Plates came
Plates came
So, now that it’s warmed up a bit, it looks like there’s some possibility I might actually make it to work and back on electricity only!
Very neat. Keep the updates a'comin.
Karacticus said:Plates came
Yikes, our new plates really are awful. I was hopeful they wouldn't look quite as bad in real life as they did in the renderings.
I'll keep an eye out for you on 380!
In reply to FooBag :
Yeah, I don't know if I'm a fan of the blue/green combination on the new Iowa plates versus the old blue ones.
Completed the commute on battery only!
looks like you won't have a full charge for tomorrow's commute, need to upgrade the home charging. Being gas free should feel pretty good.
In reply to Aspen :
Yeah, electrician should be in this week to hook up the level 2 charger. That should cut the charge time to around 4 hours.
But it doesn't really matter anyway-- headed out of town on business travel through Friday. Got a different car to leave at the airport.
Took longer than expected before the electrician got out to install the level 2 charger.
It’s definitely a game changer going from something like 14-16 hours to get a full charge after a commute, to 4 or less. Recovering enough range to run any evening errands with an hour or less of charging is also an improvement.
Will write more on other vehicle impressions later.
have you figured out yet what the electrical cost is adding? Also, how much was the charger install? Is it just a 220v special outlet?
At the $0.09-0.10/kwh I pay, the nominal 18.8 kwh usable capacity of the battery pack and the stated efficiencies of >95% I've seen in technical papers for Level 2 chargers, I'm looking at right around $2 to recharge the battery from empty. This would compare to the cost of something close to 2.5 gallons of premium for what I have been driving to work.
You can spend between $300 at the low end, for an assemble it yourself kit, well over $1000 for a Level 2 charger. I spent about $640 for a Clipper Creek unit. Don't have the bill from the electrician yet, but since I'd already hung the unit and it was a really simple addition of a (50A) breaker, a relatively short, easy wire run and junction box, I don't expect the charge to run more than an hour of labor and maybe $100 worth of material. At $3.20 for premium gas, it's going to be about a 140 commute days before that pays off.
That Level 2 charger takes me from a power of 1.4 kw (12A at 120V) to nearly 8 kw (32A at 240 V). No wonder the change time change is so dramatic. Also, it's a pretty impressive clunk out of the charger when the power contactor in it closes to energize the line.
This installation was direct wired, but (at least through Clipper Creek) you can pay more to have the unit set up for NEMA 14-50 or 6-50 receptacles, of the type you'd likely see for an RV, stove or dryer.
You may have answered this elsewhere, but what is the full range with a full charge and full tank of gas?
Since I'm at a better keyboard now, here are my thoughts after more than 1200 miles.
The interior of the vehicle is a pretty nice place to be as a solo commuter-- feels much roomier, at least from the driver's seat than it probably really is, mostly due to how far the windshield extends forward. In fact the windshield appears almost square-- wrestling a custom fit sun shade around is a bit of a chore, it's so large. When I get back in the E90, it feels like the windshield is now just inches from my face.
Other notes on the interior are that the dark colored door panel uphostelry and the chrome-ish rear door latches show fingerprints pretty badly though. Also, the cup holder(s) design is odd-- one fixed, and one you can move to any of three positions (and I suppose you could buy additional), and not as functional as most vehicles. Based on other cars in my fleet, I don't think this is really any change in direction for BMW.
You pay for some of that feeling of roominess with long reaches to some of the controls, however the longest reach ones (track forward/back) are duplicated on the steering wheel. I'm kind of "meh" on the iDrive controller-- it works fine, but it's really mostly for superfluous (to me, outside of phone/audio BT) gadget/display control once you get the system set up the way you want.
As far as other gadget tech, I do like the phone app that provides the info in the screen shots I've done, serves as a remote and does some other tricks, including the electric car equivalent of a remote start.
The camera-based active cruise control has a hard time dealing with low sun angles and fog, which is kind of annoying, as there is no fall back to a conventional cruise control. There's just a "bong" and a message on the display saying "you've got it" as the car falls into regen braking. Otherwise it's a cool feature, but I've had it occasionally respond to traffic that either wasn't there or in the next lane.
No complaints about acceleration or braking. It feels like (though it's actually faster) how I remember a Mk I GTI would drive, except you don't have to upshift. Flooring it is a mild rush, and it makes a nice machine noise while you do it.
Ride comfort hits an intermediate between the E90 and Z4 Coupe, though much closer to the E90, as the latter represents a very low bar for relative improvement.
Steering is quick and between that and the relatively short wheel base, does take a little adjustment, or you may clip a few curbs.
However, to make range, there is a learning curve, and how you drive needs to change a bit. There may be an additional learning curve to learning to make range and not drive like a hyper-miling dick that I'm still working on. Cruising at 70-75 burns through the battery at a pretty fair rate, and that's how I spend a fair bit of my commute. I don't really want to go much faster, though it certainly will. This leaves my much more willing to just hang back and follow traffic that's only making 68-72 mph unless I can get around them going downhill.
