Real World Range Test: BMW i3 vs BMW ActiveE

Now that BMW has begun to deliver some BEV i3s to the ActiveE Electronauts, some of those in the ActiveE trial lease program who haven't yet gotten their i3 have been asking how the i3 compares to the ActiveE. Questions on ride quality, acceleration, handling and charge rate have been asked, but the biggest concern is: How does the range compare? After all, with electric vehicles, range is paramount.

So I got together with Michael and Pamela Thwaite who just last week picked up their Ionic Silver i3 and we mapped out an 80 mile loop that would include roughly 50% highway and 50% secondary and tertiary roads. While everybody has different driving needs and patterns, it was our hope that this course would provide an evenly balanced mix of different driving conditions. That being said, this wasn't a carefully controlled scientific experiment. We didn't weigh ourselves to make sure both vehicles were carrying the same weight, we didn't calibrate our speedometers or record the barometric pressure so please don't bother commenting on why this was a flawed experiment because it wasn't perfectly controlled. We did make sure we had proper tire pressure, we took turns following and leading each other and we tried our best to maintain the same constant speeds. We drove in the default (Comfort Mode) driving mode and didn't use Eco Pro driving mode at all. We met on Saturday morning at my restaurant which has two ChargePoint EVSEs in the parking lot and after about two hours of charging we set out with Pamela driving their i3 and my wife, Meredith, driving my ActiveE. Michael and I were the co-pilots so we could live blog the event, post pictures on social media sites and make sure we stayed on course.

Both cars charging up for the challenge at my restaurant in Montclair, NJ.

With both cars fully charged, the ActiveE showed an estimated 86 miles of range, while the i3 predicted 98. Which will be more accurate?

It was a warm, cloudy day with temperatures in the 80's. We knew we would need the air conditioning so we agreed to both use it only when we were driving over 45mph and under that we would just open the windows. The first stop, about 20 miles in, was the headquarters of BMW of North America. We figured it was an appropriate destination and since it was a Saturday they wouldn't mind us parking in front of the main entrance for a photo op. We were pleased to find a life sized i3 decal applied to the glass of the front doors. BMW is evidently proud of their first all electric vehicle. At this point we had both used 19% of the available battery. I was surprised the i3 was holding its own, especially since that leg was about 75% highway. We did drive the speed limit on the Garden State Parkway though, and stuck to about 60mph. I'm sure if we drove faster the i3 would have used more battery than the ActiveE. Still, I really expected the ActiveE to jump out to an early lead since we were driving at highway speeds for most of the first leg.

At BMW HQ in Woodcliff Lake NJ - Note the i3 overlay on the doors

The next leg of the journey would be about 40 miles, with the first 30 miles or so on all secondary and tertiary roads and we would end up in Denville, NJ. Michael and I were trading texts during the way and for at least the first 20 to 25 miles of this leg (a total of 40 to 45 miles driven) we were still nearly dead even in battery state of charge with the ActiveE having a 1% advantage with battery state of charge.  On route to the Route 80 leg (which would be our highest speeds of the day and all uphill) we were driving on Route 23 at 50 to 55mph and the ActiveE started to gain an advantage of a few more percent.

Driving the back roads of Bergen county was a pleasure on a nice sunny Spring day

We took turns following and leading each other for the entire route.


Then came the blow that the i3 couldn't recover from. Driving on Route 80 upgrade at the 65 miles an hour speed limit for about 10 miles finally gave us the separation we expected. We were 60 miles in (59.8 exactly) and the ActiveE now had a 6% state of charge lead (46% to 40%) and a predicted range of 9 more miles (40 miles to 31 miles). This clearly reinforces what many of us imagined. The i3 is a warrior on low speed driving, but at faster highway speeds it's a bit out of its element and the range will be substantially compromised.  At highway speeds the weight of the car isn't nearly as important as its aerodynamics, the exact opposite of low speed driving where weight influences energy use much more. The lightweight i3 has a respectable Cd of .29, but it is tall and has a large frontal area which increases its CdA (the combination of drag coefficient and frontal drag area) making it less than ideal for cheating the wind resistance at highway speeds.

The final 20 miles were about 30% highway (this time down hill most of the way) and 70% secondary roads with about 4 miles of stop and go, traffic light to traffic light driving. We decided to make one last stop at an appropriate destination which happened to be along the way. We stopped at the Thomas Edison National Historic Park in West Orange. What would be more appropriate for an electric car challenge anyway?

