Check out ABRP. It's a great tool that tends to be super accurate at working out how far you will get with your car at what speed, where is best to charge, how long to charge for etc.

Put your exact route in, tell it what car, and for extra accuracy feel free to go into the detailed settings and add information like weather data too.

ABRP

A Better Routeplanner is the world's most popular consumer EV routeplanner - both for beginner and experienced EV drivers. And of course for anyone curious about EVs.

abetterrouteplanner.com

 

Thanks, helpful.
Says i may need between 4 and 5 stops!! Eeek

 

Hi there all

in a few weeks, i am picking up a 2018 94aH BEV i3. It will be used mainly for local short journeys and school run so range is fine. The question revolves around how best to get it home.

The BMW dealer has offered to deliver it to us, a journey of 200 miles, but oddly, they don’t use a transport company and get someone to drive it over. That’s fine albeit not ideal as i’d rather inspect the car at deal er rather than dirty after a drive. Plus, as it needs new tyres all round and is having front pads/discs to meet BMW AUC standards, i’d rather check it all over in person

Coincidentally, we are going to be coming back from half term hols and only need to make a 25 mile detour to the dealer in a few weeks which coincides with when the car will be ready. So i thought i’d collect it myself on our way home and avoid any issues with someone else driving it to us.

questiion is realistic range on motorway speeds.I have downloaded zap map etc and done some research but thre seems to be a lot of conflicting info out there on range.

What should i expect? It will start with full charge but i am guessing i should allow max 100 mile range at 70mph, so a useable 60-70 miles between charges? Or is that too pessimistic? It would mean 2 stops en route.

Also, if i slowed to 55mph or 60 (not ideal on a motorway anyway), what would impact be? If it means only 1 stop it may be worth it, but if i am going to have to do 2 stops anyway, may as well drive go at 70.

Thanks

Congratulations on the purchase, great little cars.

Coincidentally we did the longest trip thus far in our 94Ah yesterday - 143 miles with 4% left, so could have nearly got to 150.

Mainly A roads and motorway with some town to start, I was taking it easy as didn’t want to stop to charge (after seeing how busy the chargers were on the outward leg) - 60/ 65mph on the motorway and A roads, mix of EcoPro and EcoPro+ to save a little juice!

It was 19 degrees so ideal conditions, probably colder in a few weeks but you should be able to one stop it easily - just find a suitable Instavolt/ Osprey or perhaps a Gridserve charger en-route. (got ZapMap?)

 

Just double check they've charged the car before you collect. If it's a BMW main dealer they are notorious for what I would consider a basic requirement.

Anyway, congratulations on the purchase. Enjoy.

 

Yep, good point. They said they would but will check.

 

Honestly I think if you do that journey, as soon as you get home, you’ll be arranging for the dealer to collect it and refund it.

Get someone else to do the crap unsuitable motorway journey, use it for its intended purpose when it turns up, and you’ll be much happier.

Edit: also you can still inspect it when it’s delivered. If it doesn’t look good, tell the guy to turn round and take it straight back. I also think delivery may strengthen your return options under distance selling rules, but I’m not a scumbag… sorry, lawyer.

 

Keep it around 60 - 65 mph as steady as possible anticipate and use regen when you have to slow. Put the car in Eco Pro otherwise you will very quickly get addicted to the rapid but battery draining acceleration. Then you should only need to charge the car up once to get home after about 100 miles.

Charging on a rapid an i3 does not slow down the charging rate until the battery is over 90% full.

Some comments on this thread seem to come from folk who have never driven or owned an i3. My 94Ah i3 turns in about 150 miles in summer and about 120 miles in the depths of winter. Reset the trip and put the display on % capacity. That will give you all the information you need and then aim for 15 miles every 10% if you want to drive it to get the most miles out of the charge.

 

Keep it around 60 - 65 mph as steady as possible anticipate and use regen when you have to slow. Put the car in Eco Pro otherwise you will very quickly get addicted to the rapid but battery draining acceleration. Then you should only need to charge the car up once to get home after about 100 miles.

Charging on a rapid an i3 does not slow down the charging rate until the battery is over 90% full.

Some comments on this thread seem to come from folk who have never driven or owned an i3. My 94Ah i3 turns in about 150 miles in summer and about 120 miles in the depths of winter. Reset the trip and put the display on % capacity. That will give you all the information you need and then aim for 15 miles every 10% if you want to drive it to get the most miles out of the charge.

thanks, useful info, especially that i can charge up to 90%.
I am relaxed about 2 stops on way home especially as they don’t need to be long stops. But 4 or 5 will do my head in i suspect!!

 

Take it easy and 100miles should be doable. That’s a one stop journey if you don’t mind charging to 90%.

Does it have a heat pump? Remember cold weather can reduce range significantly and it might be a bit chilly in a few more weeks. I’d personally make it a two stop journey if it’s cold.

 

My understanding is that this car has a 27kwh USABLE battery. Seeing as no EV achieves better than 4mls/kwh at 70mph thats a range of 108mls at 70mph. Now thats on a warm day with no heater and no head wind.

I have run my car down to a few miles range and i would not want to encourage a new comer to do that.

Two choices seem to be a 2 stop or max speed 60mph (only if no head wind). This will keep range anxiety under control.

People do not seem to take enough notice of wind direction but it sure does make a difference with my most anxious times being when driving into a strong head wind.

