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My i3 charging from the HSC-40p. You can see my older ClipperCreek CS-40 all the way on the left. When it comes to electric vehicle charging equipment, there’s certainly no shortage of choices. Even though it’s a relatively new market, there are dozens of manufacturers selling products that allow owners to safely and conveniently charge their electric cars. Although this equipment is commonly referred to as a "charger" or "wallbox", the proper term is actually EVSE, which stands for Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment.  These devices don't actually charge the car; they provide the electricity to do so. That's because the actual charging equipment is built into the car. The EVSE's purpose is to safely deliver the correct amount of electricity to the onboard charging equipment.  Now that electric cars are beginning to gain momentum in the marketplace, there are a lot of companies jockeying to get a market share of the EVSE business. The vast majority of thes...

255 miles of combined range? This range estimator is probable a little more optimistic than real life, but I definitely believe 200 miles is possible with the new 2017 i3 REx.  What a difference three years makes.  I was able to secure one of the first 2017 BMW i3 REx cars that made its way into US dealer inventory, compliments of Chris Chang, Sales Manager at BMW of Bloomfield here in New Jersey. The vehicle is mostly the same as my 2014 i3 REx, the one big exception is it has the new 94 Ah battery cells, which increase the overall battery capacity from 21.6 kWh to 33 kWh without increasing its physical size. That was necessary, since this isn't a redesigned i3, so the battery modules had to fit in the existing battery tray. The 2017 i3 REx in Fluid Black next to my "Moloughney Red" wrapped 2014 i3 REx As much as I wanted to check out the moonroof option that this car had (finally the moonroof is available in the US!), there is no denying the single most important improv...

This CCS DC Quick Charge station is located on my property at 148 Valley Road, Montclair, NJ Back in August I posted an article  that announced the opening of the first DC fast charger in the East Coast Express Charging Corridor . That station was installed in Hartford, Connecticut. The Express Charging Corridor when completed will connect Washington, DC to Boston, Massachusetts with CCS DC fast chargers, located no more than 50 miles apart, and is being funded by a joint venture between BMW, Volkswagen and ChargePoint. About three weeks after the station in Hartford was installed, I installed one on my property in Montclair, NJ. It was the first public CCS station in the state that wasn't installed on BMW property. BMW has had a few CCS fast chargers at their North American headquarters for a few years now, as they have been testing CCS since 2012, when they were using a modified BMW ActiveE with CCS capability as a test mule for the then yet-to-be-released i3. So far the DCQC sta...

The ChargePoint Home 25 EVSE is the latest addition to my EVSE collection When most electric vehicle owners think of ChargePoint, they likely are thinking about public charging infrastructure. That's because for the past five years, ChargePoint's focus has been on installing and maintaining the largest network of public EVSEs in the US, with well over 20,000 locations currently in use. Back in 2012, ChargePoint did release an EVSE for home charging, the CT500 made by Coulomb Technologies, but it was priced a bit above the market at $2,495. At the time, it was the only home EVSE that was networked, so that was a major advantage. However, the price was prohibitively high and competitive units were selling for half of that, so the CT500 never sold in any serious volume. That won't be the case with ChargePoint Home, ChargePoint's new entry in the home EVSE market. I've had the opportunity to test this product for a month now, before the official launch and I've been...

An i3 sits next to a 24kW DC Fast Charge unit during the announcement of the BMW, VW & ChargePoint joint venture earlier this year.  It's been seven months since BMW, along with Volkswagen and ChargePoint announced a joint venture which would install roughly 100 DC fast charge units on the East and West coasts. While there's been a lot of work identifying potential locations and negotiating with site managers, there hasn't really been any tangible progress that electric vehicle owners could see.   The plan is to create "Express Charging Corridors" on both coasts, with DC Fast Charge stations placed no more than 50 miles apart. The East Coast Corridor will connect Washington DC to Boston, Massachusetts and the West Coast Corridor would extend from San Diego, California to Portland, Oregon.  There would be two kinds of DC Fast Charge stations utilized. The stations placed directly on the highway locations of the corridors would be 50kW units, most of which will...

Delivery day: May 21st, 2014 Well that went by fast. After waiting patiently for years for BMW to bring the "Megacity" car, their first production electric vehicle to market, my first year of ownership really flew by quickly. On May 21st of last year I was the first i3 REx delivery in the US. My one year review is about a month late, but that has only given me some more time to gather my thoughts about it. About a month into ownership last year, I authored two posts dedicated to my initial likes and dislikes . Many of those initial thoughts still hold true, but I've also had some changes of opinion as well as discovering new annoyances and new attributes which I appreciate. One of the few pictures I have of my car in its real color; Laurel Grey. I wrapped it red the first week I had it. Overall I'm very happy with my i3 and there isn't another car I'd prefer to have. It really suits my needs while offering the perfect balance of performance, utility, comfort ...