Electric BMW issues.

[sapphireblack]

Or BWM as showing on the link , the latter of which is 'interesting'


https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/ca ... er-warning

[X5Sport]

BMW are suffering problems due to a number of component issues and shortages. Other manufacturers are the same. Audi were at less than 4% of their target production rates. There have been a number of ‘campaigns’ (should be recalls IMHO) to sort out quality issues. The lack of spares just makes things much worse and annoying. I really feel for that owner. I’d be looking for compensation in the same way.

Some dealers have been providing replacement loan cars funded by BMW themselves, but that is far from universal - as the report implies.

Over the last few months and having ordered an i4 myself, I’ve seen dates going all over the place - at one point the wait was more than two years! Even now I’m wary as the date moved from before Xmas to just after Easter.

From what I can tell on the relevant Forums, parts are in short supply, cars have been delayed at ports and held by ‘Stop Sale’ orders preventing delivery. Some is hardware, some software but my impression is that most of the frustration (including my own) is the complete lack of transparency and openness from BMW themselves. That includes the significant price uplift and increases of interest rates. When an order is placed there is no price protection until the order hits the production queue. Mine sat in ‘Order Bank’ for months and has seen a £2k increase as I didn’t get ‘protection’ until Aug/Sept for a March order. The current cost if ordered today is about £9k higher with a 7% increase in interest rates.

Orders are being cancelled globally due to these uplifts, though to be fair in the US that was made worse by a new law withdrawing a $7,500 tax credit from all cars not made within the US itself.

Even more normal things are hard to get. I needed more screen wash and was told it should be available in 2 days. It’s taken 3 weeks as BMW are rationing it due to demand exceeding supply there too.

[sapphireblack]

We all know that fossil fuels have to go, but the lauded electric replacents have so many glitches to ovecome, the transition is going to be protracted and far from easy.

One of my near neighbours has recently swapped his 40dX6 for a Tesla Y, curiously there's no visible charging apparatus to accompany it. It's not garaged so it could all be inside i suppose.

I garage my X6, though i need supervision/assistance as it's so tight with unsuitable garage dimensions. I can't even imagine where the apparatus could be located here if I went electric, not that I have plans for conversion. I must confess though I have given some thought on an i3 is it, the tiny original Lecky BMW?

Old age and garage issues would make life easier to some extent. My X6 has the super light steering system (I forget it's name) which can be a bit unnerving at speed. I preferred the progressive system on the E53 'heavy' at speed and nice n easy when parking.

[X5Sport]

They may not have had it installed yet? There’s backlog of orders at present due to demand. I had to wait a couple of months to get our system installed.

You’re looking at something like this (Hypervolt 2 7kW/h smart charger (smart chargers are mandated now)). That has a 10m permanently attached trailing cable to the car so it can be anywhere in our drive - no room in the garage! - to charge the car. Tesla wall boxes are of a similar size.

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Electrical circuits (new 32A circuit separate from the house (additional tails from just below the main fuseboard)). The circuits were separately installed to ensure zero risk of a fault in the car charger sending 470V DC into the house mains. That would be ‘bad’ Anti surge/lightning protection also included (the orange thing).

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In my case it’s a 12 metre run to the charger and that’s done with 6mm armoured EV cable which includes Cat 5 Ethernet for the ‘smart’ functions. The Hypervolt is connected via WiFi at present.

If your electric meters are more than about 25m from the charger then you may need 10mm cable. You need smart meters as well.

If all else fails the car comes with a charger that plugs into a 13A socket. However than takes ~42 hours for a full charge as against 8-10 on the Hypervolt. No reason the kit can’t go inside a garage.

[sapphireblack]

Smaller items than I had imagined to be fair, should I ever persue that scenario...my house is such all lecky apparatus is in an understairs cupboard which opens up onto the dining room. From there outside to the detached garage via the paved patio. The garage has several power sockets already. If additional cabling was required from the fuse panel to the garage, it couldn't be done without unthinkable disruption to the house itself.

The more I think on the subject the less I like the outcome, let alone the costs of procuring the vehicle initially.

[X5Sport]

Running the cable to our garage would also have meant significant disruption through the house (opposite end to the garage)! The only option we had would have been to run it along a wall near ground level with lots of 90° bends needed. It would have been messy!