 

We did a 220mi trip a handful of times with our 120Ah i3. One stop was more than possible, but with the 94Ah, particularly if you're getting used to the car may be safer to plan for two. There's no way you'd need 4/5 unless you're driving like a maniac.

The i3, thanks to its small battery and consistent charge curve fills up quicker than you'd think and was usually ready to go before we were on a charging stop. If you're comfortable keeping your speed to ~65mph then you'll get significantly more as well, particularly if you've got a headwind as suggested by others.

They're a lovely car - hope it goes well for you!

 

Without knowing rough start and end points its hard to say.
But I picked up my first leaf from Newcastle and drove it back to manchester without issue, 30wkh.
And the second leaf from Bristol to Manchester again. Charging is much easier than it used to be as i had to use the EH app when units were not on freevend.

Yes i know they are not i3's but the network is better

 

OP…..if you drive sensibly at around 60 mph on the M-way you should make it with two stops safely/easily…..maybe one stop on the edge of your seat.

 

We bought our i3s (non Rex) in North London and considered driving it 500miles home to Scotland. With hindsight, this would have been an epic first off adventure for us! Never having driven an EV ( other than test drives), planning and charging would have been somewhat stressful I am certain. We opted for flatbed truck delivery.

We've had a few 100 mile round trips with no changing. 20 miles to spare.

We have also learnt (not on the longer journeys but in general) is that Rapid isn’t so rapid. best to budget 30mins for a Rapid charge to regain range.

 

Temperature will be key. I do a 60 mile each way commute in my 94ah (with heat pump). On the way in on Monday with a 7 degree ambient and a bit of heat on I used about 55% of the charge, on the way back at 16 degrees I used 44%. I tend to run in Eco Pro+ if I don’t need any heating or cooling, but switch on the cruise control to override the 56mph limiter so I can do 60-65 on the motorways and dual carriageways so I’m not getting in the way of the trucks.

 

Thanks all for the feedback.Will suck it and see, am not going to aim for one stop but seems easily do-able with two. In no rush either.

If we we weren't nearby on our way home from hols, i would have them deliver but given it's not a big detour, i'd rather collect and inspect etc

 

A prudent call for a first major trip. Far better to discover you could have done it with one stop than to find out you cannot do it without two stops. Have a lovely trip getting to know and enjoying the car.

 

Last Friday in my 94Ah Rex I did a round trip of 129 miles and got home with 18% left. I was doing about 55mph on the motorway. Yes I know I could have just used the Rex but I wanted to see what I could get out of the battery.

 

Spot on. I would echo the experience of about 55 mph being about the optimum for range in good weather with steady running with an i3 yielding a total discharge range of about 157 miles for a 94Ah. At these speeds and in good weather the battery tends to sit at optimum temperature without active cooling or heating draining energy. Air flow under the car seems to balance the heating from the battery discharge rate.

 

Real world says that your journey will be over quicker by driving faster and charging longer. At "normal" motorway speed they just aren't that efficient, the aerodynamics are a bit sucky and even if you can rightly claim you should get a solid 100 miles you're going to be panicking looking for a charger if you try it so aim for 80 miles per leg and don't have a heart attack.

 

I aim to get 110 miles out of our 94Ah at a speed of around 60mph. So I would plan for 2 stops, and then you don't need to worry about your speed (or the weather). I would always charge to at least 98% ('a bird in the hand...') - note, you can't set an upper limit so you just unplug once you're too bored to stay longer.

 

Cheers all, on holiday from Sat and we collect on Sat 23rd on way home.

Trying to sort a charger install, lead times are long but sort of inevitable right now, so will end up using the granny charger for a month or so

 

55 mph !! This reminds me of a couple of long motorway journeys in Morris Minor 1000. Swindon to Liverpool and back without a single move out of lane 1. There was a real danger of falling asleep.

 

So, if anyone is interested, did the journey today to collect from Swansea and home to Surrey. Slint annoyance that i could not get dropped off at Bristol parkway to get the train to Swansea (we were en route back home from Cornwall) as there were planned track closure in the Severn tunnel, so meant a slight detour into Wales to get dropped off at Newport.

Anyway, we set off with 100% charge. The initial indications were that the range we might see would be 140 miles, which was ideal as i had hoped to get to the Ionity chargers in Chippenham, exactly 100m from the start. We stuck to speed limits, so some parts of the M4 in Wales are 50 limited, but otherwise sat at 70. We just made it to Chippenham, arrived with 6 miles of range left! Had to wait around 5 mins for a free charger.

To be honest, there was no dramatic fall off in range etc, it was consistently showing the range. It varied between leaving us around 12 miles, but dropped to 6 as it happened. So nothing major, maybe a slight drop off when under 20% but that bit of the M4 is quite hilly anyway. I think we charged for around 35 minutes (maybe 40) and we were back up to 95%. And the Ionity charger didnt ask for payment!!!!!

We didn’t quite have enough for home (which was another 108 miles) so a quick stop at Reading services. We were only there max 20 mins (needed a loo break anyway) and that added just enough to get home, and still had 25% left.

Car behaved well…absolutely fine on a motorway, although obviously that’s not really it’s home environment!

 

Our first long trip was in appalling weather we made it to blackpool and back to the beginning of the M55 before the rex started pulled in to a podpoint rapid charged to 89% whilst having breakfast job done, back at Chesterfield with plenty of range left. I have to say motorways nowadays seem to be 56 mph affairs due to congestion so no issues really, and for the chap who thinks lorries do 56 mph by law it it 60mph same as coaches except in Scotland different rules apply