BMW I3 Owner Confronted with $71,000 Bill to Replace EV Battery
carbuzz.com
carbuzz.com
Before purchasing, I had the exact same concerns as raised in this article. Here is what I found out:
- California mandates that PZEV certified vehicles be covered for 15 years/ 150k miles for all emissions related parts (i.e. the range extender engine).
- For batteries or energy storage devices of vehicles certified to the Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle (PZEV) emissions standard, they must be covered for 10 years or 150,000 miles, whichever comes first.
The i3 REX happens to fall into this PZEV category and so I've great warranty coverage. If the battery drops below 70% or outright fails, its fixed free of charge within this time frame.
This owner hadn't purchased an i3 with the Range Extender option - if they did however, they could move their car registration to CA and would get this repair for free. The warranty for BMW vehicles post 2011 is on the state a vehicle is registered in, not the state a vehicle was originally imported or last sold in.
However, cells need careful soldering, and the BMS must be working properly to prevent overcharging and overheating. Mistakes can cause nasty and expensive fires, so it's not a DIY job for anybody.
It is stupidly easy to use a spot welder to put together a pack without damaging the cells compared to soldering without damaging.
The idea is not even that you yourself are going to replace it, its more for shops with equipment and skills to order individual cells, put together battery packs, and then just replace them in cars without worrying about compatibility.
The high voltage ranges are different between AC and DC, with AC being lower than DC range due to the higher risk.
- You need to do a refrigerant evacuation and use appropriate compressor oil.
- You might need certification for handling a 400v battery.
- There's a special BMW tool for the BMS.
You might want certification to stay alive, but again, tons of diys are making due on Chevy volts.
I once had a gig where I was told to go directly to the airport. They booked one of the nicest hotels, nicest flights, half way around the world and charged them a small fortune for me to show them they ate an Exception. Apparently our company had really tried to say no, and charged them an unholy amount of money... and they still said yes.
Anyone on the fence about purchasing a BEV, a headline like this doesn't bode well.
I say this only half jokingly.
Ergo (so the folk knowledge goes), their cars are engineered for a short-term market. Amazingly reliable and fun in the designed for lifetime, after that, it's in God's hands.
I have no idea how true that is, but it feels kinda truth adjacent, from my compassionate listening to owners of secondhand BMWs.
Oh, and apparently, there's a bit of a European car part cartel in my country, so spares are even more expensive than they already are.
I've never had to deal in urban folklore when owning Toyotas though.
Live in Central Europe. Most of the people we know either own their cars outright or take public transportation.
Many companies north of the border (Germany) offer company cars as an incentive, which iirc are leased, but these eventually hit the resale market as one year or CPO vehicles.
Most cars also have a fairly long anti-corrosion warranty.
That said, reliability issues were more a matter of 1. US style cost cutting (remember Daimler Chrysler?) 2. getting caught by surprise by the horse power wars of the naughts and early teens. Engines and associated parts were rushed to market without proper testing.
These issues have largely been reversed. Modern BMWs are almost/as reliable as Japanese manufacturers while MB is starting to close the gap.
Sadly, yes. “In the phrase ‘Daimler-Chrysler’, the Daimler is silent.”
Chrysler knew they were toast. They either had to be bought out, mortgage everything for massive capital investment (which is what Ford did), or eventually go under.
Meanwhile, Daimler executives wanted a way to get American compensation. A ‘merger’ that would turn them into an ‘American’ company was their preferred option.
Of course, the Chrysler executive team was eventually shown the exit, the company was run from Germany, and it turned out that Daimler’s leadership was making a number of other major mistakes (this is around the time when reliability went down hill, and it had nothing to do with Chrysler).
Now that I coat everything underneath with Woolwax I'm seeing much less rust, but still something you have to stay on top of.
Normal driving results in tiny rock chips over enough miles and all it takes is the tiniest chip for the corrosion to take hold. Super common above the rear wheel wells, at least in my area. Under body corrosion is pretty inevitable as well because it isn't painted, and even if it were it still takes a lot of abuse from road debris. Coating can help significantly (Fluid Film, Woolwax, etc) but you can't coat everything 100% so it still happens.
Charging network still is bad. Many stations are broken but appear working in what I have seen driving with a friend who has an EV or looking up station reviews. They didn’t need to charge but wanted to because of little time at home or hotel.
There's work I can do, but hate to, and if you asked me for a quote, I'd probably quote you $1000/hour (and pray you say no)
Here's a made-up example: • A standard battery should be 28 inches by 18 inches by 6 inches. The battery screws in with 4x 12mm bolts at the corners. • The voltage across 2 terminals can vary between 200 V and 400 V DC, but one battery can function in a smaller range (e.g., 250 V to 400 V.) • Signaling is done by a variant of CANBUS tunneled through Ethernet using automotive Cat 6 connectors. • Multiple batteries can be connected in series, even if they have different battery chemistries. • It is OK to have a battery or capacitor bank connected into the terminals through DC/DC converters. This allows capacitor banks to be used efficiently. • Each battery is responsible for disconnecting itself from the voltage bus if it senses a wrong voltage or current. That means if a charged battery is plugged into a vehicle with a discharged battery in it, there is no arcing. The new battery stays disconnected until the 2 batteries are close enough in voltage to let them safely connect in parallel.
A standard for battery busses would make it much easier to build electric cars because there would be no need to reinvent the battery pack for every new car.
A standard for batteries would facilitate competition and lower the cost if building, buying, and maintaining EVs.
Compare that to taking Tesla itself to court.