2020 BMW i3 s

"PHEV - they are great...But The BMW i3 with the generator is one of the best EVs ever designed. All benefits of EV no range anxiety. It's A full EV with a supplemental generator. Every(almost) other PHEV is like a Prius. It's a Regular car with an EV motor attached to the drive train to assist the gas engine. This design sucks because of increased complexity and points of failure. In the i3 the 700cc 2 cyclinder moped motor used to charge the batteries could fail and the car would still work fine. A Toyota Prius is pretty bulletproof but if it has an engine issue you're stuck. Or you could end up like my brother we who bought a used Escape hybrid and had to scrap it because the tranny was uncommon unreliable and too expensive to fix. Most of these PHEVs have a silly amount of EV range 20-40 miles. This will almost guarantee you'll need to use the gas engine often. In the i3 we barely use the Generator. It's like 1x A month maybe. My wife has never been to a gas station since 2017. If they added more battery these PHEVS would rarely use gas and the owners would be very happy. I suspect many cars are designed this way because traditional manufacturers are already equipped to make normal ICE vehicles with tranny and adding a bit of battery is very easy. You would not never design a car company from a scratch to make a Prius PHEV you'd make a i3 style unless batteries were ridiculously expensive which they used to be. Fortunately the new Ram Charger will be designed this way. Many non beleivers will realize the amazing real world use cases this truck has and it will blow away Ford, GM and the silly Cybertruck which I actually would love to buy if it was 5x cheaper. I think a bunch of new Chinese PHEV are designed like their also. It would be great if they make it to the states but who knows."

"JoinedNov 1, 2014Messages4,337LocationHonolulu, HI I bought a 2014 U.S. i3 BEV new. After about 7 years and less than 13k miles, its 60 Ah battery pack had lost about 25% of its new nominal usable capacity. I replaced the 2014 with a used 2019 BEV (I'm the third owner). After almost 4 years and ~32k miles, its 120 Ah battery pack shows no signs of capacity loss. I think that the 94 Ah and 120 Ah battery packs are much better with respect to degradation than the 60 Ah battery pack. I wouldn't worry about charging at less than 100%. BMW equipped the i3 with a very robust BMS (Battery Management System). Although your gauge may say 100%, the BMS controls the actual charge of the battery. I'm an 80% kinda guy. BMWs BMS is a decade old compared to what's available on EVs being introduced today, and all of these newest cars – including the new BMW EVs – come with user-selectable charge management. The new BMWs even allow charge current selection (not just "reduced rate" like on the i3) I believe that BMW was attempting to make the i3 ownership experience trouble-free when they decided to leave this out, and adding it in later would be an admission of their oversight, and potentially open them to liability – not to mention paying to update software on a lot of cars. I hope my 120 Ah battery had better chemistry and lasts longer than the original 60 Ah models."

"BMW i3 REX 2016 – Intermittent Power Loss Under Load + EME Faults (Active Short / Phase Current) Hi, I have an issue with a 2016 BMW i3 REX and wanted to ask if you’ve seen something like this before. The car drives normally under light load, but under heavier acceleration (for example highway driving), it suddenly cuts power. At first there is no warning message, it just stops pulling. After several occurrences, a “drivetrain malfunction” message appears. After cycling the ignition, the car drives normally again, but the problem comes back under load. The fault codes I’m getting include: 22260C – EME internal fault 222626 – active short 222321 / 222322 / 222323 – phase current too high (U/V/W) 22281C – HV system not starting despite request The HV battery has been replaced with higher capacity modules (same voltage range), and the EME has been programmed/updated. The issue is not constant, it only happens under load. It looks like the EME is detecting an overcurrent or short condition and shutting down the system, even though there doesn’t seem to be a real short. Have you come across a similar case? Does this point more towards an internal EME issue (current sensing / inverter), or something in the wiring between the battery and motor?"

