Blog Closed

Sorry Folks ...As you can see from the fact that I haven't posted in about 2 years, but my time is limited and I've decided to stop posting to this blog.  I'll keep it online for anyone to learn from. 

Enjoy!

My BMW i3

Day 1 with the BMW i3

So...remember when I reviewed the BMW i3 with high hopes and thought that it wasn't going to work for me?  Yeah....so after blog post I went along my merry way.  But after the summer, I had taken note that we really didn't take the kids in the ole' Prius much.  Like, much at all.  And then came the day when we decided to turn the kids car seats around.  Oh...how much easier it is to get the little ones in and out of the car seats.

At that point, I decided that maybe I'll take a sneak peak at what's going on.  And then an opportunity came along at a local dealer with a certified pre-owned (CPO) i3 ReX.  It wasn't the PERFECT car I wanted (not all the bells-n-whistles), but you know what?  It was also going for $35k.  After talking them down on price and getting a good trade in value for the Prius (with 120k miles), I ended up getting it for $28k.  I'll take that versus the MSRP of $50k (call it $40k realistic after $7.5k tax credit).

Charging at the Light Rail Station

So, yup...I now have a BMW i3 ReX.  I have not used the ReX at all in about 1,000 miles.  The ReX has turned on twice for "maintenance mode" where it runs for a couple minutes.  But that's it.  I still have the same tank of gas in it when I got the car (just before Halloween 2015).

How does it work with the twins?  Great!  I was all worried about the stroller in my first review.  However, I've never loaded the stroller into the car since I've got it.  For that matter, the kids are almost NEVER in the stroller anyway.  They want to walk/run everywhere (the life of toddlers).  When i do I 'haul' them around, they are in the jogging stroller when I go running the neighborhood.  Or I pull them in the wagon if we just go for a walk.  And they now have scooters now, which they like to ride on.

As for the car seats...they are front facing now.  So when I put them in the car, I just lean the front seat forward and I have a ton of space to get them in.  Costco runs?  I took it last week to buy some pull-ups for the kids and I could put that stuff in the back just fine.  If we went for a 'major' visit it wouldn't work.  But I'd concede that to the Mazda5.   And the kids travel in the car just about every weekend trip (unless we have a planned 'big visit' where we need the Mz5).  Also they are in it every Wednesday when I drop them off at my in-laws.  No issues.

Car seats in the back seats

For about the first 2 months, I just charged using a 120V outlet.  That was SLOW, but it worked overnight.  And for the most part, I treat my car more like my cell phone than a gas vehicle.  I just charge it overnight whenever i need to.  Sometimes its every night.  Sometimes not.  I did just install a 240V charger, a Juicebox Pro 40amp.  The EVSE cost me about $600 while the install was $2,100.  Yes, $2,100 is expensive, but my breaker box is far away and it was completely FULL...so I needed a new 100 amp service box.   And I decided to put in a central location in case my wife gets an electric vehicle someday.  That was only $300 more to do, but I wanted to 'think ahead'.  Note that I get a 30% tax credit for the installation, so I'll get ~$800 back.

My JuiceBox Pro 40amp charger

I will say the 'Preconditioning feature' is quite nice on these cold winter days.  I've a scrooge with the heat because I (intentionally) want to maximize my miles/kWh.  Its a game to me.  When the kids/wife are in the car, I'll turn on the heat/cooling.  But when it's myself I get stingey.

I still haven't done a major trip with the car.  I did try to push the car over a week where I got to about 90 miles on all-electric.  And I still had another dozen miles on the car.   Someday I'll try it for a trip to Raleigh (180 miles) or Asheville (140 miles).   That trip just needs to come up and I'll try it out for the 'long haul'.

A view of the trip computer for one trip.  

  So how much energy have I been using?  Below is the data from my JuiceBox since I installed it.  Yes, a couple of those 14 kWh days adds a lot to my energy load (I'm assuming you've read any of my other posts), but at the same time: electricity is equivalent to about $1.14/gallon of gas.  So even at the ridiculously low gas prices these days (I saw $1.55 in SC the other day), its still cheaper.  So yeah, nothing wrong with saving a little money while I'm at it, right?

 

I'm a Slacker....here's a Recap from April...

Per the title...I've been a HUGE slacker.  I haven't updated my blog since April...yes, that's APRIL.  I could easily blame this on the kids (any takers?), but in reality it only takes me 30 min to write a blog post so I really have no good excuse.  Please forgive me...

So...now that I've got that out of the way...here's a recap of what has happened since April 2015.

1)  Generally speaking my electricity usage has stayed within my new 'Normal' Range.  I've had my ups and downs...seasonally mostly, but there has been some hiccups, such as when my water heater decided broke again and needed new temperature sensors.    I posted a table below.  Yes, May to June looks bad, but Summer 'came early'.   Compare that to December where is was a crazy 70F over Christmas.   And from Halloween on, there's Energy associated with car charging included.

2)  My electricity usage will be higher from late October on because I bit the bullet and bought myself an electric car:  a BMW i3.  A separate blog will detail that.

3)  I will be installing a Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV).  Getting back from a short vacation, the air is soooo stale.  And I keep getting these bad allergies in the late fall/early winter which I've never gotten before.  Looking back at my last energy audit my house is very tight....like way below ASHRAE standards for needing mechanical ventilation.  So I'm going to remedy that and that'll hopefully significantly improve IAQ (indoor air quality).

