[t41l589]

Thought I would share some feedback on my most recent long trip in the iX3.

We did a return trip from Elgin down to Edinburgh yesterday (approx. 170 miles each way). The route consisted of some windy A roads, Dual Carriageway A roads and approx. 40 miles of motorway driving.

Left early in the morning and it was -1C so a little chilly. The car was preheated for departure and showed a predicted range of 184 miles from a full charge. The first 90 miles were generally uphill and consumption was showing 2.3mi/kWh but as we came over the top of the A9, it was downhill most of the way to Perth where we stopped at the Ionity 350Kw Chargers in Perth. Car was showing average consumption of 2.4mi/kWh on arrival and 30% battery remaining over the 130 mile journey.

We plugged into the 350Kw Iontity chargers using the BMW charging card and the process was flawless. Initially started charging at 24Kw but then started ramping up slightly. We decided to grab a Starbucks nearby for half an hour or so. 35 minutes later and we were off again with a charge of 78%. So this translated in to 36kWh of charge received in that time which equates to an average charge rate of ~60Kw - far less than the maximum 150Kw rate promised when between 10-80% In any case, we had enough to reach our destination and get back to Ionity again later that day so that's all that mattered.

We headed down to Edinburgh (approx. 44 miles from Perth) with two additional passengers to arrive at Ingliston Park & Ride. We were greeted by the sight of over 14 BP Pulse 22Kw chargers so I thought this was great. Only to park and realise that all of them were offline and the remaining 2 ChargePlaceScotland chargers couldn't start a charge... (despite a port on each of them being available).

Spent the day in Edinburgh, and then returned back up the road to Ionity again. Tried a different charger this time and grabbed another hot drink for the journey ahead. Started charge at 29% and 44 mins later it was at 84%. That equated to 42Kwh of charge received and an average charge rate of just under 60Kw - so once again, much slower than I had hoped given the battery percentage at the time of arrival. The predicted range was 155 miles with 131 miles left to drive.

Temperatures driving home were much colder with it reaching -5 at some points but I kept at a steady 60mph most of the way. Arriving back home the average consumption was 2.8mi/kWh and the remaining range of 64 miles.

In summary then:
- The car was so nice to drive - relaxing, quiet and effortless with assisted driving turned on for the motorway sections.
- Using B mode on the windy A-roads was so intuitive and so much better than using D with adaptive regen and switching between accelerator and brake constantly.
- The range predicted by the car is massively pessimistic and should be taken with a very large pinch of salt. I was certainly nervous when leaving in the morning and seeing the range but as the journey went on, I learned not to pay too much attention to it and instead, using the average consumption as a better prediction for the actual battery range.
- Given the conditions and average temperatures, I thought that 2.4 and 2.8mi/kWh wasn't too bad considering we have a fully-loaded car for 40% of the journey and as low as -5C at times.
- The process of charging at the Ionity Stations was excellent - tap the BMW charging card against the reader, plug the car in and that's it. However, whilst the process itself was very straightforward, the charging speeds I received were a little disappointing. Especially given the claims made by BMW that charging from 10% to 80% takes 32minutes. The charge curve shouldn't ramp down to below 60Kw until around 75% so I was expecting an average charge rate of a lot more than 60Kw over the duration of both charges. It's worth noting that the Ionity chargers were added as a destination in the Sat Nav on both occasions so any pre-conditioning (unclear whether the iX3 has this or not yet) should have taken place.

Overall, I'm really pleased with the car and it was absolutely worth the wait. Those of you still waiting for yours, hang in there because it's worth it.

[The Seeker]

I've had mine a week, and had my first longer journey yesterday - a 180-mile round trip in 0'C conditions mostly in B-mode on on A-Roads (across southern England).
We started the outbound leg with 100% charge and about 180 miles predicted, but still had just over 100 miles predicted when we arrived.
After pre-heating (without additional charging) that had dropped to below what we need to get home, but with typical belligerence, I headed off anyway. When the snow started in earnest, and I had to slow to ~30-40mph for long stretches, I did start to worry a little about the range, so switched off the aircon!
By the time I got back, I still had 29 miles remaining - not sure if that was the down to switching off the aircon, the slower speeds, or just the guess-o-meter finding more range available...?

