would be in showrooms by mid 2014. How is it that the people at this dealership weren't prepared to even answer a simply question about charging? It was as if I was speaking a different language. There's a lot of work to do folks.

"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!