She can't be what she wants to be Though she never really tries
I probably should have titled this post 'Do not trust your Guess-o-Meter' aka the estimated remaining range the i3 displays. It might have gotten more readership if I had, but I do have a schtick to uphold with these blog posts.
After 2.5 years, three BEVs and what some might say is an embarrassingly low 30k total electric miles, I'm here to tell you that no one with significant seat time in any of the current production BEVs relies on the guess-o-meter (GOM). OK, no one might be a bit too strong, but you get the point. The fact is, the GOM has no way of being very accurate - best case they are running an algorithm that can accurately forecast total range based on your prior driving efficiency - but my experience says even that isn't remotely close to being true. Either that or EV manufacturers need to develop much better algorithms. Beyond that, the car has no way of knowing how efficiently (or not) you will drive going forward, so you really shouldn't expect it to be accurate.
Our i3 GOM typically indicates 65-75 miles when its fully charged - even after I've averaged 6.5 miles/kWh for the past week or so of driving. For those not doing the math at home, 6.5 miles/kWh works out to over 120 miles of range, yet the GOM routinely indicates 70 or so.
The GOM is actually so inaccurate that even with 75% of the available battery capacity depleted and 90 miles driven it will indicate that I've got less than 10 miles of remaining range even though my efficiency history from that trip would say that I've got 30 miles left.
So what's the take away message here? While I said above, 'Do not trust your Guess-o-Meter', I'll say it even stronger here - don't even bother to look at it, it is not accurate, and will, in all probability cause you stress.
So what should you do? The most help I can be is to tell you what I do - maybe it will work for you, maybe it won't. But to get a real sense of the vehicle's range you need to treat it like you would have if it had a gas tank, a gas gauge and a trip odometer. How many people rely on the mileage GOM in an ICE (for those cars that actually have them)? I'd venture a guess that it's not many. So do something similar with your BEV. Here's how I monitor range when I've got a trip that will test the range of the car.
Reset the trip computer every time you charge to full
Monitor the following throughout any trip
Average Efficiency
4 bars of remaining capacity
Average Efficiency for the trip
Real Time Efficiency
Perform the calculations in your head while driving
Which calculations you may ask? Here's an example:
You're taking a 110 mile trip
You've just 'used up' the first of the four bars of capacity.
Note that your total usable battery capacity is 18.8 kWh and each bar equates to 4.7 kWh.
Current trip efficiency is at 5.2 miles/kWh and you've traveled 24.5 miles.
Battery Depleted
How do you know if you're going to make it? At this point, you won't. With only 24.5 miles traveled and 25% of your capacity used, you're only going a total of 98 miles at 5.2 miles/kWh.
So what do you do?
You're going to need to increase your efficiency so that you average almost 5.9 miles/kWh for the entire trip
Which means that you're going to need to average 6.1 miles/kWh for the rest of the trip
The difference here is significant enough that you're going to want to monitor your real time efficiency
Why? Just monitoring an increase in the average won't tell you if you'll make it until either you get to that 6.1 average, or you're stranded
Real Time Efficiency & Battery Capacity
So keep an eye on that real time efficiency number and make sure you're averaging above the 6.1 - well that and rerun the overall calculations throughout your trip to continually determine what you need to average the rest of the trip to make it.
Can't run the numbers in your head? This is where a passenger with a smart phone comes in handy - they can continually check to see if you are operating at the appropriate efficiency to complete your trip.
Hopefully you find how I monitor my achievable range helpful, but even if you didn't, don't stress about the GOM projection. Like America sang, 'She's a Liar - she never really tries'. And if you can't seem to ignore it, try a small piece of electrical tape...
Only got twenty dollars in my pocket...
There are plenty of reasons that I've started driving electric - it's environmentally friendly, they're fun to drive, they don't help fund big oil, etc. One of the biggest reasons is that I'm cheap with a capital 'C'. And as a self proclaimed cheapskate, I struggled long and hard with the decision as to whether or not to order the REx when I placed the order for my i3. In the end, I opted against it, mostly because I didn't have a choice but to keep our Audi A6 Avant. I had to keep it because the street I live on isn't navigable after a snow storm unless you have AWD or 4WD. There was one storm this past winter where I almost didn't get off my street - and that was with AWD and winter tires. And since I had to keep it, having a BEv with gas backup made much less sense than it would have otherwise.
But now my inner cheapskate really needs to know, did I make the right decision? I'll likely only know the answer to that somewhere down the road. In the interim I've started to keep track of how much driving the A6 is costing me v. completing the same trip with a REx. To assess whether I made a good financial decision, I'll be tracking total cost to drive the A6 compared to the theoretical cost of the REx for the same trip. I'll also keep track of my excess CO2 emissions resulting from using the Audi.
