[ICS_UK]

This is how it looks for us in the UK and I expect the EU - USA may be different but gives you an idea what to expect

I thought I'd set a long trip into Europe, it takes a while to suggest a charging route and if you accept this it drops in charging stations (car range was 240 miles when I did this on my50)

To view them iDrive knob right and move up to Current route guidance where you can see the selected charging stations and get fuirther info on them (facilities etc.)
the charging times seem to reflect the available kW

Drivers that might have driven to Munich in the old days would probably head through Belgium to hit the German border to take advantage of the no speed limit Autobahns but I like this route French toll roads are great nobody on them as they cost a fortune

 

[corrente2022]

This is how it looks for us in the UK and I expect the EU - USA may be different but gives you an idea what to expect

I thought I'd set a long trip into Europe, it takes a while to suggest a charging route and if you accept this it drops in charging stations (car range was 240 miles when I did this on my50)

To view them iDrive knob right and move up to Current route guidance where you can see the selected charging stations and get fuirther info on them (facilities etc.)
the charging times seem to reflect the available kW

Drivers that might have driven to Munich in the old days would probably head through Belgium to hit the German border to take advantage of the no speed limit Autobahns but I like this route French toll roads are great nobody on them as they cost a fortune


View attachment 1575 View attachment 1576 View attachment 1578

That is very helpful. Thank you, as I am planning to pick up my IX50 in June in Idaho Falls and dive him 2000 miles through the country back home. I try to plan well.

 

[rotortalk]

That is super useful to know. I've done 2 trips to Spain recently (in an ICE car) and spent 90% of the journey thinking about how I would do it in my iX. I recorded each stop and plugged it all into a spreadsheet. I had read somewhere that the BMW software didn't do what you showed and was concerned, but I think the display you show listing the charge times is excellent.

Hopefully my next Spain trip will be with the iX!

 

[MASHMAN11]

This is how it looks for us in the UK and I expect the EU - USA may be different but gives you an idea what to expect

I thought I'd set a long trip into Europe, it takes a while to suggest a charging route and if you accept this it drops in charging stations (car range was 240 miles when I did this on my50)

To view them iDrive knob right and move up to Current route guidance where you can see the selected charging stations and get fuirther info on them (facilities etc.)
the charging times seem to reflect the available kW

Drivers that might have driven to Munich in the old days would probably head through Belgium to hit the German border to take advantage of the no speed limit Autobahns but I like this route French toll roads are great nobody on them as they cost a fortune


View attachment 1575 View attachment 1576 View attachment 1578

We've just completed a road trip from the UK (near Oxford) to Alpbach in Austria and back for a week skiing in our iX50. Yes, the iX in car route planner does recommend charging routes, however in parallel, we used the abetterrouteplanner.com (ABRP) website and app. I have to say I preferred ABRP.

The big advantage of the ABRP is that you can prioritise a charger network. In the UK a new BMW iX50 comes with 12 months Ionity & BP Pulse subscriptions. The Ionity network is superb. The chargers all work, they are incredibly fast (350kwh DC although the iX50 can 'only' handle 200kwh DC) and, with the BMW / Ionity subscription, it's about as cheap per kWh as it gets. The iX Sat Nav, however, recommends the nearest en-route fast chargers, as long as they accept the BMW Chargecard /app for payment. This often includes the Ionity chargers, but several times en-route the iX Sat Nav recommended other charging networks, even though there was an alternative Ionity charger within range. The difference in price was huge. We paid €0.29 per kWh for the Ionity chargers en-route and yet the other iX route selected chargers were at lease €0.78 per kWh (2.6 times the price).