Agree with your comments - the car was a joy to drive on the outward journey, although conditions were against any form of enjoyment on the way back, and whilst the weight of the car seemed to keep it planted, I did wish for All Season tyres, given the conditions.

Long old granny charge today though, as the Hypervolt is not being installed until Wednesday! LOL

[iX3 rijder]

Originally Posted by The Seeker

I've had mine a week, and had my first longer journey yesterday - a 180-mile round trip in 0'C conditions mostly in B-mode on on A-Roads (across southern England).
We started the outbound leg with 100% charge and about 180 miles predicted, but still had just over 100 miles predicted when we arrived.
After pre-heating (without additional charging) that had dropped to below what we need to get home, but with typical belligerence, I headed off anyway. When the snow started in earnest, and I had to slow to ~30-40mph for long stretches, I did start to worry a little about the range, so switched off the aircon!
By the time I got back, I still had 29 miles remaining - not sure if that was the down to switching off the aircon, the slower speeds, or just the guess-o-meter finding more range available...?

Agree with your comments - the car was a joy to drive on the outward journey, although conditions were against any form of enjoyment on the way back, and whilst the weight of the car seemed to keep it planted, I did wish for All Season tyres, given the conditions.

Long old granny charge today though, as the Hypervolt is not being installed until Wednesday! LOL

My experiences so far:
* The guess-o-meter is not called like that for nothing. I did do short trips where at arrival I had a larger range versus the start. Hence take it with a pinch of salt.
* the air-con apparently draws less power then the heating. So when stretched for SoC reduce the heating brings better result then turning off the air-con. (In my view at least)
* reducing speed is your best bet to “survive the last miles”. Coincidentally I had the “turtle” in my dashboard yesterday evening (comes on at 10 km range remaining) and reduced from 110 km/hr to 80 km/hr and drove 15 km to reach home. Reduce speed in curves, for roundabouts and traffic lights well ahead to regain some range which will help as well
* the guess-o-meter is conservative. But not much, I haven’t had the guts to see what is the ultimate range but maybe someone else has?

[The shadow]

Long old granny charge today though, as the Hypervolt is not being installed until Wednesday! LOL[/QUOTE]

I’ve got a space grey hypervolt booked for install in January ahead of my new ix3, I did quite a lot of research before I went for it 👍

[GDEvans]

Originally Posted by The shadow

I did quite a lot of research before I went for it 👍

What is special about the Hypervolt?

I went for the Wallbox Pulsar Plus. It is nice and small, and is compatible with the upcoming Intelligent Octopus tariff.

[the_ape]

Charge speeds is most dependant on battery temp, in v cold weather it can be tough to get rapid charge, also depends how much capacity the chargers have, some of the Ionity chargers (and most others) have to share their load across all the chargers, they can't run them all at full ball all the time, and rely on people's charge curves to lower the speed to allow for headroom on low SOC cars etc. Our trip to Norwich on Ionity averaged well though, 100+ first time, and 70's second, and 90+ kW on the rugby stalls (elec highway) until some plonker in a Porsche plugged into the charger next to me (with about 8 others free) and cut my charge, when I spoke to him and mentioned if he wanted to charge faster to not share a charger he was clueless.

But hey I was almost finished anyhow, and just unplugged and went on my way.

All of those though where 8-12 c temps, so not cold. Not sure how it will be when trip to London forces me to do it on a cold morning or evening 😂

[GJHowell]

Slightly off topic, but regarding a comment above between D mode and B mode. I mainly drive on D (Eco Pro setting) - is using B mode better for efficiency?

Also, can the display be configured to shown miles per kWh? Mine only shows the kWh per 100km (dynamic and average)?

Still new to all this so please excuse the remedial nature of the questions!

[t41l589]

Originally Posted by GJHowell

Slightly off topic, but regarding a comment above between D mode and B mode. I mainly drive on D (Eco Pro setting) - is using B mode better for efficiency?

Also, can the display be configured to shown miles per kWh? Mine only shows the kWh per 100km (dynamic and average)?

Still new to all this so please excuse the remedial nature of the questions!

Whether to use B or D mode is based on the road conditions. For roads where accelerating and braking frequently is required (windy country roads or in the city), B mode makes more sense as it saves you switching from brake to accelerator as you would in a normal car. B mode allows you to accelerate and brake using one pedal and so makes it easier to drive but not necessarily more efficiently.