I like the ability to drive using just the accelerator pedal. However, coasting is much better for your range than recovering the energy through regen. This requires reference to the instrument panel while positioning the accelerator pedal.
Range is definitely affected by temperature and wind. Like maybe a 40% decrease for 20F versus 70F. Gusty crosswinds over 30 mph also kick the car around a bit.
The cutover to the REX engine is quite seamless, and it's not given me any problems outside of a few occasions where it's decided I should wait a couple of minutes before I'm allowed to open the gas flap (it's a pressurized tank, and it's waiting for the pressure to equalize before unlocking the flap, I think it's another California emission compliance feature). Based on the terrain I'm dealing with on my commute (Iowa does have some hills, really) I don't think it would support any extended grades at 70+ mph, though I think it will go as long as the 1.9 gallon tank allows at 60 mph.
So, happy with it so far. It's early days yet, but no reliability issues. As a vehicle purchased with 15,000 miles on it, I've replaced some trim panels on the hatch that were kind of beat up and done a bit of disassembly/reassembly to untwist the driver's seatbelt, which looks a little worn. Cost of trim panels was pretty reasonable. Came with one lightly curbed wheel I'll also probably address at some point.
Only other thing I'd like to figure out how to deal with is the dead Japanese beetle that appears to be glued to the inside of the right rear brake light! No access to knock it loose when I had the trim panel off the hatch-- it might be there for the duration.
mtn said:You may have answered this elsewhere, but what is the full range with a full charge and full tank of gas?
At nice late spring temperatures, it's indicating just over 70 miles each from the battery and the REX. That computed range figure is called a "guess-o-meter" for a reason, as it varies considerably, and is rather optimistic when measured against the consumption of driving at a consistent 70+ mph.
In numbers, I've averaged about 3.3 mi/kwh, which is good for a solid 60 miles on a fully charged battery.
Karacticus said:At the $0.09-0.10/kwh I pay...
That's something that's always ignored, electrical expense. In SoCal, it can run as high as $0.42 depending on time of day and how much your total use is. Point being, depending upon a person's location and situation, it can actually end up costing more to operate an electric car than an efficient diesel or even gas car.
We have a couple of electrics in our socal fam. That $0.42 sounds very unusual, locally $0.12 to $0.18 rates are typical for night charging. Thats around $0.04 per mile.. 35mpg commuting, at $3.50/gal thats.. yeah about as good as I could do highway. Still stacks up pretty good.
At the end of the commute— 27 miles each way.
I topped off the tank on the way home and put in $0.85 of premium just to establish a baseline for how long I can go before I visit a gas station again.
Delivered in mail today. Car also comes in 1:32.
Need to get the car up on lift at some point to check accuracy though—
This looks a lot like there’s an exhaust pipe running from the front to back. Tires also look wider than scale
We were looking at one for my wife. Her daily commute is maybe 30 miles. Can you fit a baby seat in the back?
In reply to LanEvo :
No direct experience to speak of, but it looks like there’s two sets of anchors in the back. Front seats also fold forward for access
I've been eyeing these for the next dd. The lease deals seem really amazing with all the rebates ontop of the msrp discounts.
Im watching these and the Honda Clarity.
Milestone today— passed 1000 miles since my 85 cent top off at the gas station!
Karacticus said:Only other thing I'd like to figure out how to deal with is the dead Japanese beetle that appears to be glued to the inside of the right rear brake light! No access to knock it loose when I had the trim panel off the hatch-- it might be there for the duration.
How does this happen? I have two vehicles with a dried up bug inside the tail light. There is seemingly no way in but they are in there and I can't get them out.
Feedyurhed said:Karacticus said:Only other thing I'd like to figure out how to deal with is the dead Japanese beetle that appears to be glued to the inside of the right rear brake light! No access to knock it loose when I had the trim panel off the hatch-- it might be there for the duration.
How does this happen? I have two vehicles with a dried up bug inside the tail light. There is seemingly no way in but they are in there and I can't get them out.
Just saw more instances of this pop up in my Facebook feed from an i3 group this morning. Apparently it’s common enough that BMW released a service procedure for accessing the tail lights to clean them out!
So, picked up the Bimmercode app and a compatible OBD adapter to modify some settings and enable some additional features I couldn't with my existing equipment.
Using that app, I enabled the extra 0.5 gallons of fuel tank capacity that was electronically limited for the US market-- I now have a total capacity of 2.4 gallons!
I was also able to enable the "hold charge" selection that let's be start the REX anytime the battery state of charge is less than 75%, another feature disabled in US market vehicles. Between this feature and the extra tank capacity, this makes it a little easier to do longer trips should I ever need to. Doing the coding for this reset my trip counter though, so I lost my 1800+ mile counter marking my last trip to a gas station.
I also need to get the vehicle in for some warranty service due to an airbag warning that's been set for the last couple of weeks though. Unfortunately, the dealership here has just changed hands, so instead of being located within 5 minutes of work, it's now about 30 minutes away.
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