We've received the BMW Chargecard invoice for the whole return trip. We plugged the ABRP recommended stops into the iX route planner and used the BMW chargecard exclusively for all our EV charging across UK, France, Belgium, Germany and Austria. We started with a 100% charge and returned with 25%+. The charging came to a grand total of just £221.70 GBP including VAT for the return trip. Road tolls added €9.20, as we mainly drove on the German autobahns (no speed limit is fun in the iX!) and then we had the Eurotunnel costs to get over the English Channel. The only non-Ionity Charger we used was in our ski resort (Alpbach). There we used the the local utility company's (TIWAG) on street charger and paid for it using the BMW chargecard/app. That charger was a 'slow' 22 kWh AC charger that the iX was able to pull 11kwh AC from. We charged the car the last evening for 5hrs to get us back up to 100% before the return trip. That was the most expensive individual charge (but very convenient for us). That individual charge was £14.56 (€17.44) for the 5 hrs (it was priced per hour, rather than per kWh) and is included in the £221.70 BWM Chargecard invoice. The return journey, plus a couple of trips the the hospital (opps), covered around 1,900 miles (3,060 km).

The road trip was a bit of an experiment for us in an EV (the iX is our first EV). I have to say I'd have no hesitation doing it again in the iX. What a fantastic car and we were very pleasantly surprised at how quickly the iX can actually charge in the real world.

The key to fast charging is a different mindset to having an ICE vehicle. I guess everyone that's got an EV quickly learns to start with a full charge on a long road trips and then push the journey until you're getting really low on charge, because the car charges so much quicker with an empty battery. Initially we started topping up when we were getting towards 20%, but on the return trip we had much more confidence in the predicted state of the iX's charge (both the iX and ABRP predictions), that we planned for stops when the iX was around 5%. I don't think we got below 9%, even when we planned to run down to 5%. The range predictions all seem to be a bit conservative, even though we were driving, let's say 'spiritedly'.

A couple of pics...
The last Ionity charge on the outboard trip in Angath, Austria

The 22 kWh AC on-street charger in Alpbach, Austria, before the trip home.

 

[corrente2022]

Really enjoyed reading this. As an EV newbee I am learning a lot from this and get some confidence that these kind of trips are doable. The majority of people surrounding me here declare me as very naive I guess, as I plan a 2000 mile trip through the US in the IX50. There is a lot of resistance against e mobility either because they love their 8 cylinder ICE and/or declare climate change as a hoax anyway and/or electricity is made from coal and/or batteries can not be recycled. But mostly the mindset 'it can not be true, what I don't want to be true'. My car says 'production begins' already for a week now. Hopefully it will be here in June. Can't wait.

 

[ICS_UK]

We've just completed a road trip from the UK (near Oxford) to Alpbach in Austria and back for a week skiing in our iX50. Yes, the iX in car route planner does recommend charging routes, however in parallel, we used the abetterrouteplanner.com (ABRP) website and app. I have to say I preferred ABRP.

The big advantage of the ABRP is that you can prioritise a charger network. In the UK a new BMW iX50 comes with 12 months Ionity & BP Pulse subscriptions. The Ionity network is superb. The chargers all work, they are incredibly fast (350kwh DC although the iX50 can 'only' handle 200kwh DC) and, with the BMW / Ionity subscription, it's about as cheap per kWh as it gets. The iX Sat Nav, however, recommends the nearest en-route fast chargers, as long as they accept the BMW Chargecard /app for payment. This often includes the Ionity chargers, but several times en-route the iX Sat Nav recommended other charging networks, even though there was an alternative Ionity charger within range. The difference in price was huge. We paid €0.29 per kWh for the Ionity chargers en-route and yet the other iX route selected chargers were at lease €0.78 per kWh (2.6 times the price).

Thats great feedback - did you add the actual chargers into the BMW navigation so it should precondition the battery for charging, was there any indication of battery preconditioning?
I'm finding the iX not to be very communicative

 

[MASHMAN11]

Really enjoyed reading this. As an EV newbee I am learning a lot from this and get some confidence that these kind of trips are doable. The majority of people surrounding me here declare me as very naive I guess, as I plan a 2000 mile trip through the US in the IX50. There is a lot of resistance against e mobility either because they love their 8 cylinder ICE and/or declare climate change as a hoax anyway and/or electricity is made from coal and/or batteries can not be recycled. But mostly the mindset 'it can not be true, what I don't want to be true'. My car says 'production begins' already for a week now. Hopefully it will be here in June. Can't wait.

Have a play on the abetterrouteplanner website. I’m pretty sure it does route planning in North America and there are beta settings for the iX40 & iX50.

