[palimad]

Hi guys,

I am tempted to get Xdrive30e instead of Xdrive23i because of better performance. Would it be ok considering that I would charge it really occassionaly (when visiting family etc) since I do not have designated spot for charging at home. From what I read PHEVs, also BMW, works as regular hybrid if you do not charge it and it does not hurt it. Thanks

[Tunners]

Would you not be better getting the M35i if it’s purely for the performance? The PHEV is a lot heavier and will be heavy on fuel if you are not charging regularly.

[palimad]

M35 has no powered towbar neither standard (comfortable) suspension. Otherwise it would be probably winner.

[Tunners]

Okay, if I were you then I would stick to the 23i if you can’t charge it regularly especially if you are towing, the PHEV is a 3 cylinder 170hp engine so will be less fuel efficient. As regards normal hybrid it won’t charge the battery as such, it will put a bit in but nothing of significance, it’s just there to give you a bit of a boost.

[palimad]

3 cylinder engines should be same or even more fuel efficient as 4 cylinders according to Google. But I get it, bigger engine should have lower load. I started to reconsider it more once I realized base models also house similar 3 cylinder engines (sdrive18i for example)

[287]

A question for the PHEV drivers. I have a 25e on order. It’s a fleet car leasing through the business I work for and the tax benefits are good.
The electric range is good for my daily business mileage of 35 to 40 miles but the problem is I may have to use public charging stations as I may not be able to fit a home charger.
The trouble here is that the cost of charging locally and convenient to my house are 44p/kWh or 49p kWh (Tesco 7kw and 22kw) and 85p (Instavolt 50kW). Both of these would cost me more than petrol would per mile. I accept that running hybrid brings efficiency to the situation but there will be times when I can’t get to a charger and drive ICE petrol only.

So what mpg fuel only with battery fully discharged can I expect? The forum members have quoted some figures but what is the range? Urban, steady A road and motorway steady speed on a long run over say 100 miles?

The business only pay £0.16p per mile so I‘m on a loser straight away. I need to minimise the damage!

[MontyB1]

The PHEV is desperately slow to charge, I really wouldn’t bother charging it anywhere other than at home overnight to be honest. You might be going to a 100kw charging station but the BMW just can’t charge at that rate.

As for the other poster as mentioned I wouldn’t go for a PHEV if you can’t charge it regularly. It’s quite lethargic on ICE only compared to EV. If you are sub 40miles a day and only occasionally need it for longer journeys it’s fantastic. For anything else I’d go full EV or ICE but not PHEV, it has a sweet spot but outside of that the other options are better.

[Fish Fingers]

@287

We have got the 30e and it charges from empty in about 2 hours on the home 7.4kw charger - as the battery is 14.2 kWh useable.
The maximum it will take is 7.4kw AC.
So the Instavolt DC fast chargers etc aren't relevant to an X1 Phev.

Will you be able to use the charger that comes with the car on your home 3 Pin plug? That charges at 2.3kw - so should take about 6 hours. Which is fine if you're asleep.

If you are running on mostly petrol, it will still be fine. On a YT test the 30e is only about 0.1s slower doing 0-100 kmh (5.78 v 5.67s) with battery discharged.

And on petrol, it is still more economical than our last 2.0 M Sport X2.

[Tunners]

@[Fish Fingers]
The granny cable is now a £350 option according to configurator. It was standard when I got mine.

[FZI89]

Originally Posted by palimad

Hi guys,

I am tempted to get Xdrive30e instead of Xdrive23i because of better performance. Would it be ok considering that I would charge it really occassionaly (when visiting family etc) since I do not have designated spot for charging at home. From what I read PHEVs, also BMW, works as regular hybrid if you do not charge it and it does not hurt it. Thanks

If you don’t plan to charge regularly, you’ll be running on the engine alone. Which will be weaker and significantly slower than buying a petrol/diesel car. To get the better performance from the PHEV you will have to charge it regularly. Otherwise, you’re just carrying extremely heavy batteries for no reason whilst also running a weaker engine than the petrol/diesel variants.

If you don’t plan to charge regularly, don’t go for a PHEV. and since you do not have a designated charger (that can provide at least 7kW of power), it will take approx 5-8 hours to charge from 0-100% depending on your power output.

[Pganders]

I would agree with other comments above that unless you can regularly charge at home the PHEV (BMW at least) is not the right car for your purposes. Apart from additional fuel costs hauling round the battery and associated electronics I would be concerned at the long term impact on the battery if not charged regularly.

As a matter of interest though, on a recent journey where I had to drive with no charge, comprising mainly motorway and dual carriageway, I managed 40.6 mpg over 67 miles. I don’t know how this compares with the equivalent petrol engine but maybe some other members might have figures. Even though the battery was flat acceleration remained brisk when needed as the electronics seem to maintain just enough battery capacity for such eventualities with the electric range never rising above 1 mile for the journey.

The 30e is an excellent car used correctly and certainly for my driving style/journeys I wouldn’t have anything else.

[Taylor66]

The tax savings for the company car may make it a no brainer

[palimad]

Originally Posted by FZI89

If you don’t plan to charge regularly, you’ll be running on the engine alone. Which will be weaker and significantly slower than buying a petrol/diesel car. To get the better performance from the PHEV you will have to charge it regularly. Otherwise, you’re just carrying extremely heavy batteries for no reason whilst also running a weaker engine than the petrol/diesel variants.

If you don’t plan to charge regularly, don’t go for a PHEV. and since you do not have a designated charger (that can provide at least 7kW of power), it will take approx 5-8 hours to charge from 0-100% depending on your power output.