After the quick stop we headed back to Nauna's and finished the day driving exactly 80 miles. The ActiveE won the range challenge by 6 miles. Here are the final statics:

2011 BMW ActiveE
Remaining SOC: 27%
Estimated miles remaining: 22
Trip efficiency: 4.1 miles per kWh
Total miles: 102

2014 BMW i3
Remaining SOC: 20%
Estimated miles remaining: 16
Trip efficiency: 5.4 miles per kWh
Total miles: 96




So adding the mileage driven to the remaining mileage the i3 ended up with 96 miles of range and the ActiveE with 102. The i3 actually came very close to predicting the actual range and was only off by 2 miles since it predicted 98 miles of range when it was fully charged that morning. My ActiveE actually beat its range prediction by 16 miles, but that is because my regular driving routing is mostly highway so the car has learned to predict the range based primarily on high speed highway driving. All in all the i3 fared about as well as I expected. It is an incredibly efficient electric vehicle and is in fact now the most efficient car sold in America. However the ActiveE has a battery that is nearly 50% larger (21.6kWh's to 32 kWh's) than the i3's battery and in the end battery size beat efficiency. If the i3 had just a couple more kWh's, I'd be writing a different ending. BMW has been billing the i3 as its "Megacity" car. That was even the codename during development and they weren't kidding. It is much better suited to live its life on congested city streets than it is roaming the high speed highways of the US and the Autobahns of its homeland. I would speculate the i3 will only go about 70 miles if driven all highway, and that's at the 65 mile speed limit. If you were to increase that to 70 or 75 miles than the range will likely drop to 60 to 65 miles. However if you were to drive on secondary roads at around 35 to 40mph, I suspect 100 to 110 miles would be easily attainable in moderate temperatures when you don't need the air conditioning or heater much. So if I were rating the range of the all electric BMW i3, I'd say 60 to 110 miles, conditions provided.

The Thwaite's i3 topping off after the range challenge

One last no-so-small detail. The i3 we used is brand new, while my ActiveE is 28 months old and has 20,100 miles on it. Based on my recorded data I believe its battery has lost between 8% and 9% capacity. If you factor that in, it's clear that while my two year old ActiveE has a slightly better range than a new i3, it had a substantially better range when it was new. Probably about 15% more, which actually coincides with the EPA range ratings for both vehicles.



Some more pictures of the day:

First i3 Interior Spy Shot Captured by Bimmerpost

Bimmerpost was the first to get a decent shot of an i3's dashboard. While much is still covered and the dashboard is obviously not in finished trim, you can see a lot of what BMW has kept and what they have changed from the concept i3. Compare this new photo with the concept i3 below:

BMW is keeping the gear shift know on the steering column. That oval 'Q' looking knob is the gear selector. If you push it forward you put the car in drive and if you pull back all the way you put it in reverse. I guess somewhere in the middle is neutral, there must be a distinctive click or resistance when you pass neutral or it would be difficult to know when you have placed it in neutral. The start/stop button is also on the steering column.

The two main instrumentation panels appear to be similar in size and location as the concept, and if you expand the picture to the right it looks like the display on the drivers instrument cluster is very close to what the concept i3 display looked like. It is fuzzy, but you can clearly see the main display is just about exactly what the concept display showed. You can see the current speed in the center, surrounded by an oval which displays the level of energy you are either using or gaining with regenerative braking. On the left is the outside temperature and on the right is the amount of miles you have driven on the current trip. Along the bottom there is line that represents the battery charge level with the estimated remaining miles you have before needing to plug in. If indeed I am correct about the oval circle encompassing the speed indicator, and all that is displayed is an amount of bars to show you if you are using or recapturing energy, then I will be disappointed. I want that to be represented in a numeric value for me to see like watt hours per mile. Five bars doesn't tell me anything about how much energy I'm using or how much I'm gaining by driving down a long hill. I'd like to see the actual energy flow in real value, not just bars please. I do like this small simple display unit though, and expect the production one to be all screen, unlike the one in the photo that has more painted surface than screen.

Now to the center stack console and here is where it gets a little dicey in my opinion. I'm not a fan of what I see in the picture. In fact it reminds me of the center stack console of my late 90's Honda Civic. I'm not going to go all out and slam it yet because the best feature, the large display screen is covered and hidden from view. However I can't help but look at what is visible, compare it to the concept i3 console and wonder what went wrong. They kept the tray to hold items between the controls and the display which I think is nice to have, but the button arrangement, vents and knobs remind me of something from the past, not the future of personal mobility. I loved the simple, modern, streamlined look of the concept i3's dash and I guess I was hoping for more of that look. I'm not giving up yet though because most of the dash is still covered and who knows, this might not even be the real production dash. The steering wheel was borrowed from a 3 series so perhaps what we see is only partially correct, however I have to believe what we see here is mostly what we'll get.

