[popsmuf]

Hi everyone,

I've been absent from the BMW community for some time. In the past, I've had (2) e46M3s, (2) R53 Mini Cooper S, (1) R53 Cooper GP, (1) X3, (1) 335i, (1) 135i. Yes, I have a car problem. Point being, I'm a BMW fan as you can see.

I picked up a BMW i3 REX on July 1st. It's an electronaut edition. I was intrigued by the EV trend, and decided against Tesla in favor of my beloved BMW brand. I was super excited to pick up the car, and equally excited to put tons of miles on it gas-free. I was actually contemplating getting rid of my Panamera for the i3 and telling all my friends and family about it....After 15 days of ownership, I have to be honest and say I'm absolutely disappointed.

Let me start with the positives--
1) Interior dash/ controls. Simply beautiful. No EV on the market can compare. Not as nice as the Porsche dash/compartment, but really nice. Great job here

2) Styling. I like it. This is a subjective opinion. Sure, some think its butt-ugly, but I think its sharp

3) Weight. The car is really light. Makes the car handle and feel like a BMW.

4) Size. A bit smaller than I'd like, but love that its not the size of an aircraft carrier like a Tesla. Compared to my Panamera, so very refreshing to zip around in a smaller, more nimble car


The unfortunate negatives--
1) Skinny tires. Enough said.

2) CEL. Everyone knows this issue. I have it. The light has turned on and off then on, which scares me because it signals the car is not "stable". If there's a problem, just light it up and keep it lit! At least I know the car is consistently erroring

3) Windshield noise. This is a seriously let down. My old Merdedes G55 had better aerodynamics than the i3. Anything above 50mph, you hear the wind like crazy

4) Range. This is another let down. 80-100miles? Only if you drive with no fan, no AC, and under 55mph. I live in SoCal. Can't live without air, A/C, or drive 55mph. For those consider BEV vs REX, unless you can comfortably go the day with only 50miles, you better get the REX. The REX on the other hand is much more accurate. You don't lose 1-2miles every .5 travelled when using the gas generator. I feel it was deceptive to advertise these figures in an unrealistic setting... its like saying a V12 Ferrari gets 30MPG (all downhill).

5) Low-Cost charging function. This is my biggest gripe. Basically, this function does not work. I've been using the OEM factory provided 120V charger for the last 15 days and have never had this function work correctly. Doesnt work via the app, doesn't work via the vehicle settings menu. After sending pictures, videos, and emails to iConcierge, I finally got an answer to this problem today.... The answer is this function does not work with the factory supplied 120V charger.. uh, WTF? Why did you provide a charger with the car if the charger is not compatible with one of the most important functions of the car? Any EV owner knows, the key is to charge during the super-off peak time of 12am-6am (your local Electric company times may vary). So, let me repeat..... the charger from BMW, does not allow the Low-Cost timer to work. Really?


For me (speaking just for me), being a loyal BMW fan... I left the brand for about 6-7 years as I didn't like the recent M3 (e90?), M5 (e60?). I've been in Porsche Cayennes and Panameras for the past 6-7 yrs. Now, I understand one may argue that a Porsche and BMW are not in the same market segment. I was really excited to get back into a BMW with the interesting, cutting edge CF shell, EV, etc.... but if I'm honest, it's been a huge disappointment. Especially the way this charging fiasco has been handled. To hear that final answer/response from BMW... was a bit shocking. Every current i3 owner who uses the supplied 120V charger, has this problem. We are unable to use the charge timer. I expected a better answer... like "we will re-code the algorithm with there findings, thank you" or "we'll ship you a level2 charger, which solves the problem"...... but no.

So for me, its a disappointment that a $50K car has all of these issues. It's not like its a $15K Hyundai, because then, you got what you paid for... I expected more, and expected them to protect the brand better. Truthfully, I was so irritated that I wasn't getting an answer from BMW that I asked them to take the car back.... and now after getting this answer, it kind of makes me insist on giving the car back.

Anyway, I'm sure I will get flamed by all i3 fans here. I really wanted to get excited again about BMW, with this new platform and all. I'm just one guy, so I'm sure nobody cares.... but if you're an i3 owner, try plugging in the car tonight with you 120V charger and see if you experience the same error. If you do, ask yourself, is this what I paid for?

[Rapcat]

Low cost charging only works if you have a departure time set within 24 hours. It works on my car, it's a BEV. I know because I plugged it in at a Walmart and it wasn't charging. Came back and realized it was on low cost charging. Switched it to charge immediately and it is all done.

I also bought a 240V BMW charger for the house. Don't expect to get a full charge in 6 hours with a 120V charger. At 15 amps, that's a maximum of 1.8kW of charging. In 6 hours, that's 10.8kWh less the inverter losses. On a 19kWh battery you're looking at only charging halfway.

