[The Great Gasby]

Just did our first long road trip from CT to FL. Traveling with this lil' puppy, we stopped every ~2 hours to let him out. Without going into excruciating detail, here are some observations that might be useful to others.

EA was excellent and just worked for me

• We stopped at 9 separate EA chargers + 1 hotel overnight. Every single EA stop worked perfectly. The only hiccup we hit was one spot where the "Tap to Pay" didn't work and I had to open the EA app and swipe.
• I very consistently got above 150kW and started out at 200kW+ at 4/9 stops with the highest (205) in the middle of nowhere in Lake City, FL.
• The infra is really good between CT and DC with tons of locations with 8-10 chargers. No problem at all. It's decent in VA, NC and SC. Most locations have 8-10 chargers but they're further apart (bigger states). It's iffier in GA and FL. Fewer locations/chargers but they all worked for me though I had to take a detour in FL around an EA site that was down for maintenance. To be fair, the app clearly told me they were replacing the chargers.
• Several spots were empty but others did have quite a few vehicles.

Get to your hotel early if you need an overnight charge

• We chose the Aloft in Columbia, SC because it allows dogs, has L2 chargers, and is close to an EA (as a backup).
• I'm glad I bought the Tesla adapter. We got there around 6 PM, the Aloft had 3 Tesla chargers and just 1 J-1772. The Tesla chargers were 2x the speed so I used one of those.
• Late at night, I went out to walk the dog. All chargers slots were occupied. One of them, unfortunately, by an ICEhole in a Mustang. There were 3 Teslas and a VW that were shut out. Too bad!

The manual preconditioning works beautifully

• It's worth contacting BMW to get it. However, see below.
• We used the manual exclusively so that we could stick to Apple Maps and CarPlay. I would hit the manual about 30-40 min from the charger.
• I only noticed this icon (see arrow in the picture below) show up once. It was cold (30º). Every other time, nothing. One could guess that a 100+ mile drive warms up the battery sufficiently anyway. But, I am not sure since I didn't want to risk trying it.

DAPP is amazing but glitched in certain situations

• The driver assist is wonderful. Stays in the lane, maintains speed and totally reduces fatigue. I was a bit nervous on the NJTP and Washington Beltway with heavy, fast-moving traffic but I let it do its thing and it worked perfectly
• It kept turning off and beeping at me in SC, GA and FL on some stretches where the road surface is very light (almost white) and the lane markings are also white. It was early/late so the sun was low and I guess it had trouble seeing the lane markings.

Reasonably happy with range

• A 100 mile run at 28º in SC at avg 74mph gave me 2.4 mi/kWh.
• Later the same day, 162 miles at 65º+ in FL at 75mph gave me 3.0 mi/kWH.
• Final leg on the same day at avg 58mph (last 20 miles were on small roads) at 70º got up to 3.45 mi/kWH which at 80kW usable = 276 miles of range.

Finally, like others have said, the car is very comfortable and super fun to drive. Hope this is useful info for some, especially those on the East Coast thinking about road trips.

Time now to kick back and enjoy the upcoming week👇

 

[ssh]

Which software version do you have? When was your car built? Curious about that manual battery conditioning...

 

[The Great Gasby]

Oh, I forgot. I really really, perhaps excessively, enjoyed humiliating a couple of dudes who insisted on tailgating me on I-75 in Florida. As soon as the lane cleared in front of me, I hit the accelerator. In the blink of an eye, they are left so far behind it's comical and, frankly, a little scary. My wife was not at all amused 😂.

Thankfully, there were no cops around otherwise sure speeding ticket.

 

[The Great Gasby]

Which software version do you have? When was your car built? Curious about that manual battery conditioning...

Last I checked, it was 11/2002.27 but I'll double check today in case it has updated.
Car was built on 11/11/2022, shipped over and I picked her up on 12/15 in Connecticut.

Definitely worth pursuing the manual preconditioning. It's so much more convenient to just use CarPlay and your preferred nav. Apple Maps has a nifty "Speed check reported ahead" warning that saved me at least once and seemed generally quite accurate.

