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      06-30-2017, 06:41 AM   #1
bailyhill
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205 Mi Summer Trip Ski Country, i3 REX

Hello All
Took My 2015 REX on a long trip yesterday. It was the first. REX usually resides on Nantucket Island, and 10 mile trips are unusual, while 3 mile trips are the norm. Its great for that application. Did a lease take over at crazy numbers, so the REX was part of the deal, though I could easily done a BEV for that application.

My wife is on board her next car being an i3 REX. So I had a trip up to our place in sky country and took REX. Careful planning showed that if I left with a full charge from Hyannis, Mass and made a stop 60 miles away at South Shore BMW with a quick charge, I could make it to the Rockingham Mall where there is a 50A DC quick charge. Since I get 90+ miles in Eco Pro+ at 56 mph, I could just make it, or perhaps a top off at a J1772 plug along the way. This plan would allow an all BEV trip with a little luck.

Well so much for plans. The SS BMW dealer had a J1772, but no DC fast charge. So I did a 45 minute charge, had a cup of coffee and sweet roll, looked over all the new cars--including a base REX for $299/mo lease--not bad as mine is $252 and I would expect them to come down at years end. Got enough charge to make it to Rockingham Mall.

Found the DC fast charge after making a couple of laps of the parking garage. Plugged in, it took my card, but would not communicate with my care. So thank god for cell phones, they were invented for just this case. I called and the folks were very nice, but were unable to get the machine to connect. They reset the machine and did a reboot. Still not luck. They suggested another DC fast charge at the Whole Foods, which was about 20 miles of extra miles. So I just bagged the idea, and TG for REX. Made the rest of the trip that way. Started at 8:30 in the morn, and arrive at 3:30 in the afternoon. 7 hours for a 205 mile trip. That's just under 30 mph average. TG I am retired and could enjoy the ride.

I have run into this before with the commercial chargers. I have batted 4 out of 5 on J1772's in my smart car a couple of years ago, and now 1 for 2 with the DC fast chargers. So the charging infrastructure is not exactly ready for prime time here in the Northeast. If BMW is planning on putting 6 billion dollars into electric cars over the next few years as I am reading, I hope they realize the need for the charging infrastructure. Every dealer should have a DC fast charge. Every dealer should have several J1772's. They need to put a lot of pressure on the commercial guys--Chargepoint and EVO, etc to get their equipment up to par. This is going to limit their efforts. If I were running BMW, I would make a deal with Tesla which they would welcome, and make a conversion box, so BMW products can fast charge on the road. Tesla has this part of the deal so right. If BMW has to have their own brand chargers for marketing reasons, I understand, but you better get on it as my experience it's not adequate to go electric BMW for any real trips--relegates it to a hanger queen that can be charge overnight in garage.

As for 3e Series, 20 miles of range only does a few around town errands. That is a step in the right direction, but its not a serious effort.

Bailyhill
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      06-30-2017, 12:32 PM   #2
VacMan1
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Sorry to hear of your experiences. Here in SoCal, I have yet to have a charging station malfunction and there are days I use DCFC twice for 30 mins each. If I didn't have confidence in them functioning it would definitely affect how I felt about my car (and BEV in general.) As it is, I still have 1/2 of the original tank of fuel in my REX from when I took delivery in January, but I'm still glad I have that safety net.
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      06-30-2017, 01:59 PM   #3
afadeev
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bailyhill View Post
Found the DC fast charge after making a couple of laps of the parking garage. Plugged in, it took my card, but would not communicate with my care. [...] So I just bagged the idea, and TG for REX. Made the rest of the trip that way. Started at 8:30 in the morn, and arrive at 3:30 in the afternoon. 7 hours for a 205 mile trip. That's just under 30 mph average. TG I am retired and could enjoy the ride.
Sadly, this is par for the course in NE.
I had a similar experience at 1 out of 2 DC stations I tried around NYC.

Not great, but not surprising, when your OEM (BMW) outsources charging infrastructure to the lowest bidder (EVgo).


Quote:
Originally Posted by bailyhill View Post
Tesla has this part of the deal so right. If BMW has to have their own brand chargers for marketing reasons, I understand, but you better get on it as my experience it's not adequate to go electric BMW for any real trips--relegates it to a hanger queen that can be charge overnight in garage.
That's pretty much what i3 is to me.
ICE for roadtrips.


Quote:
Originally Posted by bailyhill View Post
As for 3e Series, 20 miles of range only does a few around town errands. That is a step in the right direction, but its not a serious effort.
3e (and 5e, 7e) are a (green) fig leaf, and not just because of the token 14-20 mile EV range.

To go 3e over 330i costs an extra $10.5K.
With the ~27% boost in average MPG it delivers, the $10.5K will require 598,500 miles to break even...


a
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