Anyway, I have a BEV. Picked mine up July 2nd and I absolutely love it. Noise isn't a problem either. I listen to the radio a lot though. Range? Well.....could be better but it's 108 degrees here and I NEED my ac on full blast. It'll be better come the fall. I didn't want to deal with check engine lights, oil changes and all that, so I decided to go with the BEV. Got down to 19 miles today and had to use a public charger. Was a little stressful but mostly because the public charging station cost $3/hour and my power at home is free (solar), but at least it's cheaper than a gallon of gas.
The i3 isn't for everybody. And if I got the Rex I think I would be upset with the lower range and increased maintenance of the ICE in the back. So I'm glad I went all in. It wasn't easy or cheap (home charger) but I think it was worth it.

[popsmuf]

I have a departure time set for daily at 8:30am. Figured out by accident that the timer will stop charging after the departure time. So, I adjusted it to 5:55 so I'm able to 'rig' it. But, no successful way to initiate the charge to start at 12:00am.

I have plugged in at a public charger (level2) and the timer does work there. Confirms what iConcierge told me... Basically, timer feature doesn't work with the 120V

I know I can't get a full charge in 6hrs with the 120V. But, sometimes I don't drive the car everyday or only use up 15-20miles range. Enough to be charged in that 6hrs.

[MikeSI3]

Don’t really understand why you should be so disappointed. You knew it had Skinny tires the CEL issue is well documented as a software error, not sure about the windshield noise but I never noticed it all the time I drove the car, and the range was known before! Ive no knowledge of the ‘low cost charge function, but it appears other have posted about this.

[Rapcat]

Originally Posted by popsmuf

I have a departure time set for daily at 8:30am. Figured out by accident that the timer will stop charging after the departure time. So, I adjusted it to 5:55 so I'm able to 'rig' it. But, no successful way to initiate the charge to start at 12:00am.

I have plugged in at a public charger (level2) and the timer does work there. Confirms what iConcierge told me... Basically, timer feature doesn't work with the 120V

I know I can't get a full charge in 6hrs with the 120V. But, sometimes I don't drive the car everyday or only use up 15-20miles range. Enough to be charged in that 6hrs.

Aaaah. So I thought about this last night. The reason it starts charging early is because it needs to start charging before midnight to get to a full charge by your departure time. So it's technically not broken, but there is no option to have it only partially charge.

Personally, I would get a 240v charger or At least charge it all the way up once so it didn't have to do so much charging that the car decides to charge before midnight.

Again, no issues with mine and I love how quickly the BMW charger gets it up to a full charge.

[jadnashuanh]

If you've used most of the battery capacity of the i3, and are using the 120vac unit, it could take as much as 19-20 hours to recharge the vehicle to full. Even with a typical use of around 30-35 miles, it could take nearly 10-hours to recharge fully. That often is outside of the off-peak window size. Keep in mind that the charger in the car is capable of 7.4Kw/hr input. At 240vac, that's about 30A. The 120vac unit tops out at 12A, and power is = volts * amps. So, 240*30=7200W, and 120*12=1440W making the 240vac unit 5x faster. Now, there is more loss in the vehicle's charging circuits making the nearly 400vdc needed to charge it with 120vac input verses 240vac inputs, so the difference is closer to 6x advantage with the 240vac unit. Also note that depending on the temperature, and other factors, the vehicle will not continuously draw full power to recharge itself, somewhat extending those times.

Considering that there will be times when you may want to use the vehicle faster than 19-20 hours required to 'refill' it from nearly empty, the installation or a stop at a 240vac EVSE unit is prudent. At least around here, many of those are free, making the off-peak cost somewhat irrelevant. Course, you're not home, while this is happening...but, if you can find one of those near where you are stopping, it makes sense to make use of it!

I've not noticed wind noise from the windshield area, but I do not have all that many miles on the vehicle or have driven in all sorts of different wind conditions. Considering my typical use is maybe 15 miles in a day, you can see I'm not driving it all that much or that far.

[Efthreeoh]

I'm not trying to laugh here but other than the low-cost charging issue (that's a bit funny too) all the disappointments you mention are obvious as a day is 24-hours long. I took a test drive and one of the first things I noticed was the wind noise as soon as I got on the freeway. As far as the tires, were you expecting a sports car or something? I don't understand your issue with the tires; it's an electric car that's tuned for low fuel consumption.

Back to the charging issue. Why in God's name are you charging it on 120V? It takes 20 hours to charge that way (also made obvious by BMW's literature). Based on the cars that you say you've owned: A) do you really have to be concerned about charging the car at a slightly low KW price over night? I mean it costs like $2 to charge the thing. B) call an electrician and have him install a Level 2 charging station at your home.

[dirtbike59]

1: skinny tires = less rolling resistance which means more miles.
2: the cel is a software issue with the ihka. The programming fix is out
3: windshield noise is easy to notice when the rest of the car is almost silent.
4: range... more for city use. I know I cant have one with my 80 mile round trip to work
5: cant comment on since my dealer has only sold 6 and everyone already had wall chargers installed

[Kevin_Genius@BMWMtLaurel]

[QUOTE=popsmuf;16298074]


The unfortunate negatives--
1) Skinny tires. Enough said.

