[U11sirgawain]

Being close to buy an U11 PHeV, would appreciate to have your owners view on the regenerative charging
Does it start just by pushing up throttle, or pushing down brake pedal is needed? Can level be adjusted, less to coast, or more, to reduce speed on a downslope?
On pushing down brake pedal, is noticeable the moment where disc brakes start to work?
My prospective U11 will have pads on steering wheel, and I know some electric cars, non BMW, where regeneration level can be increased/decreased by the pads.
Thanks in advance

[MontyB1]

We have a 25e and it's a LOT cleverer than that, it often decides if it will start the regenerative braking or just free wheel due to loads of factors.

When you have the tech screen up looking at what the car is doing it will often say things like adaptive braking due to car in front or freewheeling and more. It tends to know if there is a road about or junction or even if the speed limit has changed and in part do some of the work for you. So if you lift off coming into a 30mph from a 50mph it starts to regenerate down towards 30mph, you can touch a pedal or accelerate and it then ignores what it was trying to get to.

Level can't be adjusted like some EVs, no but it does adapt pretty well to the road doing a pretty good job of anticipating what you want to do. So no pads or anything like that just leave the car to do its thing.

We have had the car over a month now and just short of 1000miles and so far it's not used a quarter of the tank, average MPG is something like 400mph+ for her. In short she loves it, way better than the diesel 20d she had before and so smooth and nice to drive, really really good car.

[287]

MontyB1, do you know roughly what average mpg could be expected with zero charge, ie running on the ICE only, and the same on a long motorway run?

[MontyB1]

It's tough to calculate but I think we had 1 journey that was on almost zero battery at the end of a journey and it was 48mpg, I think. The lowest daily total we have every had is 112mpg which was a 112mile round trip but it was up into quite a hilly area so not typical.

Average MPG for this month is showing a 396mpg. We think for her daily journey off approx 25-30mile round trip it's costing roughly half what the 20d was costing in fuel give or take. It's great if you are doing circa 50-60miles a day or there about if you are doing longer distances on a daily basis then a diesel might be more cost effective.

However to drive around town and on the open road with the battery it really us great and absolutely zero stop / start issues or anything like that, pick up is brilliant around town makes it lovely to drive.

[287]

Thanks Monty. I have an X1 25e on order and the reason I’m interested is that I’ve been wondering if there is any point using public charging stations once the battery charge has run out, like on long journeys or the extra performance isn’t needed. Locally to me they charge between £0.44/kWh and £0.75/kWh which I work out, if we say the electric range average is 45 miles, the cost per mile is between £0.16 and £0.27 per mile which is more than fuel so there would be no point in stopping to recharge. This assumes 45mpg and £1.38/litre (£6.27/gallon) which equates to £0.14 per mile.
Then a bigger question comes to my mind like what’s the point of a PHEV (on cost grounds only, not environmentally) if I can’t charge at home on lower tariffs?

[MontyB1]

Then 25e/30e are very slow at charging so most public charging points would leave you sitting there for hours for a very modest range. For me it’s designed to be charged at home overnight and not much more. Yes of course you can charge it when out and about but as you say with the cost I’m just not sure it’s worth it.

Charge at home and accept the lower mpg for those longer trips seems the way to go with the PHEV models.

[skyboum]

Originally Posted by 287

MontyB1, do you know roughly what average mpg could be expected with zero charge, ie running on the ICE only, and the same on a long motorway run?

For me its around 8.5l per 100km in the city, 6.3L/100km on highway driving with around 140km per hour and yesterday I got 7.5 while driving with almost 190km per hour.

[Pganders]

You need to be able to charge at home and ideally on off peak electricity. As MontyB1 says public charging does not really work for PHEVs.

I have had my 30e for a month and have done just over 500 miles which includes a weekly round trip of 40 miles. So far I have not used any petrol and, by charging at home using off-peak electricity, it has cost me £0.05 per mile. To put in context, if this was a pure petrol powered car I would have needed to get 120 mpg (@1.39/litre) to match this figure.

I know that with the mileage I do this will be a looong payback for the premium over the capital cost of the petrol engined version but I much prefer the driving dynamics of the electric power (including the 0-62 in 5.6 seconds&#128512 over the combustion engine. The PHEV also eliminates any range anxiety over EV and works for me.

In summary it is important to look carefully at the engine options available and choose which best fits your lifestyle and ultimately your heart.

[287]

Agreed. Definitely depends on the cost of the electricity.

[287]

With charge up off peak so cheap I have been wondering if it possible to select EV only driving easily or is it a complicated menu selecting of the battery management options every time? I believe selecting ICE only involves a selection of an option to maintain a charge rather than simply selecting ICE only.

[MontyB1]

You can set a shortcut to the menu that allows your to go to ev only or maintain easily so its not hard to do at all.

[287]

Cheers.

[U11sirgawain]

Originally Posted by MontyB1

We have a 25e and it's a LOT cleverer than that, it often decides if it will start the regenerative braking or just free wheel due to loads of factors.

When you have the tech screen up looking at what the car is doing it will often say things like adaptive braking due to car in front or freewheeling and more. It tends to know if there is a road about or junction or even if the speed limit has changed and in part do some of the work for you. So if you lift off coming into a 30mph from a 50mph it starts to regenerate down towards 30mph, you can touch a pedal or accelerate and it then ignores what it was trying to get to.

Level can't be adjusted like some EVs, no but it does adapt pretty well to the road doing a pretty good job of anticipating what you want to do. So no pads or anything like that just leave the car to do its thing.

Thnks!
I Will report my own experience when my 3.0e arrives. But still believe human driver can outsmart any driving assistance. Would be a shame controlling downslope velocity via brake pads when selecting highest regeration level could do. Dont know if by brake pedal action you can adjust to highest regeneration without traditional friction brakes acting. Does the pedal provides any feedback?

[MontyB1]

It is pretty clever to be honest to the point that you get used to it and switch to another car again you wonder why is not starting to brake for me now. It genuinely does a pretty good job and adaptive re-gen but to your point it does already start to use the re-gen motors in the early phase of braking not the pads until later. To be fair this is the same as the X3, you can even see it as part of the braking display.