11-29-2021, 09:42 AM | #1 |
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45e in extreme cold
Does anyone have experience with the 45e in extreme cold weather?
I will be parking indoors at night, but outside for 12+ hours a day while at work. Any concerns about extreme winter weather and the plug in system? We see below zero degrees F for weeks on end at times throughout the winter. |
11-29-2021, 10:46 AM | #2 | |
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I’m from Finland, and we usually have 0 to minus 20 during winter time here in the capital area. Have seen no problems. The car is 24/7 outside. It hasn’t been below 8 degrees yet and I was able to drive EV only mode. When it drops below 10, the system won’t allow to run the EV mode without first heating up the engine. Otherwise, you’re good to go |
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11-29-2021, 12:03 PM | #3 |
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It is good to not park it with a zero capacity battery, so if you can't plug in when you get somewhere, and your battery charge is quite low, you may want to use the battery hold (the lowest you can set is 30%) function. Recharging from super cold will take longer, as the batteries won't take as high of a charge rate, plus, they correspondingly, can't pump out as many amps as when they're warm. Unlike many EVs, the PHEV 45e does not have battery heating capacity, only cooling. On an EV, they use that to maximize range in the cold so you can start out with the batteries warmer and not decrease your range as much.
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11-29-2021, 12:11 PM | #4 | |
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I was hoping to use full EV mode year round to take the kids to daycare, as it is about two miles each way. Northern US, Minnesota. We can see minus 30 C as well here, but in the minus 10 C to minus 20 C is very common. |
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11-29-2021, 12:14 PM | #5 | |
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11-29-2021, 12:16 PM | #6 |
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If your garage isn't the outside ambient temperature, your batteries will be warm enough when you leave to allow you to go EV mode...it's after cold soaking outside where you may not if it's cold enough where it will need to turn the engine on. Keep in mind, all heating is done via the batteries, not from waste engine heat, so that impacts your total EV range as well.
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11-29-2021, 12:31 PM | #7 | |
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11-29-2021, 01:02 PM | #9 |
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Yeah, they implemented cooling but not heating of the battery
By the way - All-electric drive up to a cell temperature of 27 °F is available in the Hybrid Generation 3.0 vehicles and in the G12 LCI PHEV. This temperature limit has been extended in the G05 PHEV to 21 °F. Bear in mind it’s a temperate of the cells, not the outside one. |
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11-29-2021, 01:54 PM | #10 |
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Also keep in mind during use, the batteries will heat themselves as they are discharged, and with the thermal mass, will take a while to cool off down to ambient. Starting out in a warm garage, you may never notice a problem or restriction.
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11-29-2021, 10:20 PM | #11 | |
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11-29-2021, 10:44 PM | #12 |
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11-29-2021, 11:20 PM | #13 | |
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My 530e has battery heating and cooling so I'd imagine the X5 45e is the same especially since the heat and cooling are both controlled by the HV system. My understanding is the BMW PHEV system is largely identical across the range. I'd be surprised if the X5 45e has no battery heating capabilities. |
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11-30-2021, 12:14 AM | #14 |
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If you're talking cabin heating/cooling, of course, the X5 has both, but, the documents for the 45e in the sticky at the top do not mention battery heating, only cooling, nor, does the manual say anything about a battery heater. The i3 has a battery heater, and the user's manual says it can start up to 3.5-hours before a scheduled departure time...the X5 says nothing about that, and the preconditioning appears to only start about 30-minutes before your scheduled departure, so, yes, I'm pretty sure there is no battery heater. FWIW, the heater in the i3 is a 1Kw device and will only come on if you set a departure time and are connected to an EVSE.
