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Took delivery Aug 1
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Sure thing.
I will preface by saying I come from 4 years with a Tesla Model 3
Direct comparison as an owner
Going on my first "road trip" of sorts and going to put on about 300mi of driving this weekend where L3 EA (and maybe EVgo) will be a necessity rather than an experiment.
I will preface by saying I come from 4 years with a Tesla Model 3
Direct comparison as an owner
- Highway noise level difference is nothing short of astonishing. 75mph++ in iX is quieter than 50mph in Model 3
- Suspension is amazing
- Front & back seat space&comfort is worlds apart
- Ventilated/massage seat & much better cooling in 90F+ heat than in Model 3
- Same 0-60 as my Model 3 LR & handles very well, especially for size, with rear wheel steering
- Actual dashboard + HUD is a welcome change
- Highway assist features better than Autopilot with the phantom brakes, random speed blips, weird HOV behavior, unpredictable follow distance and erratic throttle-brake in stop&go traffic.
- L2 charging has been great, will test out L3 on Electrify America this week.
- L3 charging with Electrify America worked on my first try, though not plug&charge (had to use iPhone tap with EA card)
- Efficiency is incredible, it meets or beats its rated mileage range for me most of the time - getting ~360mi highway range
- Parking cameras & 3D view are awesome in underground parking, home garage, and entry to narrow driveways
- No phantom braking
- Less "hesitation"
- More consistent following distances
- Smoother acceleration & braking
- MUCH better creeping & coasting in slow stop&go traffic
- Lane changes worked well
- Better handling of lane width changes for things like HOV merge lanes
- More pleasant "alert driver" noise when it wants your attention than Autopilot
- I like that you can also take over steering and then hand it back to automatic control easily
- Similar for accelerating through the speed management to pass an adjacent car, etc.. (Tesla would hard brake against you often as you let go of accelerator)
- Hands free under 45mph is a nice novelty but not key
- Haven't tried CarPlay
- Haven't tried parking assist or tweaked the parking modes
- I don't really trust these generally... either too slow to be useful, or need to supervise so they don't curb
- Takes getting used to the way the car accelerates for you when exiting parking spots
- I do like it as comparison to Tesla where sometimes with one-pedal driving the parking felt finnicky
- Unclear how to replicate the Tesla Sentry Mode experience if I need to wire in a battery-backed Dashcam
- Debating mounting my radar detector or not
- Have the roof rack rails & still need to install them (probably next week)
- Not gotten digital key to work with iPhone 13, have tried about 4 times
- Weird component protection error on first day that seems to have been related to sub-trunk hatch not being fully closed, dealer had no idea (and took 24 hours to return my call)
- The charger finding experience in the BMW map is suboptimal if you come from Tesla
- There's not a great map view where you can see all the chargers along the route and then re-route to / add as waypoint
- I ended up with a sticky note of charger locations and then searching for them by name in GPS
- You can see a list of chargers but its straight line distance sorted based on current location
- This was great when it showed me a bunch of chargers on the other side of the Long Island Sound
Going on my first "road trip" of sorts and going to put on about 300mi of driving this weekend where L3 EA (and maybe EVgo) will be a necessity rather than an experiment.
Road trip feedback:
- Driving Assist Pro is fantastic, had maybe 3 disengagements in 7 hours of driving
- by comparison a good Tesla Autopilot drive was probably 3 disengagements per hour
- Range continues to impress - did about 350mi drive,
- Started with 85% charge, +20min (+41%) charging on way back, got home at 17% (=109% battery)
- On paper this is a 324mi range car so 109% is 353mi.. which is almost exactly what I drove
- Note for ~2.5 hours, driving 80~85mph burning off range more quickly, still managed to achieve rating
- At 75mph and below I exceed range
- Charging UX in car is bad bad bad
- I cannot find a good way to add a logical on-the-way charger as a waypoint
- The charger list view is useless, and the map view shows even L2 chargers & gas stations..
- EA charging experience so far has worked 100%
- I just wish plug&charge worked or the EA app was better to make up for car UX
- This is an extremely comfortable road tripping car
- Great seats, little road noise even at speed, smooth suspension, great audio system, lots of leg room
Week 6 review continues:
- Roof rails install was easy enough, but you get wind whistle above 55mph..
- installed some pads for my SUP board, now the noise kicks in closer to 70-75mph but its a lower frequency wind noise, will remove rails for off-season soon
- Unloaded rails don't seem to have much of a measurable impact on range, my last standard 85mile highway route came out to basically same average consumption of last 5 trips
- L2 charging continues to be my main method, using TeslaTap in my city parking garage without issue
- Remote camera viewing is cool
- Can check surrounding of my car & get 3D view
- Resolution is vastly better than the remote Sentry mode viewing on my Tesla Model 3
Please post photos with the rails. And also any observations on increased noise. Thanks.View attachment 2179
Got the trunk liner installed.. will put the roof rails up in next week or two !
Got about 150mi on it so far, very happy!
I will say the noise level is enough that I am removing them in the next week or two for the off-season until June.
The rails alone whistle around 55mph, and putting pads on for the boards shifts that upwards to more 65-70mph.. but the bigger pads produce a low frequency thudding/wind buffering noise at 70-75mph, which is also unpleasant.
Considering how dead silent this car's cabin is on the road at serious highway speeds, the added noise is noticeable and something I won't want to deal with for 9 months of the year if I don't have to. For me this will likely be a summer-only accessory.
I think some 3rd parties like Thule may be making rails now, maybe they are more low-profile or aero?
The rails alone whistle around 55mph, and putting pads on for the boards shifts that upwards to more 65-70mph.. but the bigger pads produce a low frequency thudding/wind buffering noise at 70-75mph, which is also unpleasant.
Considering how dead silent this car's cabin is on the road at serious highway speeds, the added noise is noticeable and something I won't want to deal with for 9 months of the year if I don't have to. For me this will likely be a summer-only accessory.
I think some 3rd parties like Thule may be making rails now, maybe they are more low-profile or aero?
Thanks for your valuable feedback,... also looking forward to mine... still a couple of months of wait though.
Just a comment about the gps, listing of chargers. I believe there should be an option/filter to change from "sort by distance" to only show chargers along your route.
Have not tried that by myself, but that is how it is working with gas stations on my G20 3series and all other BMWs I know.
Just a comment about the gps, listing of chargers. I believe there should be an option/filter to change from "sort by distance" to only show chargers along your route.
Have not tried that by myself, but that is how it is working with gas stations on my G20 3series and all other BMWs I know.
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