BMW i3 charging woes

  • Thread starter Thread starter mjt
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No I'm not, I'm asking if it seriously only does less than 60 miles when the quoted range is nearly 180.
 
Feek said:
Seriously, that’s it?
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Designed and launched when batteries were far more expensive and despite the small 18kwh usable battery capacity of the original i3 I was able to achieve 5 mi/kwh most of the year except on the colder days which is something I can't do in my Model 3. Great car for commuting 40 miles every day.
 
Feek said:
I don't know, I was genuinely surprised.
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The early i3s have pretty tiny batteries by current expectations - as @bimbleuk says, around 18kWh usable capacity. This is the sort of battery size being squeezed into plug-in hybrids these days.

They were introduced as an (admittedly very expensive) little city run around, so mega range was never the priority.

If you're seeing 180 miles somewhere, I can only imagine you're looking at something newer with a much bigger battery or the REx versions that were supported by an ICE.
 
Yeah, I had no idea. I just looked at the range for the i3, I didn't know it was an older one.
 
If this is the older 60Ah model then the mystery is solved - they only added 3 phase charging for 94Ah and later, so this model is 7kw max at 32A. It will only pull 3.6kw on a 11kw 3 phase as each phase is only 16A. On a 22kw you’ll get the full 7kw.

CCS is completely separate charging circuitry.
 
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Kenai said:
The early i3s have pretty tiny batteries by current expectations - as @bimbleuk says, around 18kWh usable capacity. This is the sort of battery size being squeezed into plug-in hybrids these days.
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Yup my PHEV has a 18.8kwh (14.9 usable) , I'd love to get 60 miles out of that, I only manage 28-34 as the temp has increased, in the cold snap it was ~5 miles less :o this is still fine for the missus daily usage despite our poor EV efficiency due to being a big tank, so these small EVs with little batteries make quite a lot of sense as a city car.

Later Mercs like the smallish C class are being fitted with 25.4kw batteries which will give pretty decent EV range for a PHEV.
 
Feek said:
Yeah, I had no idea. I just looked at the range for the i3, I didn't know it was an older one.
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There were three battery sizes, keep in mind the i3 first came out in 2013 I think!

60Ah, 94Ah and 120Ah. Even the 120Ah is considered small compared to battery capacities on more modern models, so the stats you’re seeing are for literally double the battery.

The party trick of the older models was the range extender model - a motorbike engine powering a generator. This drove a lot of the interest, then your longer journeys were stress free but local running about still EV. You could also plan to use every mile of battery capacity as there was no stress of running out.

(Ex i3 owner! Great car, miss it a lot)
 
Matthew.M said:
A few things to check - cable? Or is it tethered? Some cables are 16A only (3.6kw).

11kw home charger would be very unusual. As others have said - is this 16A 3 phase?

Also what age i3? Some of the earlier ones (pre 2016?) didn’t have 3 phase from memory (but could be wrong on this) this would then be limited to 7kw on a 32A or 16A on a 11kw 3 phase. Which stacks up to what you’ve described.

Try and find a 22kw 3 phase charger to test the car and cable.
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Matthew.M said:
If this is the older 60Ah model then the mystery is solved - they only added 3 phase charging for 94Ah and later, so this model is 7kw max at 32A. It will only pull 3.6kw on a 11kw 3 phase as each phase is only 16A. On a 22kw you’ll get the full 7kw.

CCS is completely separate charging circuitry.
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This is interesting. Do you have any documentation anyway to prove this? I don't doubt what you're saying, but I'd like to dig deeper into this. It would certainly explain what I'm seeing here! It's a 32A 11kw 3 phase charger and the car is mid-2016 so could make sense.


Perhaps the charger at my former place of work was 22kw... will try and find out
 
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A Google provided this:

ev-database.org

BMW i3 60 Ah

All details and specs of the BMW i3 60 Ah (2013-2017). Compare price, lease, real-world range and consumption of every electric vehicle.
ev-database.org ev-database.org

Many more forum discussions in the results also support it. I searched for “BMW i3 64Ah AC charging speed.”

The 11kw 3 phase will be 16A (3*3.6kw).
The 22kw is 32A (3*7.2kw).

Excuse any rounding! If the car or cable can only pull one phase then the 11kw actually only provides 3.6kw. I’m probably explaining this poorly, there are some good sources on Google/EV forums.

The battery is so small on the 64Ah the time benefit likely wasn’t worth the cost/weight penalty. And 3 phase AC is very rare in the U.K. for car chargers, much more common abroad.
 
Matthew.M said:
A Google provided this:

ev-database.org

BMW i3 60 Ah

All details and specs of the BMW i3 60 Ah (2013-2017). Compare price, lease, real-world range and consumption of every electric vehicle.
ev-database.org ev-database.org

Many more forum discussions in the results also support it. I searched for “BMW i3 64Ah AC charging speed.”

The 11kw 3 phase will be 16A (3*3.6kw).
The 22kw is 32A (3*7.2kw).

Excuse any rounding! If the car or cable can only pull one phase then the 11kw actually only provides 3.6kw. I’m probably explaining this poorly, there are some good sources on Google/EV forums.

The battery is so small on the 64Ah the time benefit likely wasn’t worth the cost/weight penalty. And 3 phase AC is very rare in the U.K. for car chargers, much more common abroad.
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awesome, thanks. FWIW I'm not in the UK but this has certainly given me more avenues to investigate!
Didn't realise evdatabse had so much detailed information! never went beyond the first page on the cars :o

-edit. Called up wall box company and have asked them to increase it to 22kw so hopefully should charge at 7.5 now...
 
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UPDATE: Problem solved!

Will be picking up this i3S next week :D

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