So, I use this car for my distance driving. It's been to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house (1055 mile round trip), my friend rented it to visit his family in Naples, FL (2700 miles round trip), and most recently... we did 2098 miles going to see Aqua in Canada. Yes, we drove 14 straight hours (on a little under 13 gallons of gasoline) to see the Barbie Band. It was well worth it!
I am sure you're wondering how the i3 REx was capable of handling such a trip. The answer to that is, in its stock configuration it wouldn't have been able to. To get the most carbon credits, BMW limits the REx to coming on at 7% battery power, and its range cannot exceed the battery's 85-mile rated range. In reality the REx can provide 90 to 120 miles of range (depending on conditions), but you have to change the software coding so that the fuel pump meters the full 2.4 gallons instead of the 1.9 gallons it's set to. You also need to enable an option that shipped on my car, but got removed at the last minute (and is standard in Europe): Hold State of Charge.
This function enables you to hold the current battery charge level, so long as you're below 75% state of charge. This is the secret to long road trips. It's far from automatic, you must manually turn on the generator every time you stop to refuel it -- unless you have a passenger! See, BMW turns off the car when the driver door is opened. Most often, you still use up to 10% of your battery during a road trip with the REx on. When you stop, the REx can catch up and generally gets the battery to within 3% of the Hold point (i.e., if you set it at 74% and it dropped to 68%, it would charge to at least 71% before turning the engine off when the car is stopped). A passenger can exit the vehicle without it turning off, and thus, allowing the generator to continue to run while you refuel so it can top off the battery.
You do end up stopping every 80 miles or so for fuel, 1 to 1.5 hours. This is a deal breaker for many people, however, on a 14+ hour trip it is a life saver. The forced break to get out of the car prevents fatigue, something I feel I can prove since I didn't get out of the car at all for most of this trip and my back was killing me for it (like it does in every other car I drive for more than 6 straight hours).I'd love to say we had a close call, but we never did. In the West Virginia mountains we ran 60mph (which was 5mph under the limit), and I recorded a max of 11% battery consumption with the REx engaged. Every time we pulled off to refuel, it would get it almost back to the hold point. By the time we reached Ohio, we were no longer eating into the battery reserve -- the REx was capable of sustaining the 74% state of charge.
The most exciting thing about this trip, aside from seeing Aqua, was using ChargePoint stations so far from home -- including Detroit, Windsor, Toronto, and London (Canada). There were other stations we used that were non-networked, like a Schneider Electric station in Charleston, WV. We also crossed 50,000 miles on this trip, meaning my car is out of it's factory warranty and is now using it's 2 year/50,000 mile Certified Pre-Owned warranty.
All in all, it was no different than any other long trip I've taken in a conventional car. The difference was that we could run the car on battery alone in Windsor, London, and Toronto and only use gasoline to get between those locations. We managed to fully, or nearly fully, charge the car at all the cities we visited. We did encounter ICEing in Toronto (where a gas vehicle is parked in the EV charging space), but I had my J1772 extension cable so I could plug up even though I was in the next space over.If you'd like to see my album of photos and videos from the trip, follow this link.
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