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The "Hold state of charge" feature shown here on this i3 display is at the center of the recently filed lawsuit alleging the BMW i3 REx is unsafe to drive. Recently news has spread of a class action lawsuit filed in the state of California by MLG Automotive Law alleging that the BMW i3 REx is dangerous and "can result in a catastrophic situation for all those on the road." This, in my opinion, is grossly misleading. However in fairness, to say the vehicle can be driven like any other car while the range extender is in use is also grossly misleading. To understand the juxtaposition of those two statements takes some explanation. The truth is, the plaintiffs aren't making this up. What they are describing in the lawsuit is called "Reduced Power Mode" and it can happen under certain strenuous circumstances when the vehicle continues, for a prolonged period, to consume more power than the range extender can provide. In this post I'm going to attemp...

A Samsung employee shows of one of the new 94Ah battery cells which I predict the 2017 i3 will boast Ever since last October when  BMW CEO Harold Krueger stated that the 2017 i3 would have an increased electric range, there's been speculation on how they would accomplish it. While BMW hasn't made any official  announcements yet, it's widely believed that BMW will be using the new Samsung 94Ah battery cells for the 2017 i3, which I first speculated here, back in November.  The current i3 uses 96 Samsung 60Ah battery cells which are 3.75v ea. This adds up to a total of 21.6kWh (96 x 60 x 3.75= 21.6). The new 94Ah cells are the same physical size and voltage so an upgrade to these cells would mean BMW could use the same modules and battery tray, greatly reducing the cost as compared to engineering all new packaging for the new cells. Therefore, the new pack should increase from 21.6kWh to 33.8kWh (96 x 94 x 3.75 = 33.8). If the weight of the cells is the same, that should in...

Might these new 94 Ah cells from Samsung SDI make their way into the 2017 BMW i3? About a month ago BMW CEO Harold Krueger surprised the EV world by casually mentioning in an interview with Die Zeit that in 2016 the i3 would have increased range. That of course sparked a lot of online speculation as to how would BMW accomplish this. Did they figure out a way to squeeze in more of the same 60 Ah Samsung battery cells that the i3 currently uses? Might they have sourced higher energy density battery cells from another supplier? Could Samsung have made the new 94 Ah cells available to BMW now? According to Samsung's Battery Technology Roadmap it didn't look like they would have those cells available for at least another year. From the Samsung SDI website. The 94 Ah cells aren't even listed as available (click to enlarge) According to some well connected insiders, it is beginning to look like BMW will indeed use Samsung's now 94 Ah battery cells in the 2017 i3 which will b...

Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned on Wednesday. While this blog's primary focus is the BMW i3, I occasionally sprinkle in some featured EV products and discuss topics not necessarily i3-centric, but are instead just general electric vehicle information. In light of the recent revelations that Volkswagen has been deliberately cheating on emissions testing for many years now, I wrote the following article for Green Car Reports . So far, no other automaker has been caught as VW has - with proof that they purposely installed a "defeat device" on the vehicles so the cars would curb their emissions only during actual emission testing. However it's fair game to speculate if other OEMs may also be exposed as cheaters now that the EPA knows what they have to look for, and how to expose it. It will certainly be interesting to watch this all unfold. In any event, Volkswagen is going to face huge fines for intentionally violating Federal emission standards and I wanted to...

We stopped at the Big Moose Deli in New York for some coffee. It's about ten miles from the Vermont border.  Perhaps the most discussed topic of the BMW i3 is the implementation of the range extender for the North American market. In an effort to have the vehicle qualify for the California Air Resource Board BMW set restrictions on how and when the range extender can turn on, effectively reducing the utility of the REx. These restrictions are most apparent when attempting to use the car for long journeys which include drastic increases in elevation. This topic has been covered here and on every other EV site extensively, and recently it was announced that BMW is working on a software update that will allow, under certain conditions,  the range extender to come on much earlier than the 6.5% threshold it currently uses. I am actually beta testing that software for BMW now, having had it installed on my i3 just last week. The new software also includes some other updates that wil...

Donner Summit is the highest point along Interstate 80 in California at 7,228 feet elevation. Last week we heard from i3 REx owner John Higham in a post he wrote which detailed his thoughts on the i3's range extender restrictions for the North American market. John certainly didn't mince words and offered his reasoning why he believes the range extender on the i3 should have its artificial restrictions (which are in place to satisfy CARB), relaxed a bit. John also promised to do a road trip which would take him from the San Francisco Bay area up to the 7,228ft Donner Summit in Lake Tahoe and report on the range extender's performance under these strenuous conditions. Below are his findings. SF Bay to Tahoe by the Numbers, Part 2 Nailed it.  Well, nearly. In Part 1 of this post about all things REx, I declared that a US spec BMW i3 REx could not make the popular weekend getaway of Lake Tahoe from the San Francisco Bay area without being speed limited within 15 miles of Sacr...