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BMW continues to make news with regards to electric vehicle infrastructure and customer charging programs. Coming off yesterday’s Nissan partnership news, today BMW has announced the expansion of their ChargeNow by EVgo program. The ChargeNow by EVgo program was initiated by BMW in November of 2015, and was active in 25 ChargeNow DC Fast EVgo metro markets. The expansion now includes the entire national network of DC Fast charging station in 33 states covering more than 50 metro areas. BMW claims that the now-expanded network will be accessible for over 92% of new i3 owners. There are a number of different options and aspects of the ChargeNow EVgo program, including two years of unlimited, free DC Fast charge access to BMW i3 owners that purchased or leased a new i3 from November 1st, 2015 onward.   From the press release: ChargeNow by EVgo no-cost and specially priced public charging programs - exclusively for BMW i and iPerformance drivers - now available in more than 50 metro ...

While I typically keep a narrow focus on the content of this blog, that being to obsessively cover the BMW i3 electric car, occasionally I'll post something if I feel it has particular importance to the electric vehicle industry as a whole. Such is the case with this entry. For those of you unfamiliar with the Volkswagen "Clean Diesel" scandal, it basically amounts to the fact that Volkswagen cheated the emission testing in place and flooded the market with highly-polluting vehicles that were improperly called "Clean Diesel". As a result, the Volkswagen Group was fined a record amount of money and forced to buy back or fix nearly half a million cars in the US which were operating in conflict with US emission laws. As part of the penalty, Volkswagen was ordered to pay a 2 billion dollar penalty, which would be used to fund zero emission infrastructure, and improve access to ZEVs. On face value, the proposed Dieselgate settlement initially seemed like it might pro...

Over the course of 56,000 miles, I've driven on pure battery 96% of the time. My 2014 BMW i3 REx is now 27 months old, and the mileage on the odometer just recently surpassed 56,000 miles. I've needed a little over 15,000 kWh of electricity, and exactly 50 gallons of gas to power the vehicle thus far. That means I've driven on pure battery about 96% of the time, and managed an impressive overall gasoline consumption of 1,120 mpg. Normally I wouldn't highlight the gasoline use in my electric car; it's really not something most electric vehicle owners like to do. However, as many Chevrolet Volt owners can attest to, adding a range extender to a short range (under 100 mile AER) electric vehicle can expand its versatility immensely. While I haven't needed to use the REx often, there were plenty of times, especially in the winter, that I was very happy it was there. Back in early 2014, a few months before the North American i3 launch, I openly debated whether I'd...

On a recent trip to Vermont I stopped at Prestige BMW in New Jersey on both legs of the journey. They recently installed two 24 kW DC Fast Charge stations that are accessible 24/7 and free to use. A robust DC Fast charge infrastructure is crucial for mass EV adoption. This is the second half of a two part post on BMW's infrastructure plans, current and future. Having spent time with BMW's EV infrastructure team at the LA Auto Show, (Robert Healey, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Manager, Idine Ghoreishian, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Specialist, and Cliff Fietzek, Manager of Connected eMobility) I posted the first half of this report last week. In that post, we discussed the East and West Coast Express Charging Corridors, and the just-announced ChargeNow DC Fast program. ChargeNow DC Fast: I reached out to Jeremy Desel, Director of Communications for EVgo, to discuss the deployment rate of the 500 ChargeNow DC Fast stations . What Desel told me was pretty impressive:  ...

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...

Fill 'Er up! I know many readers here have spent countless sleepless nights pondering the the age-old question: How long does it take to refuel a BMW i3's tiny gas tank? Well maybe not, but I have had people argue that driving the i3 REx on an extended trip would be very inconvenient because they would have to stop to fill up the gas tank every 50-60 miles. I've done quite a few road trips with my i3 REx, and stopping once an hour for a couple of minutes to refill the tank never really bothered me much. I wrote a post last year which detailed a 462 mile round trip I made to Vermont from my home in New Jersey and refueling was one of the topics that many people commented on. On that trip, I had to stop for gas a total of seven times, as I only recharged the car once, which was at my destination. I drove 111 miles on battery, 351 miles on the range extender and used a total of 9.87 gallons of gas, averaging 35.5 mpg. It was snowing in Vermont when we arrived In that post, I w...

With the proliferation of electric vehicles like the i3, the absence of a robust fast charge infrastructure becomes more and more difficult to ignore. There are indeed areas of California which are served very well with DC Fast Charge stations, however for many EV owners outside California, Fast charge stations are something they only dream about. Georgia however, has been making some great progress with DCFC. Georgia resident and i3 owner Chris Campbell tells us what's happening with DC Fast Charge in the Peach State. Chris with his Volt back in 2010 You may remember Chris from a post he made here last year . Chris was the very first Chevy Volt owner in Georgia back in 2010. He authored a guest blog post here telling his story and why he had decided to get a BMW i3 when he turned in his Volt. Many i3 purchases have come from buyers which were early adopters and had leased an early Volt or LEAF. Chris has been active in the Atlanta area's EV scene for a while and maintains a we...