Category Archives: i3 94Ah

The Pain of Public Charging

Blog, BMW, Charging, Ecotricity, Electric Cars, i3, i3 94Ah

I haven’t written one of these posts for some time as the public charging infrastructure has improved significantly in scale and reliability over the last three years. However, so far today has been a bit like returning to the bad old days.

We’re driving from Northampton to Stoke for one of our daughter’s regular gymnastics events. It’s fairly relaxed as with the new i3 94Ah we have plenty of range to get there without charging en route.

However as the family needed two comfort breaks on the way I took the opportunities to try charging. The results were disappointing.

At Corley Services on the M6 there was a Leaf at one of the two Ecotricity charge points. Unfortunately it was the only one that had a CCS connector compatible with the i3 so I could see I wasn’t going to get a charge. In fact it looked like he was having problems and was on the phone to Ecotricity. However when I came back out of the building later I could see and hear he was charging.

I was more hopeful at Stafford services when pulling in as both charge points were vacant. However I had 3 failed attempts to charge using the Ecotricity app, with the message ‘Remote Start failed’.

At that point I gave up and we got back on the motorway. At least with the i3 94Ah we could get where we were going without needing to charge.

[Part 2]

BMW i3 94Ah

BMW Notes Strong Demand For Plug-In Models, And 7,000 Pre-Orders For Upgraded i3

Electric Cars, i3, i3 94Ah, News, Reviews and Comment

Recently, BMW announced its second quarter and half year sales results with record number of deliveries and revenues.

BMW i3 94Ah
BMW i3 94Ah

One of the strong points of that report was the high demand of plug-in electric cars, which are rapidly taking over production volumes at the company.

The German manufacturer expanded its lineup to seven electrified models in Q2, which resulted in total first half sales that were 87% higher than year ago.

In total BMW delivered 23,675 all-electric and plug-in hybrid cars in the first 6 months of 2016. BMW added that by the end of July, customers had placed more than 7,000 orders for new version of the BMW i3 with its upgraded 33 kWh battery.

The pre-order demand is three times higher as compared to the launch of the i3 in 2014, and suggests that we should pretty excellent results for BMW plug-ins going forward.

“The BMW Group currently offers seven electrified models including plug-in hybrids, such as the new BMW 740e or the recently launched BMW 330e and BMW 225xe Active Tourer, and the fully electric BMW i3.

Thanks to the expanded range of electrified models, sales of this type of vehicle in the first six months of the year were just under 87% higher than the same period last year: a total of 23,675 have been delivered to customers worldwide. Furthermore, to the end of July 2016, over 7,000 orders had been received for the additional BMW i3 model with significantly extended battery range, which only celebrated its market launch in July. This is more than three times the figure of orders received for the first generation BMW i3 at the equivalent launch period.”

Source: Inside EVs

Rhapsody in Blue, Part 2

Blog, BMW, Electric Cars, i3, i3 94Ah

The rest of our trip yesterday to visit Birmingham University went very well. As I had hoped we made it from Northampton to Birmingham Uni and back on a single charge of the i3.

Not just that, but after the university visit we went shopping in the city centre, at the Bullring shopping centre. Then getting back to Northampton we made a detour to Kingsthorpe.

Overall we managed 128 miles since charging the previous night, and still had 13% left in the battery, worth about another 15-18 miles. Most of the time on the motorway I was using cruise control set to 60, 65 or 70 – so real ‘motorway speeds’. Having said that, the M1 has a large section of road works where the limit is set to 50 so undoubtedly that did help the range.

Nonetheless, achieving a range of about 145 miles on a journey mostly on motorway is a great result and an endorsement of the new 94Ah version of the i3.

[Part 3]

Rhapsody in Blue, at Corley Services 

Blog, BMW, Electric Cars, i3, i3 94Ah

We have just arrived at Corley Services on the M6 near Birmingham on another university open day trip. Our blue i3 arrives just before a Soul EV in a very similar blue finishes its charge and leaves.

This trip is much shorter than the Liverpool one so we have the option of not charging at all. That’s just as well as the Electric Highway app won’t let us charge – some sort of glitch. It’s telling us the charge point is still in use even after the other car has driven away.

[Part 2]

BMW i3 Business Lease from £235 per month

Blog, BMW, Electric Cars, i3, i3 94Ah

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