There’s a balancing act between minimising the number of recharges you stop for & how long that ends up taking. In my experience the iX50 can take 195kwh+ until it gets to about 50% charge and then reduces down to about 100kwh until about 80% charge and the drops right off. The last 95-100% is really slow & takes about the same amount of time as it does from say 5-55%. Some of our stops were 15 mins, which were barely enough to to visit the toilets & grab a coffee. In that time we could charge from say 10% - 60%. If we wanted to charge to 100% it would have taken us 1.5hours. In that time we could have made many more smaller stops. For us the best pattern was drive for a couple of hours, stop for 15-20 min, stop a bit longer for lunch and then repeat in the afternoon. Overnight you have the luxury of time and you can charge back up to 100%.

If you want to do a bit of advanced planning, I’d start by taking a look at what the the whole journey would look like non-stop. That’ll be worst case scenario time wise. Then work out how many overnight stops you’re likely to take & where you want to take them. Overnight it doesn’t matter how long you take to charge. I then created plans for each segment & just pulled them up for in the app for live route planning.

 

[MASHMAN11]

Thats great feedback - did you add the actual chargers into the BMW navigation so it should precondition the battery for charging, was there any indication of battery preconditioning?
I'm finding the iX not to be very communicative

Thanks. Yes, I added the chargers to the BMW sat nav & worked from there. I’ve no idea whether the iX preconditions the battery ready for charge. I’ve not seen anything about that, but am aware that the Tesla’s do that with their route planner. I’d be intrigued whether the iX preconditions ready for fast charging.

 

[rotortalk]

Yes, I added the chargers to the BMW sat nav & worked from there

Did you do that by adding a waypoint for those chargers or is there a special function in the Sat Nav to add charge stops?

 

[ICS_UK]

Thanks. Yes, I added the chargers to the BMW sat nav & worked from there. I’ve no idea whether the iX preconditions the battery ready for charge. I’ve not seen anything about that, but am aware that the Tesla’s do that with their route planner. I’d be intrigued whether the iX preconditions ready for fast charging.

From a press release last year

The integrated heating and cooling system also ensures optimal
temperature control for the high-voltage battery in highly dynamic
driving situations with high power requirements and when rapidcharging
from a DC charging station. If the navigation system’s route
guidance function is active and has scheduled a mid-journey stop for the
BMW iX at a fast-charging station, anticipatory thermal management
will automatically pre-condition the battery beforehand. Warming up the
high-voltage battery or cooling it down as appropriate means it will be
at the optimum temperature for quick and efficient charging at maximum
capacity upon arrival at the charging station. Thermal management
takes a number of factors into account here, including current battery
temperature, remaining range, the predicted charging rate and the
amount of charging planned as part of the overall route calculation

 

[MASHMAN11]

Did you do that by adding a waypoint for those chargers or is there a special function in the Sat Nav to add charge stops?

No, I searched manually and added them as intermin destinations. In the iX Sat Nav I searched for IONITY & the name of the nearest town. The Sat Nav seemed to find them.

 

[rotortalk]

That is super interesting. I wonder if it recognises them as chargers and pre-conditions the battery or if it just thinks of it as a stop. Either way, great post.

 

[ICS_UK]

That is super interesting. I wonder if it recognises them as chargers and pre-conditions the battery or if it just thinks of it as a stop. Either way, great post.

It does see them as chargers when I've tried it so hopefully it will pre-condition the battery I suppose if you get a high charge rate it would indicate its done it

 

[MASHMAN11]

From a press release last year

The integrated heating and cooling system also ensures optimal
temperature control for the high-voltage battery in highly dynamic
driving situations with high power requirements and when rapidcharging
from a DC charging station. If the navigation system’s route
guidance function is active and has scheduled a mid-journey stop for the
BMW iX at a fast-charging station, anticipatory thermal management
will automatically pre-condition the battery beforehand. Warming up the
high-voltage battery or cooling it down as appropriate means it will be
at the optimum temperature for quick and efficient charging at maximum
capacity upon arrival at the charging station. Thermal management
takes a number of factors into account here, including current battery
temperature, remaining range, the predicted charging rate and the
amount of charging planned as part of the overall route calculation

Oh fab - that makes sense, thanks.