The act of charging or discharging them will warm them, so if you used the off-peak charging time window in combination with a departure time, you might have it finish charging just when you were trying to depart, and thus actually have more actual range if you timed it right. I had an i3 for about 7-years, and one day I was parked in the fairly warm garage. Range was about 70-miles indicated. Must moved it 20' outside and plugged it back in...overnight it got down to like 10F...the range when I got in in the morning said something like 55-miles...it lost 15-miles of range, the charge level was 100%, just from being cold (I did not set a departure time, so it didn't try to warm them up). If I had set a departure time, I would typically lose maybe 3-5 miles, depending on how cold it got. At the time, I had two cars, and typically kept the other one in the garage, so I didn't do this frequently swapping them back and forth, so that's only a handful of data points. Now that I'm back to one vehicle, there's very little reason to move it from the garage and park it outside, so I don't really have much experience with this vehicle on that. |
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11-30-2021, 12:28 PM | #15 | |
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The HV battery is heated and cooled with refrigerant lines, but not with a heater directly on the battery itself... On my MY2020 G30 if I schedule a departure time far enough in advance. 3 hours is the agreed upon time from the i3, but recent software updates have that down to 40 minutes or so. I'll see a bump on my EVSE where the car heats the battery up (or cools it down). If I use cabin preconditioning directly or don't schedule it far enough in advance only the cabin will be heated or cooled, but not the battery. Easiest way to see the difference without a network connected EVSE is to get into the car after manually running preconditioning with the app with no scheduled departure time on a cold day and the engine will kick on to warm the battery even though you have a fully charged battery and a warm car. Do the same with a scheduled departure and you'll get into the car warmed and notice the battery is already warmed and it won't need to be heated or cooled before use. In my screenshot below from my EVSE you can see the battery heating/cooling process at play. The last portion is cabin cooling, but the portion right before it that lasts briefly is cooling the battery. Notice it is 15 minutes or so sooner than the cabin conditioning kicks off. |
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11-30-2021, 01:02 PM | #16 | |
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this is my second winter with my 45e. The ICE has never kicked in to heat the cabin where I live, but you bring up an interesting point about the HV battery heating via lines. what I've read for folks with a 45e who live in extreme cold, if the HV battery is too cold, electric mode is disabled and the ICE runs on startup to heat things up in the cabin in addition to the HV battery via the lines you mentioned. Mind you, the ICE doesn't run if trying to precondition with an ice cold battery; it just won't precondition at all. additionally on the 45e, the HVAC is completely powered by the HV battery; there is no passive/radiant ICE heating of the cabin. Last edited by nZtiZia; 11-30-2021 at 04:05 PM.. |
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11-30-2021, 01:49 PM | #17 | |
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Everything you described operates exactly the same on the 530e. If you were to get into the car and it is extremely cold and not hooked to the charger and you tried to run the HVAC for preconditioning (or did so via the app) you'd get a warning in iDrive letting you know the battery is too cold or hot and it will activate them after the battery has been heated or cooled to the temperature it needs. You can do this for cabin preconditioning in the extreme cold without heating or cooling the battery since it can run the electric heater and/or electric AC compressor from the wall charger. If you did so by just turning the car on and driving off you'd lack heating and/or AC until the car has warmed or cooled the HV battery for the same reason. It won't operate it until it is at the right temperature even if it has sufficient charge. I spent some time figuring this out since I street park in Philly and we get some cold winters. I was initially very confused as to why I could get into the car after warming it via the app only to notice the ICE kick on with a battery warning message. I was also similarly confused hoping into the car and trying to drive off on a full battery without preconditioning (because I couldn't plug into my charger) only to have the car tell me I can't have heat for a few minutes yet. Thankfully I opted for heated seat and wheel. I am probably unusual in the extent I aimed to figure out "how" it works in practice. But a design difference you pointed out is the 530e does retain the BMW "REST" function to leverage radiant engine heat to warm the cabin. This is possible if the ICE is warm and you activate heating of the cabin while the car is off, but the HV battery has been depleted. You won't get heat via the electric heater, but what can be siphoned off the still warm engine block. Interesting that this was removed from the 45e as I imagine this would make the PHEV more efficient on road trips where you're already running the ICE as you've exhausted HV range. Seems wasteful to charge the HV battery to run the electric heater to heat the cabin when the warm engine block has heat as a waste product. |
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11-30-2021, 05:00 PM | #18 |
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The 45e, unlike say the i3, does not have a heat pump...so, it cannot heat the cabin or the battery pack in that manner.
