Interleaf said:
cwerdna said:
Because the engine is so wimpy and underpowered, unless you "code" it, you would NOT want to take it up uphill grades at highway or even leisurely speeds.
If the engine could be turned on at 80% SoC (50% is not good enough), then 25 kW is far more than plenty to go uphilll at highway speeds. The problem is not the i3. The problem is that enviro-fascist socialist in CARB, who could never get a job in the private sector due to incompetence, who is dictating Rex SoC at 5%.
Well, yeah, because you're depending on a big buffer in the battery. 25 kW is about 33.5 hp. It's obvious that by itself is woefully insufficient for highway speeds up steep grades.
As for blaming CARB, well, there are plenty of green CA HOV sticker PHEVs that don't have this problem, have a much more powerful ICE and have modes like mountain mode.
I don't know the full story as to to what's the deal as some of them are wrong. One explanation I recently heard on https://www.facebook.com/groups/BMWi3/ (I can't find the comment) was that BMW worked w/CARB in creating this BEVx classification in order to get more credits which yielded these limits. I don't know if that's true or not and also don't understand why non-CA and non-CARB US vehicles are also equally crippled. Frankly, I don't care much since the i3 REx is a POS from a reliability point of view besides being expensive. I don't like its styling at all either.
FWIW, I found these two:
http://insideevs.com/bmw-i3-rex-bevx-restrictions-plea-carb-unleash-rex/ - I've actually met the author many years ago. He's very active in the i3 FB group. I don't know how accurate his reporting is.
http://bmwi3.blogspot.com/2016/06/bmw-i3-rex-lawsuit-howd-this-happen.html
BTW, as I said, I've heard of much worse experiences than John's going up steep grades. One guy on the i3 FB group when he was limited to 35 or 40 mph mentioned either big rig of fuel tanker trucks zooming by him. And, as you saw, I pointed to two 9 mph max cases.
Again, I don't care that much about doing research for the real explanation for the crippling. I would never buy or lease one with its current implementation, dodgy reliability, high price and ugly (in my eyes) styling.