[StuBeeDoo]

it couldn't be done without unthinkable disruption to the house itself

We have the same problem here. Plus we're on a "looped supply". Major issues, which all could be overcome, but at a significant cost - and it would also mean disruption for at least 2 neighbours. Early 20th century house and early 21st century vehicle technology aren't exactly compatible.
I'm not convinced the National Grid local infrastructure here could cope, either. On average, we get unplanned power cuts every couple of months - usually at periods of high demand.

[sapphireblack]

So for the required power supply, do I understand correctly that a new cable has to run from the fuse board/circuit breaker directly to the charger?

[X5Sport]

You need a 32A circuit installed (cooker/shower in other words).

What we have is this:

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Meter to fuse board tails are split with one pair going to house systems and the other to the EV breakers. From there a dedicated feed goes via 6mm armoured back through the wall to the front of the house where the charger is. The cable is clipped to an outside wall at low level and the run is out of sight until it gets to run under the front door to the charger. The electricians did a really good job. The external cable is just over 1/2” diameter.

If you can run inside then 32A (6mm/sq) twin & earth is fine, no armoured cable needed. That was what I wanted to do originally but finding a sensible route was impossible and the length nearer 30m meaning I needed much beefier wires (10mm/sq) to avoid volt drops. That made going around corners a mare due to minimum bend radius ‘challenges’.

The thin black/white wire is from a sensor that monitors the house ‘demand’ and if high then ramps the charge rate down accordingly. That sensor is on the smart meter on the other side of that wall.

[StuBeeDoo]

So for the required power supply, do I understand correctly that a new cable has to run from the fuse board/circuit breaker directly to the charger?

That's what I was told by the installer I had round to assess my property. The main input fuse (it's fitted before the consumer unit a.k.a "fuse box") has to be at least 100amp, and it has to be installed by National Grid - who may, or may not, charge for the privilege. Also, the property has to be on its own individual feed from the grid, not via other properties.

[X5Sport]

Correct. Shared properties often have 65A joint feeds, some even less. You can fit a charger with a 65A fused house but you must limit the charger rate to stop everything going dark suddenly . If you have an electric oven, shower and kettle all on together that is (or could be) more than 80A. Add a charger at 32A and the main fuse goes. Hence all installs since last summer being mandated as ‘smart’ chargers only. It’s now illegal to even be supplied with a non-smart option for normal domestic use. The software has also to be able to take ‘reduce or disable’ commands from the National Grid via the internet, so the chargers are connected to cloud based services on-line.

Most houses (not flats/joint dwellings) from the 1990’s onwards are 100A. The main fuse is by your meter. When we had smart meters installed everything was upgraded and a new main switch installed at the same time, all free. We already had our own 100A feed.

Our charger installer told us the recommendation was to keep the EV circuit completely separate, add anti-surge and a Type B main circuit breaker. Most houses use Type A that cannot detect DC so won’t trip in the event of a ‘leak’ from the car.

It wasn’t a cheap job, costing just over £2k all in, including house wiring safety checks and earth bonding checks. The charger was about £800 of that as a 10m tethered charging cable was extra - 5m being ‘standard’.

You also have to tell your energy supplier you want to add an EV charger. They check that the wiring to your house can cope. It should be upgraded for free if needs be. The electrician did all the checks with the energy supplier who was fine with everything.

[sapphireblack]

Just as well I don't desire an EV then. That black cable exiting the bottom of the EV box is the one fed to the exterior connection point?.

In my property that simply isn't possible. I'd have to strip up engineered oak flooring, then start digging a trench in the dining room floor to the patio doors, then dig up my patio etc. Not going to happen even if it was all foc.

[X5Sport]

That’s the beastie, yes. Our wiring centre is in the airing cupboard with the meters the other side of the same wall. It goes down far enough to miss the meter box then out through that wall.

[sapphireblack]

Smart meter is about as far away as it could be from a desired EV point, should I have wanted such a facility. I'm rather pleased I don't

[Leslie]

Even if there was room in your garage I wouldn't fancy leaving the car charging overnight in there if its attached to the house , as these get older sooner or later a fault will develop and a fire is the likely outcome .