My EVSE does not turn on earlier than about 30-minutes prior to a scheduled departure time, and it NEVER will turn the ICE on in the 45e during that process. The EVSE may not turn on at all during that process...depends on how low the HV batteries get to trip their hysteresis point, much more often in the winter than the summer when it only needs cooling. Now, it would have been nice if the 45e had a heat pump, but it doesn't. Max EV range on a PHEV isn't as critical as it is on a BEV. |
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11-30-2021, 08:01 PM | #19 | |
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I won’t challenge the experiences of actual owners though. It just struck me as very odd that the 530e pre-LCI would have a more advanced PHEV implementation than the X5 45e. |
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11-30-2021, 09:30 PM | #20 |
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THe i3 used a 1Kw resistance heater for the batteries. IT only was enabled if you set a departure time and were plugged into an EVSE when it was cold enough to benefit from it.
It used the heat pump or backup resistance heaters for the cabin depending on the temperature. The X5 does not have a heat pump, so if it was trying to heat the batteries and warm the cabin at the same time, you'd end up with a less than full battery even when it was plugged into an EVSE because of the load. Now, why BMW chose to do it the way they did, probably a cost/benefit/space decision. Given that it's a PHEV versus a BEV, it doesn't surprise me. |
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12-01-2021, 03:14 AM | #21 |
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Before I bought my 45e, my dealer claimed that the heat from the ICE is used to heat the cabin. It is really stupid if this is not the case because 60-70% of the energy in gasoline is wasted in heat.
Yesterday, I drove over 1000 km and the outside temperature was between -20 and -30 degrees C (-4...-22 F) for several hours. The charge in the HV battery was dropping slowly while I was driving in adaptive more. Average consumption was 8.5 l/100 km (27.7 mpg), average speed 84.5 km/h (52.5 mph). So the consumption was about 0.6 l/100 km higher than in warmer conditions.. but it's also winter now with snow on the roads and I had headwind yesterday, so I'm not sure if the higher consumption was caused by the need of generating electric power for the heater or by the other conditions. |
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12-01-2021, 11:21 AM | #22 | |
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The lack of a heat pump does reduce the battery charge though since the heater (on the 530e) is 6kW I believe. Whereas the L2 car onboard charger is 3.7kW (on the 530e) so it will pull from BOTH the L2 charger and the battery at the same time to power this. On really cold days you'll get to the car and notice it is charging during a preconditioning run for this reason. But a heat pump isn't needed as the heater and AC compressor are both electric so they can be run when needed to heat the battery and/or cabin. But the car should siphon ICE waste heat if the ICE is warm as that's just more efficient overall. Someone from a cold climate can confirm my posts though to explain a bit on how it works on the X5 45e so there is definitive clarity I guess. If you have a cold day, say 20F or something, and you take the car on a drive without first scheduling a departure time in the app. Instead about 15 minutes or so before you go out or even 30 if you want to let it run the whole time you hit "precondition" in the MyBMW app then go take the car for a drive. Does your ICE kick on for a few minutes to "warm the battery" with an iDrive message noting so while your car is warm. Then if you did the same exact thing except you have a departure time configured in the app 3 hours or so in advance and get into the car to take a drive. Does the ICE kick on this time while the car is warm or are you able to immediately do EV driving as the battery is already warm. That would confirm that the X5 45e does heat the battery in the same manner my 530e does. I don't post here to annoy people with my 530e discussion. I just love the PHEV tech and the X5 forums are a bit busier on that front so I enjoy sharing the things I've unearthed about the tech. I just happen to be a software engineer so figuring out what code paths BMW optimized for comes naturally. I don't think most people conduct those sort of A/B tests as I did. BMW also doesn't specifically mention how to trigger this battery heating and cooling in the manual. They just not that you should do this to "maximize range". So my notes above are gleamed from direct testing. That being said, if it turns out that the X5 45e is incapable of heating the battery it will result in premature battery failure in the X5 45e as the battery lasts the longest if it can stay within a good temperature range of around 70F or so. Excessive heat and draining LiIon batteries in the deep cold shortens their lifespan. Last edited by LogicalApex; 12-01-2021 at 11:30 AM.. |
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