My son, Alex, the one who works at VW HQ in suburban DC (literally a few meters from gnat's house), sold the 5 series BMW that we bought for him when he graduated college. He wants to buy a newer vehicle. And to be fair, although it was a very nice car (completely loaded 535 with X-Drive and absolutely every option), it was getting long in the tooth (180,000+ miles). He got his first taste of European car maintenance a couple of months ago when one of his front CV joints let loose.
He works in VW's electric car program. I'm not sure exactly what he does (he's a business school graduate, not an engineer), but he's heavily involved in the new electric vehicles that VW will bring to market in the next year or so. So, he wants an electric car. Supposedly they require less maintenance, plus a perk is that his office has free EV charging. So, he'll save roughly $200 per month in just gas costs for his commute.
He has decided to buy a 2017 BMW i3 with the range extender gas engine backup system. You see them for sale all around the country on the dealer's auction website, but the majority of them are offered off-lease through BMW Financial out of the Riverside (east Los Angeles), California auction. That's where he'll be buying his because due to battery life concerns, he wants to avoid cold-weather climate cars.
It will cost $1,040 to ship a car from the Riverside auction to his home in Washington, DC. Smart money says that's money well spent. But, as the thread title says, you could fly out-drive home, right?! So, that's what we're going to do.
We meet up at LAX on Friday night, March 27th. I arrive first and will go to the auction to pick the car up. He gets in after midnight Friday (technically Saturday, I guess). We'll stay on the west side of LA, then hit the Petersen Museum first thing in the morning. By noon, we'll be on the road to Vegas, where we'll do our first overnight. Vegas to Denver on Sunday, March 29th. Monday, March 30th, Denver to Kansas City, where my trip is finished. He'll spend the night there, then drive to Indianapolis on Tuesday, the 31st. Indianapolis to DC next, ending his trip, appropriately, on April Fool's Day.
The BMW i3 runs on battery charge. Due to CARB regulations, the battery must discharge to below 6% before the 38 hp gas range extender (with its 2.4 gallon tank) kicks in (which is after about 90 miles of electric range). Problem is that the 170 hp electric motors go into a reduced power mode at that point, basically sucking juice off the battery as fast as the 38 hp range extender generator can produce it. In rough terms, the power goes from 170 hp on tap to about 38 hp (I know it's not that simple, but it's close enough - you get the idea). That shouldn't be an issue on flat ground, so as long as we aren't traversing the Rocky Mountains or anything, we should be just fine . . .
There appears to be a common hack to enable a charge-hold mode to kick in the gas engine at 75% battery charge so that the car doesn't go into the reduced power mode. With any luck, the car he buys at the auction will have already had that hack done to it. Of course, we won't know that until we pick the car up. If not, he'll have the software (an iPhone app) and the OBDII wireless dongle with him so that we should be able to do the hack ourselves before we set out.
Stand by for updates.
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