Today I got to experience the REx in the wild. What I mean by that is I actually needed it. I experienced the REx twice before but those were not when I needed it. One was driving around town and letting the battery drain low enough for the REx to fire up because I wanted to see how it would perform. The other time was a maintenance mode that the i3 runs during long periods of inactivity.
This time was different. This would be about a 100 mile trip with 90% of it being highway and the car would be full of family and stuff. Some might say 100 miles....maybe I could make it on electric alone, well nope. With extra bodies it weighs the car down and the biggest draw is I would have to use the climate control so everyone was comfortable and I don't mean just a little ;) .
Off we go, I put the car in Eco Pro+ but of course right away I was asked to roll the windows up and turn the AC on so back to Eco Pro since in "+" mode there is no climate control. On the highway I kept my speed to 65mph to extend the range as much as I could. Things were looking good...I was driving well enough to do about 90 miles guessometer. I was pretty pleased with myself and began to think of i3 REx EV masterfulness where I might actually reach 100 miles in EV mode. Then one glitch, with about 30 miles left I pulled over to make another stop so the family could pick up some food. I turned the car off for about 10 minutes. Once everyone was back in the car I turned it on and range dropped to 20, I lost 10 miles just like that...I'll explain what happened there in just a moment. With this event I really wished for that State of Charge (SOC) readout that for some reason BMW decided to remove from the US version. Our ActiveEs had it and it was much easier to determine actual range. This guessometer in the i3 is truly guessing. BMW bring back the SOC, this is the ultimate driving machine not the ultimate guessing machine.
Ok...so those lost miles...as mentioned a few sentences earlier I parked, turned the car off for 10 mins then back on and noticed the guessometer showed 10 miles less. I was not running the AC, doors were closed and it was not hot, so what gives. Well it seems the navigation is tied to the guessometer. During that 10 mins of parking I programmed in my final destination, the nav calculated hills and speed along the highway and adjusted. Confirming this...umm feature....this morning I was on my way to Tom's i3 gathering and my range showed 92 miles...I punched in Tom's address, chose start navigation and right before my eyes the range dropped to 77. Ok, now I stop navigation and we are back to 92 range. Not really liking this, though I get what BMW is doing, with that said please let us disable this. I looked and could not find a way to turn that off..bummer. So here is a thought, if the nav says a shorter range but I turn it off and I have more range...will the REx stay off longer or will the guessometer adjust near the end....to be determined.
Nice of Serenity to warn me but I have a REx |
I did take a look to see what would pop up and there we have Tom's |
Again the REx was not loud, when revved up you could feel it though not bad and keep in mind an EV has no vibration so everything feels enhanced, it was odd to hear a little put put going on from an EV. Of course that sound is much better than the sound of my family complaining we are stranded.
Once off the highway the REx relaxed a bit and at stop signs or red lights turned off. We did about 16 miles with the REx and my overall miles/kWh for the trip was 4.6. Not bad for highway and AC running.
The red flag on the upper left means we won't make it on electricity alone |
I took a whole half gallon and paid with cash |
This is why I got the REx. Sorry I missed you at Tom's.
ReplyDeleteNo worries, we will see you soon!! The REx is an awesome choice
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