2) CEL. Everyone knows this issue. I have it. The light has turned on and off then on, which scares me because it signals the car is not "stable". If there's a problem, just light it up and keep it lit! At least I know the car is consistently erroring

3) Windshield noise. This is a seriously let down. My old Merdedes G55 had better aerodynamics than the i3. Anything above 50mph, you hear the wind like crazy

4) Range. This is another let down. 80-100miles? Only if you drive with no fan, no AC, and under 55mph. I live in SoCal. Can't live without air, A/C, or drive 55mph. For those consider BEV vs REX, unless you can comfortably go the day with only 50miles, you better get the REX. The REX on the other hand is much more accurate. You don't lose 1-2miles every .5 travelled when using the gas generator. I feel it was deceptive to advertise these figures in an unrealistic setting... its like saying a V12 Ferrari gets 30MPG (all downhill).

QUOTE]



Let me address a few of your concerns:

1) Skinny tires reduce rolling restisance like others have said: this car has forged wheels to save weight and skinny tires achieves this concept even more.

2) There is a software fix for your CEL. Take it to your service department and they will fix it for you no issue.

3) I also have noticed this, but take this with a grain of salt. This car is trying to be efficient as possible and in doing so I am sure that BMW used less sound dampening to achieve maximum efficiency and a lower curb weight.

4) Again, this is all relative and subjective and I am sure will be argued down into the pits of hell. Range on these cars varies literally from driver to driver, road to road, city to city, state to state, etc. Of course when you have the AC blasting and you're doing mainly pure highway driving the range will decrease. This vehicle was designed with a urban city mind-set and the relative range numbers reflect this. I honestly feel this is not a legitimate complaint.

[jadnashuanh]

Any time someone tries to consider the i3 to an ICE when it comes to max range, the i3 will come up short. An ICE will have no compromises until you actually run out of gasoline. But, anyone that buys an i3 should understand what they're buying - it is and was designed as a city car, and research showed most people needed about 34-miles on a daily basis with their car. If you fall outside of that range by a lot, the REx might fill in the blanks, but as implemented in the USA, it isn't as flexible as elsewhere, and it may not. The 34Hp REx engine just does NOT have enough power to run the i3 as it runs on a full battery charge...when your batteries are nearly flat, the REx will let you keep going, but if you try to extract more than 34Hp at any one time, something has to give, and that's usually a chop in max speed you can maintain, or creature comforts, or both. The REx is an emergency fall-back to let you get home or to your destination. IF your path doesn't need more energy than it can provide, you may not notice that you don't have very much. Otherwise, you'll quickly notice, but don't blame the car. Blame your expectations and failure to understand what you bought!

Where you can turn the REx on while you still have most of your battery charge, the REx can slow or even stop you from further draining them, but in the NA region, you can't turn it on until the batteries are nearly flat, and if you are pushing, you will continue to run the batteries down, and you WILL notice that loss of power.

[dirtbike59]

I just had a customer drive 1000 miles on his rex i3 the first week of owning it. He went for the DC area to ohio and back no issues in performance. He just kept stopping for gas every 80 miles.

[BrokenVert]

About your range issue, youll figure it out. Driving an electric car takes some getting used to. Unfortunately, the i3 doesnt have aggressive regen brakes (the thing I miss most from my ActiveE). If you use the brake pedal, youre turning your energy into heat and wasting it. Drive easier, drive more consistently, and open up big spaces to the car in front. Dont hit the brakes unless you absolutely need too.

Youll notice an increase in range once you figure it all out.


Ohh and on another point. You hear the wind because there are no other sounds for you to focus on. Remember, there is no engine and as a result no engine noise. I had a discussion with BMW engineers last year (we had those as Electronauts) and I was told that they needed to redesign the wiper motors and arms on the 1 series because in rain with no engine noise theyre all that you could hear. They were so successful, that the new motor and arm design is on all BMWs now.

Think about that for a second, BMW electric cars are so quiet that sound of wipers was considered loud and annoying. Of course youre going to hear some wind noise!

[DDF200]

I just took delivery of my i3 REx.

Initial observations after 5 days of driving:

Range: About 65% of what the meter says if I drive 'normal' - meaning I drive too fast, have the air on constantly and don't pay attention to conserving power in any way.

Noise: Yes, there is a little wind noise, only noticeable when I'm at lower speeds around 30 to 40 mph.

Tires/Steering: There is some wandering, the tires do find pavement grooves and the light vehicle weight contributes to getting knocked around a little more on freeways when large vehicles are nearby. To be clear, not at all dangerous, just more noticeable.

Charging: Hmmmm, still trying to figure it out. Either I don't get it or it needs some work on the software to manage/control it. TBD.

Overall, very comfortable and fun to drive vehicle.