It seems the car can charge itself and always maintain similar performance like when the battery is full. Please see:

Difference is negligible 5.67 vs 5.78 seconds to 100km/h. Strongest petrol (except M35i) does it in 7.1 seconds which is huge difference. That's why I want xdrive30e. Do you think it does not make sense anyway?

[FZI89]

Originally Posted by palimad

It seems the car can charge itself and always maintain similar performance like when the battery is full. Please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s424WzP1ijI&t=46m52s
Difference is negligible 5.67 vs 5.78 seconds to 100km/h. Strongest petrol (except M35i) does it in 7.1 seconds which is huge difference. That's why I want xdrive30e. Do you think it does not make sense anyway?

The car can charge itself. But it definitely cannot maintain the charge. That’s the whole point of having to plug it in. It doesn’t work like a mild hybrid battery. The battery is significantly bigger than mild hybrid cars and you will need to regularly charge the car if you want to get the full performance out of it.

From what I’ve read on here, if it’s your daily driver, the battery won’t last more than 2-3 days (depending on your commute of course), and I can’t imagine that driving the PHEV at 0% charge will give you the same power output as a charged battery. Yes, the power output may be the same/similar if at 100% or 15%, but if it’s depleted, I would expect that you will only have the power of the engine to run on.

If you’re wanting the power of the PHEV, but don’t want to charge the car every day/other day, I suggest looking at the iX1. I commute approximately 150-200km per week and charge my car only once a week overnight using a regular socket.

[Fish Fingers]

According to my wife - who has made only 1 very long journey (mostly motorway) in her 30e and used 'maintain battery' option.
The battery level was about the same at the end as when she started her 200+ mile journey.

Performance was still good.

MPG was still reasonable.

Obviously not getting the benefit of running electric only - but still a viable option if you don't have a home charger imo and are not city driving.

I think doing it this way, the regen tops up what the car uses when overtaking etc?

In the YT vid above the figures compare charged battery versus nil battery.
Obviously there is a buffer and some battery in reserve for it to work like this.

[Fish Fingers]

This thread is worth a read on the subject.

https://u11.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=2064524

[MontyB1]

There is a portion of the battery that is there for low traction - max performance requirements but it isn't unlimited. Plus when the car starts driving around normally when there is no EV charge around town it's a bit sluggish compared to via EV normally.

Yes if you really floor it or need some slow speed traction the car can help but on ICE it doesn't perform anything like as spritely or feel as good. There are limits to how much it can do.

We did a longer journey over a few days and got 65mpg overall with no charging and the battery down to 0%. Not terrible but a long way off a 400Mpg average for the car.

Would I buy one if it wasn't going to be charged regularly, no I wouldn't and in fact some have had some battery ICE issues in another thread and where told they should charge it from time to time but as they got it as a company car they didn't want to. (In the UK some PHEV / EV get lower tax as a company car).

[FZI89]

Originally Posted by Fish Fingers

According to my wife - who has made only 1 very long journey (mostly motorway) in her 30e and used 'maintain battery' option.
The battery level was about the same at the end as when she started her 200+ mile journey.

Performance was still good.

MPG was still reasonable.

Obviously not getting the benefit of running electric only - but still a viable option if you don't have a home charger imo and are not city driving.

I think doing it this way, the regen tops up what the car uses when overtaking etc?

In the YT vid above the figures compare charged battery versus nil battery.
Obviously there is a buffer and some battery in reserve for it to work like this.

Absolutely, performance will still be good, but if it not mistaken, this mode behaves in a similar manner to Efficient Mode/ECO mode, which means you will not get the full power performance that will give you 5.7 seconds 0-100kmh. I think the only mode that gives you access to the full power is sport mode and/or using the boost. This will use the battery as much as possible in tandem with the engine.

[Fish Fingers]

Originally Posted by FZI89

Absolutely, performance will still be good, but if it not mistaken, this mode behaves in a similar manner to Efficient Mode/ECO mode, which means you will not get the full power performance that will give you 5.7 seconds 0-100kmh. I think the only mode that gives you access to the full power is sport mode and/or using the boost. This will use the battery as much as possible in tandem with the engine.

Good point.

What is the boost?
Apologies, it's not my car and I've only driven it a couple of times, so on a learning curve.

[Tunners]

Originally Posted by Fish Fingers

What is the boost?
Apologies, it's not my car and I've only driven it a couple of times, so on a learning curve.

Info from the manual.

[boupas]

I also went for the 30e since the taxes are way lower here for plug-in hybrids compared to regular gas cars. Did some digging and figured even if you charge it now and then, it's still pretty good on fuel and doesn't slack on performance. If you use the "maintain battery level" setting, you're always ready to zoom, but yeah, it'll munch a bit more fuel.

[Fish Fingers]

Originally Posted by boupas

I also went for the 30e since the taxes are way lower here for plug-in hybrids compared to regular gas cars. Did some digging and figured even if you charge it now and then, it's still pretty good on fuel and doesn't slack on performance. If you use the "maintain battery level" setting, you're always ready to zoom, but yeah, it'll munch a bit more fuel.

That's what I guessed would be the answer for the member who asked the question originally.

If they can't charge at home/work just find a cheap AC charger at a supermarket or somewhere (there are loads of low power AC chargers, which are usually cheapest too).
Then just top it up whenever doing the shopping or whatever and run on maintain battery.
Still get the tax savings compared to an Ice car, and still with quite decent performance / economy.