With one trip under my belt where I could have utilized a REx I've already spent $21.07 extra in gas and produced an additional 119 pounds of CO2 v. what the REx would have done. Since the cost of the REx would have been $3850 + sales tax, I'll need to spend $4073.41 more in gas over the next 3 years for it to have been the wrong decision. Guess we'll see how it goes...
I'll update this post periodically as additional trips are added to the spreadsheet.
And for those of you anxiously awaiting part 2 of 'She was Queen for About an Hour', don't fret, this post just leapfrogged it as a result of our impromptu Long Island trip this past weekend.
First off, Welcome to the New Blog! With our transition from the ActiveE to a two BEV household consisting of a Ford Focus Electric (FFE) and a BMW i3, I felt like it was time to start a fresh blog rather than continue posting over on my ActiveE blog. That being said, if you read that blog, you're likely to notice that some things aren't changing that much. So without further adu, here is my first rambling - A Two Week Impression of the BMW i3.
Just to be clear up front, this blog post isn't going to be one of those happy-feely reviews of the BMW i3. I'm a firm believer that it takes awhile to really understand what you love about the car. Plus there are plenty of lovefest-type opinions and reviews out there already. Instead, I'm going to cover the other end of the spectrum. The things that we hate generally make themselves apparent pretty quickly with a new purchase, and that can be amplified when its the second largest purchase of your life. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things I do like about the i3, but others have already stated many of them, and I do strive to be different than others in my blogposts. So be forewarned, this will be a good old fashioned soap box style rant.
Enough has been said about the appearance of the car, and the fact is, the appearance of the i3 *is* growing on me. As a result, I'll try to refrain from commentary around the aesthetics of the vehicle and focus solely on function.
Background
A lot of the things that I've come to hate about the i3 stem directly from comparing it to the other two EVs we have/had in our lives. Well that, and the fact that BMW DID NOT LISTEN to many of the recommendations made by the Electronauts. One could argue they didn't listen to the Mini-E Pioneers either, since they told BMW 100 miles was enough range, and BMW delivered an 81 mile production EV. Even worse, they took away some things we liked about the ActiveE. See, I told you it was a rant.
Some things we knew about before we took delivery. Word got out early that a State of Charge (SOC) display was not included in the i3. This got out so early and the feedback was so swift from Electronauts that I actually believed it would be added prior to delivery since it really is just a software change - the car clearly knows what the SOC is, and all the gauges are digital so it could be easily added. With the first US deliveries occurring more than five months after providing our feedback, you would have thought BMW would have fixed this. You'd be wrong though.
Met a girl, thought she was grand fell in love, found out first hand Went well for a week or two, Then it all came unglued...
To be fair, it didn't take a week or two for many of these things. A lot of them were driving me nuts within a day or two. Some things annoyed be before I even got out of the dealership. Since there is no clear way on how to bucket the things that annoy me, I'll go with things I knew before I took delivery, those I noticed within a day or two, and then in a second blogpost I cover the rest. And if you think this post is a rant, stay tuned for the next one, because that's where the things that really drive me nuts will be covered.
Pre-Delivery/During Delivery
I've already mentioned the SOC gauge, so I'll cover everything but that here.
12V Battery The biggest annoyance that I discovered during the Electronaut Event at BMW NA in Woodcliff Lake NJ was the inaccessible 12V battery. EVs have more than their fair share of 12V batteries dying prematurely - usually education as to what causes it in a particular make/model will spread like wildfire through message boards and forums so that it only happens to a few people. But if you're the one it happens to, having the ability to jump the battery to start the car would be nice. Sorry, ain't happening with the i3. But worse, I had planned on using the i3 as my back up generator for my house during power outages. You know, so my fridge, freezer and television keep working during outages caused by the likes of Irene and Sandy. Unfortunately you need to hook the sine wave inverter directly to the 12V battery for that to work. That's not happening with the i3 either. Fortunately, I also have that FFE in the driveway...
Memory Seats
Forget memory, they're not even power seats. To be fair, however, I don't see the point of power seats if you're not going to add memory. We learned quickly in the ActiveE that the lack of memory seats S-U-C-K-E-D. Both of us drove it as our primary vehicle, and only when we were both going to different places did our ICE get driven in the two years we had it. As a result, we were forever having to adjust the seats to get them back where you like them after the other person had taken the car. Upside is we solved this BMW faux pas by getting a second EV. Another note on these seats - they are the most uncomfortable seats I've had in any car I ever owned. Two weeks and 600 miles and I've come to the conclusion there is no comfortable position for me and likely plenty of others as I'm average - 6' tall. It's a bit of an ergonomic nightmare with where the seat causes pressure on your body.
Key Fob Plenty of annoyances here. First, when we had the ActiveE, I lost one of the cut keys at some point as the little lock got depressed and it fell out somewhere and I didn't notice it. Fortunately that key had key ring holes in both the cut and electronic keys and I had the ring through the electronic portion. i3 key? If the same thing happens again and I don't notice it I'll only have the cut key left because there's no ring hole in the electronic portion. Unlikely to happen to be sure, but if it does happen to anyone, you can blame the BMW engineers for the key design as the root cause.
