The BMW i3 REx driving report

The BMW i3 REx driving report

by | Jul 4, 2016 | BMW, Test Drive

wattEV2Buy’s BMW i3 Driving Report – The Good, the Bad and the Awesome.

Driving the BMW i3 REx was everything and more of what I expected from a luxury EV. It is slightly more challenging to write a test report for the BMW i3 because it can’t be directly compared to a combustion vehicle. For instance, if you evaluate for luxuries such as keyless entry you must take into consideration that it would use energy from the battery, and therefore most probably excluded from the design. One can pick up many little design tweaks’ to save weight and energy in the i3. I wrote a lot about the power, speed, and handling of the BMW i3 in my previous articles on the i3 and would therefore not delve into it in this BMW i3 Driving Report, but just focus on comforts and pains.

The Good

  • A spacious interior feeling, especially from the driver’s perspective. There is a meter or more’s space between the driver’s position and the windscreen, adding to the comfort of the vehicle.
  • A tight turning circle. The big front-cabin gives you the illusion of driving a long nosed sedan making the tight turning circle even more surprising.
  • The high driving position allows you to cope with the traffic on our SUV filled roads.
  • Run-flat tires, which for some is not a positive. On other BMW models, such as the 3 series you find steering with run-flats difficult, but not in the case of i3. I suspect the reason being the large wheels, which are deceptive as they are biscuit like. The large wheels add to the appealing design of the i3.

The Bad

  • Your selected drive setting needs to be reset on every new trip. It will have been much more efficient if the vehicle remembers your preferred drive setting.
  • Although the doors are mega cool, they are unpractical when two people need to enter the vehicle when you are parked next to another vehicle.
  • Since the vehicle is rear wheel drive it has limited boot space at the back and unlike the Tesla where you can fit a surfboard in the car the BMW i3 does not compensate by providing front storage. The small storage space that is available is used to store the charging cables.
  • Which brings me to the charging cables, which could be stored much neater through some clever design than having to try and fold it every time you recharge the car.
  • For all the technology in the vehicle, a rear camera would have been a worthy addition.
  • The position of the gear selector is very cool, placed as a lever on the steering column. The negative about it is that it is difficult to view your gear selection, which BMW could quite easily have presented on the main console.

The Awesome

  • The use of carbon much of the vehicle’s interior and structure.
  • Lots of visibility, the illusion is created that the roof floats on a wall of glass.

I can conclude that if I look past the cost of the vehicle and that much of the functionality related to operating an electric vehicle such as the fast charger and home charging system are not included in the price, I would seriously consider the BMW i3 REx as my next vehicle. The BMW Plug-In Hybrid EV is most properly the best first step for any person that would like to cross over to electric vehicles. For me the biggest plus is just the fact that BMW actually has a true EV product available in most markets, making it a member of a very elite bunch.

Wynand Goosen

Wynand Goosen

Contributor

Wynand studied his MBA in San Francisco where he was exposed to the fields of Service Science, Gamification, and Renewables, which he combined to create wattEV2buy and the award winning web app Ekoguru. Wynand is an energy storage expert and has modeled, designed and presented various solutions utilizing lithium-ion and other electrochemical technologies. In his spare time, Wynand is the author of a children’s book series and started a new project called “Career 180”.

My first date with an Electric Vehicle

My first date with an Electric Vehicle

by | Jun 21, 2016 | Novice EV driver, Test Drive

My first date with an Electric Vehicle.

The big day has finally arrived for my first date with and Electric Vehicle. I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing that my first date with an EV is an award winning luxury model. Fosdick’s BMW provided me with a BMW i3 REx, the range extending version in the BMW i3 series. The REx has the same 22kWh battery as the BMW i3 (2016) EV but with a 647cc combustion engine providing 38hp fueled from a 12liter fuel tank, the same engine as in the BMW 650GT maxi-scooter. The usable battery capacity in the BMW i3 is 18.8kWh. But enough of the technical jargon lets focus on what really matters! The driving experience and making the mind shift to an EV.

One experiences the starkest difference between a “normal” combustion car and an EV the moment you start the engine. When you start the EV there is no sound at all, it is the weirdest experience, you feel uncertain if anything will happen should you step on the accelerator. A golf car makes more noise once you get going, however to all the petrol heads that jokingly refer to a BMW i3 as a glorified golf car I can certainly attest that it is not. If one must compare the driving experience at that level, it will be a Scalextric car. The BMW eDrive system provides powerful torque and the responsiveness is immediate from a standing start. Although with this type of driving you see your battery deplete very quickly. The driving experience is made even more direct thanks to the “one pedal feeling” that comes from a single pedal acting as both accelerator and brake. The low center of gravity provided by the heavy battery pack along the floor pan allows for superior handling.

One of the sales pitches that caught my ear was that there is no service required apart from tires and break changes, obviously with the caveat that the combustion engine in the REx needs servicing. If you consider that with the regenerative braking system much less breaking is required in traffic, resulting in longer lasting braking system.

The sales team was very knowledgeable and provided lots of detail on the car, but I would advise anyone that plans to purchase an EV to do their own homework also and ask relevant questions. For instance, does the package you purchase include fast charging, or is it optional? The BMW WallBox is also optional, BMW provides an assessment of your residents electrical system, which I will highly advise, but the WallBox comes with a high price tag. When I plugged the LV1 charger in my garage plug it tripped the electricity, after which I had to relay power from a plug point with higher amperage inside the house.

With the great tech included in the vehicle, the sales process is not just a “take the key and leave” affair. Connecting the vehicle to the BMW ConnectedDrive system unlocks a whole range of benefits and features. You can send reminders to buy milk or flowers from your laptop to your car or even active the horn, for what purpose I honestly don’t know. Back at my PC after showing the vehicle to some colleagues I was informed by the ConnectedDrive system that the passenger door was still unlocked. Comforts managed through the APP include Preconditioning, acclimatizing the vehicle for your preset departure time.

Through incorporating some gamification elements the APP measures your driving efficiency and compares it to the broader BMW i3 community, which leads to one’s natural competitive spirit kicking in, thereby successfully altering your bad driving habits. I actually ended up altering my route to suit the battery and become more efficient (I will explore battery management and increasing range in a separate post this week).

There are small technical things to take note of and get used to when driving the BMW i3 REx, like only being able to engage the range-extending mode once the battery’s state of charge (SOC) reaches 75%. A surprising thing is that you are not able to install a vehicle tracking system. However with all the connectedness I believe finding the car would be very much like “Find My iPhone”. Opening the fuel tank also requires a certain sequence due to the fire danger associated with the lithium batteries.

I can conclude that my first impressions of the BMW i3 and EV’s are lasting impressions, of the good kind. I already dread the day when I have to go back to a “normal” car. At least I can look forward to a couple of more days with the BMW i3.

 

Wynand Goosen

Wynand Goosen

Contributor

Wynand studied his MBA in San Francisco where he was exposed to the fields of Service Science, Gamification, and Renewables, which he combined to create wattEV2buy and the award winning web app Ekoguru. Wynand is an energy storage expert and has modeled, designed and presented various solutions utilizing lithium-ion and other electrochemical technologies. In his spare time, Wynand is the author of a children’s book series and started a new project called “Career 180”.