 

[ssh]

Last I checked, it was 11/2002.27 but I'll double check today in case it has updated.
Car was built on 11/11/2022, shipped over and I picked her up on 12/15 in Connecticut.

Definitely worth pursuing the manual preconditioning. It's so much more convenient to just use CarPlay and your preferred nav. Apple Maps has a nifty "Speed check reported ahead" warning that saved me at least once and seemed generally quite accurate.

Yep. The build date and software rev align with what we've seen. Many of us don't have it (yet?).

 

[Kief]

Sorry, but where is this manual preconditioning button? My car is a Dec 2022 build. Thanks

 

[ssh]

Sorry, but where is this manual preconditioning button? My car is a Dec 2022 build. Thanks

If you have it, it's in the Charging section of iDrive. If you have 11/2022.27, you should have it.

 

[question]

Thanks for sharing. What Tesla adapter do you have?

 

[The Great Gasby]

Thanks for sharing. What Tesla adapter do you have?

I bought this one:
Lectron [Only for J1772 EVs Tesla... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DCTJCTV?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

I’ve used it in two places and it works great. Note that this is only for Tesla destination chargers (the ones at the hotel or your buddy’s garage) and NOT for the big superchargers in highway rest stops. Those are still locked by Elon for now.

 

[The Great Gasby]

If you have it, it's in the Charging section of iDrive. If you have 11/2022.27, you should have it.

That’s right. Click Charging but you have to scroll all the way to the right. It’s not visible initially and I would never have found it without a tip from this forum 🙏🏾

 

[Kief]

If you have it, it's in the Charging section of iDrive. If you have 11/2022.27, you should have it.

That’s right. Click Charging but you have to scroll all the way to the right. It’s not visible initially and I would never have found it without a tip from this forum 🙏🏾

So how far out from a DC charger do you turn it on?

 

[The Great Gasby]

So how far out from a DC charger do you turn it on?

It’s not clear. I generally hit the button 30-50 min out. The reason I didn’t do it earlier is because I wasn’t sure if it would increase consumption, which I didn't want.

 

[Kief]

It’s not clear. I generally hit the button 30-50 min out. The reason I didn’t do it earlier is because I wasn’t sure if it would increase consumption, which I didn't want.

BTW, cute puppy!!

 

[jsv]

If you have it, it's in the Charging section of iDrive. If you have 11/2022.27, you should have it.

Hmmm. I have 11/2022.44 and do not have it as an option.

 

[cruzer666]

Thanks for sharing, I’m glad others are sharing their positive Electrify America experience. I’m impressed how reliable and well maintained their charging stations are.

 

[dudenjen]

Hmmm. I have 11/2022.44 and do not have it as an option.

same her, and I don't have a manual option either! I'm still plugging in the address for the charger, 30 - 50 minutes, in order to get the battery preconditioning started.

 

[ssh]

Hmmm. I have 11/2022.44 and do not have it as an option.

Nope. It's 11/2022.27 (factory installed).

 

[The Great Gasby]

Thanks for sharing, I’m glad others are sharing their positive Electrify America experience. I’m impressed how reliable and well maintained their charging stations are.

I wonder if it’s much better on the East coast.My impression is that a lot of the worst experiences were out west but that’s just a guess. I think EA is based in the DC area too. There sure seem to be a lot of locations here based on the PlugShare map below filtered to just Electrify America.

Anyway, I’ve had zero issues so far 🤞🏾🤞🏾

 

[ssh]

I keep thinking I need to find someone at EA to help with their operations... it's not that hard to do this well when one knows what one is doing.

 

[Kief]

It’s not clear. I generally hit the button 30-50 min out. The reason I didn’t do it earlier is because I wasn’t sure if it would increase consumption, which I didn't want.

I was thinking about this some more, but why do we need to turn on the precondition button at all after driving around for a long period? Wouldn’t the battery already be warmed up (and SOC low) by the time you reached the DC charger, which is ideal for a quicker charge rate?