I know production cars never quite live up to the concept form. Designers can do wild things when they are making one car, and often some of the aspects of the things they dream up don't translate to making an affordable production vehicle, so changes are made. I doubt the manufacturers say "Yeah this concept is gorgeous, too nice for the public in fact so let's ugly it up a bit". I just really liked the look of the concept i3 interior (more so than the look of the exterior)and hope BMW manages to bring as much of it to the production version as possible.

BMW i3 Spotted Again During Hot Weather Testing

Autocar recently posted the latest pictures of an i3 during what is described as hot weather testing somewhere in Southern Europe. It would seem from the pictures the car had some kind of mechanical failure because they appear to be trying to recharge or 'jump' the 12 volt battery.

The car is still very well disguised and even the interior shots show they have everything covered to prevent anyone form getting real images of what they are working on, but a couple things do stand out. The steering column is long and really comes a long way from the dash, just like it does in the concept i3. The car also has basically the same display panels as the concept i3, with a small rectangular display on top of the steering column and a larger display in the center stack, however both had a fabric cover over them. After seeing changes in the body style in all the test cars for over a year, now every new set of spy photographs show the same thing, so I think it's safe to say they have the final production form decided. With the car 12 months away from it's rumored launch, I suspect they would have to have that set in stone by now so they can begin to get the production molds/stamps ready.

This is the first time I've seen a picture of the hood open. It shows what looks like a small storage area or 'frunk'. I've been told there will be some storage space under the front hood, but that it will be a small compartment. What I'm not sure about is whether the REx version will house the engine up there though, in which case the REx option would eliminate any storage space you may have in the frunk. It's also clear to see from the pictures the headlights are not production, and just there to make the test car street legal. The one thing I found particularly interesting in the photo I posted on the top was that it looks like the car may have a B-pillar. That is something I wasn't expecting as the concept didn't and the BMW program managers seemed to proudly talk about how the car was so easy to get in and out of without the need for a B-pillar. It's hard to tell and what I'm interpreting as the possible B-pillar may well be the weather stripping from the coach door seal so I'm going to hold off an saying the car does have a B-pillar until I get better photographic proof. You can click on the picture to enlarge it and tell me what you think.

A Look At The BMW i3 Instrumentation

The display featured on the concept i3. The production version is thought to be very similar to this.

The 2013 BMW i3 will be a revolutionary vehicle. It will be be the first mass produced car that has an aluminum frame and a body made just about entirely out of carbon fiber reinforced plastic. It will use a modern version of body-on-frame design with the aluminum drive module made completely separate from the passenger cell with the latter bolted and glued to the frame near the end of the production line. It will be the first all electric car that the BMW group offers for sale and it will be one of the most efficient vehicles ever offered for sale by any major automobile manufacturer.

It will also, have one of the most advanced and connected electronics and display systems. There hasn't been much written about the i3's electronics, but from the photo's that have been leaked so far, it is obvious BMW is working hard to make the driving experience custom tailored to then needs of an electric car driver. Built in navigation system that will list all charging station within your driving range and destination routing that even includes the part of your trip after you leave the car to use public transportation.

One thing that is interesting is there seems to be two numbers offered as the driving range based on your current state of charge, one that is based on normal driving and one based on the use of the Eco Pro mode which will reduce power to the motor and other energy using devices like cabin heating and cooling system. By doing so the car will use less energy and the range will be extended. The Eco Pro mode will undoubtedly give the car a less spirited driving experience, but when your cutting it close with your available range, believe me you will gladly trade off a bit of acceleration to make your destination. By displaying both estimated ranges, it will help the driver to decide which driving mode is best for that given destination.

Besides in car electronics, the i3 owner will have the ability to perform many functions in the car by the use of a smartphone. You'll be able to precondition the battery and cabin to the desired temperature. You'll be able to plug in a destination and the application will tell you if the car can make it there based on it's current state of charge or suggest charging stations to stop at along the route. It will also alert you once a pre-selected state of charge is attained. This can be very useful. Let's say you plugged in and then went off to run some errands while the car reached a certain state of charge necessary for you to make it home, the car will then send you a text message when that percentage is met, alerting you that it's safe to return to the car and begin your journey.

It going to be really interesting to see just what BMW is working on here, but judging from what is currently leaked, I'm thinking it will be pretty useful (and cool!).

A Peek Into The BMW i3 Information Center

In the 2013 BMW i3 you will always be connected to the outside world and the information superhighway. Three large displays will act as interfaces between the vehicle and the outside world. See how they interact in the above video.