After my recent attempts at testing the range of the BMW i3 94Ah achieved 130 miles and 150 miles per charge I decided to go all-out for a final ‘ultimate’ test and see if I could reach 200 miles on a charge, something of a milestone for any electric car.
The method was the same as ever; commute to work for 4 days in a row driving 40 miles each day for work plus an additional mileage up to 10 miles each evening for family trips. This time I used Eco Pro+ Mode which limits the acceleration, the climate control system and the top speed. Moreover I made a lot of use of the cruise control set to 37mph for the faster stretches of the route, but 27mph wherever I could (e.g. passing through villages). Towards the end of the test I used the 27mph limit most of the time.
Only a quarter of the charge left but less than 150 miles done (Image: T. Larkum)
After two days, halfway through, the car was teasing the possibility of 200 miles on the charge, with 100.3 miles achieved and only 49% battery used. After the third day, however, it wasn’t looking quite so good with 147.2 miles achieved on 74.5% battery used. I believe this was largely my fault as during the day I had ‘shown off’ the i3 to a colleague, including demonstrating its acceleration, and that had cost me precious range.
And so it was that I failed. At the end of the fourth day, using up the last remaining bit of charge driving around a loop near my house, the range display changed from blue to orange and instead of showing a projected range it read ‘low mi’. I finally gave up and let the car drive down the local hill to home once the battery charge read 0%.
Our BMW i3 94Ah manages 196.3 miles on a charge (Image: T. Larkum)
After 4 days driving on a single charge the i3 had achieved 196.3 miles of range, with a displayed efficiency of 4.9mi/kWh. I had failed to achieve the intended 200 miles. So near and yet so far…!
Given how long the test had taken, and how slowly I had had to drive to achieve the mileage, I currently have no plans to repeat it (at least not this year, perhaps next summer).
The eDRIVE eco results showing 10+ mi/kWh consumption and 20+ mi/kWh regeneration (Image: T. Larkum)
So I lay down the challenge – who is going to be the first i3 94Ah BEV driver to achieve 200 miles on a single charge?