[DanChapman90]

Hey everyone,

Had a weird experience today. I drive to and from work in full electric mode, other than the miles per charge drastically reducing over the cold period (63 miles summer down to 48 miles winter) as I was driving on the motorway tonight, approx half charge left, I approached an uphill section and found I had to put my foot further down to keep at 70mph, however the blue power bar also reduced down in the instrument cluster to the same level of power I was requesting from the car, to the point I was actually losing speed.

It’s never done this before, is it normal with a cold battery? I’d probably covered about 12 miles by this point. Another 5 miles along, it did the same again on an uphill section. Anything I need to be worried about?

I imagine had I not had full electric engaged it would have kicked in the engine to take over power, just seems weird to lose power like that.

[DomiGijzen]

What was the temp? I have quit some hills around my town. I drive them within 1 minute after leaving, not experienced this. But the temp is only now getting close to 0.

[DanChapman90]

Originally Posted by DomiGijzen

What was the temp? I have quit some hills around my town. I drive them within 1 minute after leaving, not experienced this. But the temp is only now getting close to 0.

2/3 degrees Celsius, so not even below freezing. Doesn’t seem to do it in the morning with a full charge, just on the drive home. It’s only charged to 46 miles today which is the lowest it’s been, I’m wondered if there’s maybe an issue with the battery?

[Elliston]

Was the battery charged to 100% and did the car precondition the battery before you left in the morning to help warm it?

I have a 530e on order, with a 40 miles commute. I am thinking the range on the G61 model will cover it all on electric, making use of preconditioning in the mornings from mains power.

Thanks

[DanChapman90]

Originally Posted by Elliston

Was the battery charged to 100% and did the car precondition the battery before you left in the morning to help warm it?

I have a 530e on order, with a 40 miles commute. I am thinking the range on the G61 model will cover it all on electric, making use of preconditioning in the mornings from mains power.

Thanks

It’s always charged to 100%, although I’m not even sure the 530e has the ability to warm to battery does it? I could be wrong but it with being a hybrid is that a feature?

The mornings aren’t the problem, it’s after it’s been sat at work all day on half a charge, but the total miles per charge is still dropping. This morning it’s sat at 43 miles full charge. That’s a 20 mile drop since the summer! So I’m not even sure that would cover your 40 mile journey with the heater on etc.

It’s booked in at BMW next week for inspection as something doesn’t seem right.

[Elliston]

I would be interested to know how you get on and what BMW say.

I am about 2 weeks away from delivery. So my starting point will be in the middle of winter.

When I test drove in the summer I had a demo car for 48 hours. I did an over night charge to full and tried my commute. 20 miles to work, 20 back. When I got home there sas still 27 miles of range left. I was very impressed. That was in Aug, so nice and warm.

Might be something else at play given your other comment on losing power when going up hill.

[DanChapman90]

Originally Posted by Elliston

I would be interested to know how you get on and what BMW say.

I am about 2 weeks away from delivery. So my starting point will be in the middle of winter.

When I test drove in the summer I had a demo car for 48 hours. I did an over night charge to full and tried my commute. 20 miles to work, 20 back. When I got home there sas still 27 miles of range left. I was very impressed. That was in Aug, so nice and warm.

Might be something else at play given your other comment on losing power when going up hill.

Took it to BMW today, service advisor asked me to demonstrate the issue to a technician which I did, same issue happened. They kept the car for the day, called me around 4pm to say no fault codes logged, battery health is fine, no issues charging etc etc. basically ‘computer says no’.
I asked if they could raise it with BMW and he said there’s not fault codes or error messages to raise with them and to just ‘monitor it’.

Not really sure how this is supposed to be normal, let alone safe.

My only option now is turn the ‘activate electric automatically’ feature off so it’s back to being hybrid and allows the engine to kick in once more than 50% power is requested. Annoying really given I’ve done 8,000 odd miles in full electric mode with no need for petrol.

[RichardInCA]

This sounds like a bummer - something sounds odd. Those temps aren’t crazy cold for electric driving. As you note, I don’t think you have preconditioning in a PHEV as you can’t DC fast charge like you can in a BEV which is when you need to regulate the battery temperature more tightly.

Out of interest what is the power output of the electric motor in a 530e?

[Elliston]

I think the electric only power is 100bhp.

Combined with the petrol giving 299bhp (or somewhere close to it).

[Gary1fr]

I believe the electric motor is rated at 184 hp. I have a 530e and have not experienced any power loss on hills in electric only mode.
I hope you get your problem resolved.

[Elliston]

Originally Posted by Gary1fr

I believe the electric motor is rated at 184 hp. I have a 530e and have not experienced any power loss on hills in electric only mode.
I hope you get your problem resolved.

Your right, it’s 184.

[RichardInCA]

Originally Posted by DanChapman90

the blue power bar also reduced down in the instrument cluster to the same level of power I was requesting from the car, to the point I was actually losing speed.

Re-reading your original post it sounds almost as though this is like the “thermal derating” that Kyle Conner described in his i5 test in Portugal - where some of the power band becomes unavailable through the battery management system (screengrab below) - is this the kind of thing you mean?

[DanChapman90]

Originally Posted by RichardInCA

Re-reading your original post it sounds almost as though this is like the “thermal derating” that Kyle Conner described in his i5 test in Portugal - where some of the power band becomes unavailable through the battery management system (screengrab below) - is this the kind of thing you mean?

So in the 530e (and assume 550e) the grey section of the power bar is used for the engine ‘warm up’ when using the car in hybrid, none-electric or sport mode. It decreases back to 100% once the engine has somewhat heated the coolant up enough and I assume prevents over revving until the engine has some warmth. I believe the coolant is also warmed in pre-conditioning mode as I’ve sometimes got in after pre-conditioning and the ‘warm up’ bar is almost gone off the screen.

However in full electric mode on the ‘E’ models, you’ll have a blue power bar that goes up from 0% to around 80%. This is the maximum amount of power the car will give you, and it is this blue bar that drops as per my original post.
My only conclusion would be that a half (or less) charged battery trying to maintain a 2+ tonne car at 70mph along with the heater on, lights, heated seat etc it reduces the amount of available power. But since no one else has this issue, it seems odd.
The dealership gave me print outs of the HV battery health check and nothing is amiss. I’m stumped.

[RichardInCA]

Super helpful. It sounds to me as though it is your management system derating power available rather than the battery itself that is limiting power here. In other words, while the dealer looked at battery health and charging, both of those things could be just fine, but your BMS is limiting the amount of available power. For instance even if you had only 50% of your battery capacity, that doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t have 100% of your available power - just it would be available for far less time.

Perhaps a Genius line consult might be in order?

[Vitoco]

The Swede with a G61 530e here, there is nothing wrong with the car rangewise. Lower temps means lower range as you probably know and if you have the seat and steering heating on during drive you can expect a big hit. Preheating when plugged in is really important. Coming from an iX3 and having lived with a full EV more than a year, I knew exactly what to expect and the 530e was a deliberate choice. My daily commute is 56 miles back and forth, and today in -10 C (14 F) I made it there with almost 20% battery left, which is really good. I can preheat for the drive home. Getting roughly 38 miles in icy weather is no joke, its awesome. I always drive in efficient mode strictly on battery TO work, but I dont skimp down on the comfort and have everything on as usual, and gas-mode half the way back then hybrid rest of the way. I wanna run the engine warm before it starts its tango with the battery. Especially now that I properly wanna run it in, I try to drive it more than I have to.

The loss of power, I cant relate to.