The size of the key is another issue. Its the first key I've ever had where I can't stand it in my pocket for any length of time. Makes it a bit ironic that you can leave the key in your pocket while driving... I've never had to take my keys out of my pocket at work until now. Really going to be annoying the first time I have to trek back to my office after getting to my car and realizing my keys are on my desk.
And finally, lack of a programmable button. We were led to believe that there would be a 'diamond' button on our keys that would be programmable for things like remotely starting the car. No diamond button to be found anywhere on this ridiculously large key.
Frozen Blue Frozen Blue accents are available on every i3 except Solar Orange where you get Frozen Gray. Well, not really. The Roundels fore, aft and on the steering wheel all have Frozen Blue accents. Plus the Electronaut Edition floor mats, sill plates and not yet received Electronaut License Plate brackets are adorned in Frozen Blue. The Roundel on the hood is the most egregious in my opinion. It's mere inches from the Frozen Gray highlights on the kidneys. Seems a bit schizophrenic to me. I said I'd try not to comment on aesthetics. So sue me for not trying hard enough. Probably because I really wanted Frozen Blue accents on my Solar Orange i3.
First Couple of Days
Here are the things that I noticed in the first few days after taking delivery.
Chargeport Not even sure where to start on this one. Due to there being more EVs at our workplace than there are EVSEs, I've gotten a lot of exposure to chargeports on existing EVs from having to unplug others to plug myself in (one of the hazards to being the last EV to get in every morning - lunchtime routine involves heading to the garage to plug in). What I learned was the ActiveE and the Chevy Volt have pretty well designed ports and covers. The FFE and the i3 do not. I thought the FFE's was bad until I got the i3. The door on the i3 is fine, but there are two things that are downright ridiculous. First, the little port plugs and their tethers - what the hell was BMW thinking??? The hinged cap cover door of the ActiveE was so much better designed and took a lot less time to deal with when charging the car. Hit the latch and it opened. Close the cover til the latch caught and it was closed. Now? Pull the plug and place it on the built in hook on the port door and reverse when charging is complete. They took something well designed and easy to use and as they say in the UK, 'they cocked it up'.
Then there is the locking mechanism that locks the J1772 plug to your car when you lock the doors. ATTENTION BMW - not everyone lives in Europe where you own the charge cord and having the ability to lock it to the car is a necessity. Know your target market*s* and design your vehicles to meet the needs of those markets. In places where you need to be able to unplug someone else to plug your car in, this feature may cause charge rage - you know, like here in the US where you RAN your field trials. A programmable option here would fix this issue, and I don't mean an option just to unlock it when charging is done. Let us leave it unlocked if we want to.
Radio
Does not turn off when turning the car off. Really? What is this, the 60's? In my FFE and in our Audis the radio stays on after shutting the car off - until you open a door, then it shuts off. In the i3 you have to manually shut off the radio by taking measures other than those required to exit the vehicle. Lovely, another time waster in addition to the chargeport plugs.
*EDIT* It was pointed out after I posted this that there are several things that will cause the radio to turn off other than pressing the on/off button on the radio or hitting the vehicle power button a second time (while depressing the brake) that I was already aware of. I was unaware of them because my slightly OCD nature won't let me get out of the car with the radio on. After exiting, locking the car with the fob will power off the radio. Additionally, if you just leave it on, it will power itself down after ~8 minutes. I've confirmed both, but will still likely never use either for the aforementioned reason.
Then there is the 'echo' on certain radio stations. To be fair, the ActiveE had it too. Granted it's intermittent, and originally I thought there was just something wrong with my ActiveE's radio - at least until I got the i3. It was annoying in the ActiveE, but not annoying enough to bring the car 60 miles to my dealer to have it looked at. Guess not bringing it in for that was a good call because it seems like a systemic design flaw rather than a single vehicle issue.
Other Minor Annoyances
Not that its really a necessity, but we've come to expect leather binders to hold all the documentation that you get with a new car in the glove box. Even my FFE has a binder (not leather mind you), but there are also brackets in the top of the glove box designed to hold the binder and its contents away from anything else in the glove box you want quick access to. Good luck finding anything quickly in the i3 glove box.
Another non-necessity is a sunglass holder. But boy, once you've had a car with one, having to toss them on the dash, hook them over the rear view, or put them in their own case and drop them in the crevasse under the armrest makes you feel like an uncultured heathen.
So what's the take away message here? While I said above, 'Do not trust your Guess-o-Meter', I'll say it even stronger here - don't even bother to look at it, it is not accurate, and will, in all probability cause you stress.
Hopefully you find how I monitor my achievable range helpful, but even if you didn't, don't stress about the GOM projection. Like America sang, 'She's a Liar - she never really tries'. And if you can't seem to ignore it, try a small piece of electrical tape...
