BMW i3 001
Michael Taylor2 May 2016
NEWS

BMW strengthens i3

More range, same power for Bavaria’s all-electric commuter car

BMW has given its all-electric i3 nearly 50 per cent more real-world range and a four-model family with a mid-cycle battery upgrade.

Arriving on the eve of the introduction of electric-car incentives in Germany, the Bavarian EV’s new, effectively larger 'fuel tank' sees its range leap from 190km to 300km according to Europe's NEDC standard.

BMW itself claims the i3 will now comfortably eke out 200km in real-world driving conditions, with the air-conditioning or heating switched on, thanks to the new battery cells -- just in time for the €4000 EV rebate in Germany, which starts this month (May).

It also plans to retain the current 22kWh i3 alongside its new, bigger-capacity 33kWh version. The original i3, which has seen lagging sales in its home market, but strong interest in the US, The Netherlands, the UK and Norway, had a lithium-ion battery capacity of 60 Amp/hours, but the new one sees this pushed up to 94A/h.

BMW i3 002

Both cars retain the existing i3’s rear-mounted 125kW/250Nm electric motor, which drives the rear wheels hard enough to accelerate to 100km/h in 7.3 seconds, and both weigh the same, at 1245kg.

The rear-engine, rear-drive layout uses a single-speed transmission that tops out at 150km/h, which uses 12.6kWh of energy per 100km on the NEDC electric-car test.

The new battery occupies the same space as the existing 60A/h unit, too, so BMW has simply fitted the car with bigger-capacity cells.

The i3’s battery has eight modules, each with 12 storage cells, and both BMW and battery supplier Samsung SDI have tweaked the internal components of the cells and their electrolytes to find the extra range.

About 29kWh of the new battery unit’s 33kWh can be effectively used, which BMW claims as an effectiveness record in the class, while 19kWh of the current i3’s 22kWh can be used.

BMW i3 003

Both versions of the battery come with an eight-year, 100,000km warranty from BMW, which also uses its own air-conditioning circuits to cool the battery and its optional heating system to warm it in low ambient temperatures.

It will also pair both battery packs with the range-extender petrol engine, a two-cylinder, 650cc unit derived from its Motorrad scooter family, which keeps the battery topped up with power and adds another 150km to the range. Adding the 28kW engine to the mix would give the range-extending 94A/h i3 with an NEDC range of 450km.

While the range-extender can ease range anxiety, it adds 120kg to the weight, though the standard 260 litres of luggage capacity at the rear remains unchanged either way. The added weight slows the 0-100km/h acceleration time to 8.1 seconds, though it uses only 0.6L/100km and emits only 12g/km of CO on the NEDC test.

BMW can also retro-fit existing i3 cars with the new battery unit and is also offering a more-powerful 11kW wall-mounted charging station to recharge the bigger batteries in the same three-hour timeframe as the existing i3 with its 7.4kW charger. Any batteries swapped out of existing i3s will be used as stationary energy storage units.

It will take longer to recharge from a standard domestic power point, though, with the added capacity pushing a full recharge out from about eight hours to somewhere around 10 hours.

If the 94Ah i3 is connected to a 50kW direct-current fast charger, BMW clais it will soak up 80 per cent capacity in under 40 minutes (it takes only 25 minutes for the current i3), or around 4km a minute.

BMW i3 004

While it has yet to live up to BMW’s original targets of 30,000 cars a year, it is the biggest-selling BMW model in Norway and 80 per cent of people who buy i3s in the US are customers pilfered from other brands.

Exceeding its sales forcasts locally, BMW has sold more than 200 i3s and almost 100 i8s in Australia, where 75 per cent have been REX range-extender models.

In its domestic market, the German government announced last week that it was introducing a €1 billion program to introduce rebates for both battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars from May.

The program, funded by both the government and the car industry and topping out at cars costing more than €60,000, delivers a €4000 subsidy to buyers of battery-electric cars and €3000 to buyers of plug-in hybrid cars.

The scheme is the first concrete steps the government has made to meet its target, announced in 2009, of 1 million electrified cars on German roads by 2020.

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Written byMichael Taylor
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