"Disappointed in the EV marketplace and that Tesla still has the best overall product, particularly in 5 key areas. I’ve owned two full BEV EVs and currently own a plug-in hybrid. I always knew I’d eventually get back to driving a long range BEV EV sometime soon after parting ways with my Tesla Model S 75D about 3 years ago. I’ve been following the EV market ever since and when I knew the time had come to go back to a long range EV, I was *tremendously* excited. A lot has changed in the six years since I was in the market for an EV. At that time the Model 3 wasn’t even out yet and an inventory Model S 75D was the best option for me. I’ve seen so many great looking EVs in my price range come to market since then and I was excited to dive into learning about all of them and going on lots of test drives. This time I was certainly looking for something cheaper than Model S. So that limits things down to a half-dozen great cars to look into: * Tesla Model Y/3 * Hyundai Ioniq 5 * Kia EV6 * Mustang Mach E * Volkswagen ID4 * Polestar 2 ​ After reading people's comparisons of Teslas to everything else, I realize they’re still the leader in 5 key areas. Not paying super close attention to the market and the community for a number of years, I’ve come to learn that *some of these 5 areas are just not at all important to a lot folks*, which is shocking to me. They are: * Vehicle Fast-Charging Capability and Long Distance Infrastructure * Driving Assist (autopilot) * Infotainment (hardware, but especially software) * Smartphone App and Connectivity Integration * Buying Experience ​ **Vehicle Fast-Charging Capability and Long Distance Infrastructure** I love going on road trips. I take half-a-dozen or more every year. This is anything from a 2 hour drive to the mountains, to camping trips across state lines. Nobody can deny that the supercharger network enables super reliable, convenient, and fast recharging on trips often with very little pre-planning required. My first EV was a BMW i3, which I loved, but fast charging it was a terrible experience in Southern California. This is a place that had a lot of that infrastructure at that time with EVGo, and it was still often super unreliable or crowded. Most locations only had 1-2 plugs, which were often taken. Rarely did I visit a location that had more than 2 plugs. I was almost stranded a few times due to charging issues or account verifications issues and had many long waits for other people to finish using the few plugs that were there. Come to research new EVs now, it sounds like that’s still often the case with Electrify America, EVGo, etc. I get mild PTSD thinking about doing all my road trips and having those issues again. This puts all other non-Tesla EVs at a *huge* disadvantage for me; someone who does a lot of road trips. After upgrading to the supercharger network with my Model S after the BMW i3, this was the way to do it! All those problems were largely solved. Charging speed"

"Should I buy a 2014 BMW i3 or will I regret it? I’m looking at a 2014 BMW i3 for around $10k CAD from a small dealership. It has about 160,000 km, no accidents, and they said the battery is at 95% health and confirmed it. It needs new tires but they’ll include them. I’m going to be at UBC or SFU next year and would mostly use it for city driving and going home to North Van on weekends. On paper it seems like it works, but I’m not sure if I actually like it and I’m kinda worried about the range. It says \~80 miles but I know real-world (especially in winter) can be way less — I’ve seen people say it can drop to like 50–60 miles or even lower depending on conditions . Just wondering if anyone has owned one — is it a good daily or does the range/charging get annoying over time?"

"As many of the ISTA/P updates contain what BMW must ascertain as important improvements to their total vehicle systems’ code, it’s tough for me to believe that BMW Dealerships would be scared or worried about providing them for fear of an operating system failure. Seems that we as consumers owning current model line vehicles would want (and have a right to) the most current and improved operating system for our vehicles, and I don’t consider it a frivolous request. Understandably, as technology improves one would not expect BMW to keep updating older model lines, just as many digital product companies have a defined span during which updates to firmware and software are provided. I’d be on the phone with BMW NA if I wanted to pay for an approved/sanctioned BMW ISTA update and it was refused by a Dealership. Why produce an important update if it’s so dangerous that Svc Ctrs are hesitant to do the install? I can foresee some issues in the future with OTA ISTA updates being problematic, but hopefully one can obtain a download of them OTA then have the option of manually installing when one can attach a trickle charger if that’s an important aspect. Aren’t similar system updates by Tesla already being done OTA and without Dealer assistance?"