Ultimately, the most efficient way to drive it to coast for as long as possible before having to either use regen or the brakes as this will maximise your range. You can do this is both D and B modes.

Consumption can be changed by going into the Cars Settings > Units > Consumption and changing the unit to miles/kWh.

[GDEvans]

Originally Posted by t41l589

Whether to use B or D mode is based on the road conditions.

Now that I’m used to B mode, I struggle to find a reason to drive in D mode!! I wish I could have it in B mode by default, rather that having to slide it into that position.

[GJHowell]

Originally Posted by t41l589

Whether to use B or D mode is based on the road conditions. For roads where accelerating and braking frequently is required (windy country roads or in the city), B mode makes more sense as it saves you switching from brake to accelerator as you would in a normal car. B mode allows you to accelerate and brake using one pedal and so makes it easier to drive but not necessarily more efficiently.

Ultimately, the most efficient way to drive it to coast for as long as possible before having to either use regen or the brakes as this will maximise your range. You can do this is both D and B modes.

Consumption can be changed by going into the Cars Settings > Units > Consumption and changing the unit to miles/kWh.

This is great info. Thanks very much.

[Hud78]

Originally Posted by GJHowell

Also, can the display be configured to shown miles per kWh? Mine only shows the kWh per 100km (dynamic and average)?

Still new to all this so please excuse the remedial nature of the questions!

Yup, it's buried in something like car, settings, general....

[E Hahn]

Was great to read your post. Thanks for the detailed info. I thought it was only us here in Austria struggling to get higher charging speeds on HPC chargers. Seems as everyone has stated that temperature and charging stations loads play a big role.

One question still remains unclear to me and would appreciate if anyone can shed some light on this. When you pre condition the car for an early morning start (our iX3 is not plugged in at night as we don have access to a power supply where we park), does the system heat the battery pack as well to pre condition it too?

Many thanks

[t41l589]

Originally Posted by E Hahn

Was great to read your post. Thanks for the detailed info. I thought it was only us here in Austria struggling to get higher charging speeds on HPC chargers. Seems as everyone has stated that temperature and charging stations loads play a big role.

One question still remains unclear to me and would appreciate if anyone can shed some light on this. When you pre condition the car for an early morning start (our iX3 is not plugged in at night as we don have access to a power supply where we park), does the system heat the battery pack as well to pre condition it too?

Many thanks

At the moment, only the cabin is Pre-Conditioned (heated/cooled) however there is talk of BMW pushing out an OTA update that will introduce battery temperature management for charging/pre-journey.

[E Hahn]

Thanks for clarifying. Appreciated

[DES_MX]

You need to yo-yo the car when close to HPC (say start doing it 10-20 miles out), only way to preheat the battery since this version doesn’t preheat the battery for HPC charging unfortunately.
What it essentially means you need to drive like a complete idiot for a few miles hard accelerating then going full regen, accelerating and regen, keep repeating. Then you arrive with heated up battery pack and can go into 150kwh+ charge session no problem, provided you arrive around 10% state of charge or below

[GDEvans]

Originally Posted by DES_MX

You need to yo-yo the car when close to HPC (say start doing it 10-20 miles out), only way to preheat the battery since this version doesn’t preheat the battery for HPC charging unfortunately.
What it essentially means you need to drive like a complete idiot for a few miles hard accelerating then going full regen, accelerating and regen, keep repeating. Then you arrive with heated up battery pack and can go into 150kwh+ charge session no problem, provided you arrive around 10% state of charge or below

Basically, you need to drive it in the manner that other drivers expect BMW drivers to behave?

[Bobbo36_52]

Just to add that as someone who came from a Model 3 I love the ability to easily go from B Mode to my choice of Adaptive via the lever (as do passengers as full regen all the time can make people queasy).

B Mode for urban and twisties - Adaptive for motorways or fast A roads is how I drive as the ability to coast is a revelation for smoother driving.

I hadn't realised how important pre conditioning was to charging performance - the Tesla would sometimes start hours out from a Supercharger when it was really cold so it may take a few of those 'drag races' to achieve that! I hope this is something they can do with an OTA but if it is only pre-conditioning the cabin when plugged in at home this seems unlikely...