There were a couple of times I didn’t put the IONITY charger in the Sat Nav as an interim destination & it didn’t immediately start charging at at 200kwh. It was more like 150kwh & then built up from there & then back down again as it charged. My gut reaction is that preconditioning must have been enabled by manually putting the EV chargers in as interim destinations, but I can’t be completely certain, as I wasn’t aware of preconditioning & therefore wasn’t looking for it!

If we could get all of the ABRP functionality into the BMW ecosystem, or if BMW opened up their interfaces to third parties, we might get a fully integrated solution. I’m happy enough with the workaround for now. The extra effort is helping me understand how everything relates, but I’m sure I’ll be bored of the extra effort shortly.

 

[MASHMAN11]

Really enjoyed reading this. As an EV newbee I am learning a lot from this and get some confidence that these kind of trips are doable. The majority of people surrounding me here declare me as very naive I guess, as I plan a 2000 mile trip through the US in the IX50. There is a lot of resistance against e mobility either because they love their 8 cylinder ICE and/or declare climate change as a hoax anyway and/or electricity is made from coal and/or batteries can not be recycled. But mostly the mindset 'it can not be true, what I don't want to be true'. My car says 'production begins' already for a week now. Hopefully it will be here in June. Can't wait.

We’ve had a couple of BMW X5s over the recent years, before upgrading to the iX and my other car is an Aston Martin Vantage, so I get the petrolhead mentality. Since getting the iX in late December, I’ve only taken the Aston Martin out a couple of times. The iX50 is an amazing car. It’ll never beat the Vantage on good looks, the sound track or spirited driving fun, but it’s telling that I go for the iX keys most often these days!

 

[corrente2022]

Will definitely follow your advice about the better route planer. Makes a lot of sense to me. I had started my tour planing already in the suggested way, but your Info about your experience of driving for 2 hours - charging while stretching and having a coffee is priceless. Your journey from your home to Alpbach will be my template for my trip from Idaho Falls to Atlanta. Thank you very much again.

 

[corrente2022]

Ah, and no doubt regarding the spirited driving fun which is not comparable. People here call a large SAV truck anyway and to search for the kind of fun of a sports car in a truck is probably not very successful.

 

[hans.olbrecht]

This is how it looks for us in the UK and I expect the EU - USA may be different but gives you an idea what to expect

I thought I'd set a long trip into Europe, it takes a while to suggest a charging route and if you accept this it drops in charging stations (car range was 240 miles when I did this on my50)

To view them iDrive knob right and move up to Current route guidance where you can see the selected charging stations and get fuirther info on them (facilities etc.)
the charging times seem to reflect the available kW

Drivers that might have driven to Munich in the old days would probably head through Belgium to hit the German border to take advantage of the no speed limit Autobahns but I like this route French toll roads are great nobody on them as they cost a fortune


View attachment 1575 View attachment 1576 View attachment 1578

What I noticed is the long charging times proposed by the iX and confirmed by my colleagues driving a iX3. If you use a better route planner, the charging times are shorter and the vehicle is charged up to 50 to 70% of his battery capacity (to gain charge speed as it drops fast above 60%). The number of stops are increasing of course.
To what % is the navigation system is estimating the charge at each charging point?

 

[MASHMAN11]

What I noticed is the long charging times proposed by the iX and confirmed by my colleagues driving a iX3. If you use a better route planner, the charging times are shorter and the vehicle is charged up to 50 to 70% of his battery capacity (to gain charge speed as it drops fast above 60%). The number of stops are
increasing of course.
To what % is the navigation system is estimating the charge at each charging point?

In the ABRP app you can choose your your preferred charging strategy in the preferences with a slider that goes between ‘fewer stops’ via ‘quickest arrival’ to ‘shorter legs’. Quickest arrival was the option we went for on our trip. The algorithm seemed to work well, if a little conservative.

 

[LR lover]

Added bonus is that it works with Car Play. 🏆