4)  If I were to look forward at my future projects...they will be these two:

      a)  Replace my doors.  It is a chilly 16F this AM and I know that all my doors leak air.  They are just old.  And no matter how often I change out the door sweeps (which get destroyed in <1 year probably because they are made for modern doors and not these), I can still feel cold air.  Shoot my patio door threshold had FROST on it this AM.  At a minimum I'll replace 3 doors:  Patio door to the screened in porch; Door to the Deck; and Door to the Garage.  My front door is my least 'offender'.  And I think I can just install a good sealing Storm Door to minimize that further.  

    b)  Replace my windows.  I know a couple leak.  Shoot, I shrink wrapped my Master Bathroom window as a test and the other day, while it was windy, I watched the shrink wrap expand and contrast with the wind.  So, yeah, that window leaks.  I'll most likely try to do this systematically.  I just have to figure out if I'm going to do this myself or 'farm it out'.  I just had a poor experience with a window sales company that I'll save you from hearing (key point:  LISTEN to your customer.  If you do this...you'll look less like pushy sales people).  And replacing a window really isn't all that hard...at least that's what Youtube seems to show.   I'm going to choose a window that is pretty easy to get to first and then replace that window myself this Spring to determine how tough it is.  And then I'll figure it out form there.

Anyhow, below is a table of my energy usage data since April 2015.

  

Bill Period	Bill Date	kWh Used	kWh/d	Bill	Compared to last year
Mar 1 to Apr 1	4/18/2015	757	24.42	87.43	18.51%
Apr1 to May 1	5/18/2015	456	15.20	59.29	-18.44%
May 1 to Jun 1	6/18/2015	801	25.84	96.95	-119.45%
Jun 1 to Jul 1	7/18/2015	873	29.10	103.5	-42.41%
Jul 1 to Aug 1	8/18/2015	841	27.13	100.19	-40.17%
Aug 1 to Sept 1	9/18/2015	701	22.61	85.79	-33.52%
Sept 1 to Oct 1	10/18/2015	615	20.50	74.47	-9.24%
Oct 1 to Nov 1	11/18/2015	778	25.10	89.75	-52.55%
Nov 1 to Dec 1	12/18/2015	934	31.13	104.37	22.30%

MY FIRST NET ZERO ENERGY DAY!

In red shows my net zero day

As you can tell from my ALL-CAPS title, I'm a little excited by this.  I've had my solar panels for over a year now and I've never come close...although I really didn't expect it.  So why now?  Well, my wife and I were away in Charleston attending the Cooper River Bridge Run.  The thermostats were in vacation mode, so the house wasn't being heated so that helps.  And without water usage, the water heater didn't need to operate (maybe a little, probably).  So really, the only operating were my normal household loads (HTPC, fridge, freezer, kegerator, clocks, etc).  And apparently it was a nice sunny day (as seen in the pic below) where we got a great amount of solar generation.

Hourly power consumption for the Net zero day.  

Looking at my TED5000 data, my empty house consumed 9.9 kWh, while the solar panels generated 10.6 kWh.  Yes, this doesn't add up t the -0.6 kWh shown, but I'm guessing there's some rounding going on that we can't see unless I download the full data (which should be in watts, not kW).

Still...I'll take a Net Zero Energy Day...well, TECHNICALLY a Net POSITIVE Energy day...

No more water heater woes!

No more ~5kW instantaneous jumps means the water heater is finally running correctly

So, my water heater woes appear to have finally ceased.  Last Friday, the GE repair guys (thanks Jeremy!) showed up and dismantled my Geospring to remove and recharge the refrigerant.  A new error code had appeared (F1) when I opened up the crawl space before their arrival.

From what Jeremy (GE repair tech) explained, there was a chance that the amount of refrigerant was either too much or too little in my unit when they had repaired it last.  Of course, it could also mean that there is a refrigerant leak within the compressor which CANNOT be fixed.  Only time will tell on that one which means I'll be watching this system closely.   But it's nice to see the system working correctly now.  Per the pic above from our usual AM shower activities, notice how there isn't a large jump in the power usage to indicate the electric elements turning on.  For reference, below is an older pic showing the large jumps.  

Before the fix. Notice the large jumps in power usage indicated the water heater elements turning on.

 


 

  

UPDATE: Water Heater Woes Continued...

Temperature in the Crawl Space from last night: next to the Geospring and the crawl space door (Bottom Value=56.1F)

Continuing on from my current discussion, so I'm been watching the Geospring to see if Friday's fix of the control board has worked.  Well, my skepticism has been right.  This AM, I checked the TED5000 and it appears the Geospring is still not operating correctly.  And I know its got nothing to do with the temperature in the crawl space because that's fine...and this AM it was  a nice 47F outside while the crawl space was at least 56F.  The graphs below show the AM routine with showers and such.  You can easily see the electric elements on the water heater turning on (a healthy ~5kW) 3 times over this morning for showers.  The 3rd time is when my wife cleaned the dishes in the sink.

Morning Energy Consumption.  The first big jump and 10-min plateau is the water heater running for my wife's shower.  The second is my my shower (with the 'thorn' on top for my wife's  hair dryer).  The third...well, I'm not sure.  Laundry?

Below is a closeup of the 3rd jump.  What I find a little odd is the "noise" on the graph (the jumping up/down).  That's kind of unusual.  Just look at the data before and notice that the data is very smooth.  And after is a little "rough" also.  Thinking about this...that's got to be the clothes washer.  I'm guessing it must be that little bit of "juice" to keep the drum moving.  Neat, huh?

Closeup of the 3rd turn on of the water heater electric elements.  

Since I can't zoom or change the scale on these graphs, I downloaded the raw data from TED and opened it up in Excel to graph.  The results are below so you can easily see the "noise" from the clothes washer.

Excel Plot of the clothes washer "Noise"  Lots of ups and downs.  

Anyhow, regardless of what the clothes washer is doing, I'm still a little peeved about my water heater still not operating correctly.  It should be running the heat pump exclusively.

Reminder of the weather station next to the water heater with the water heater set to "Heat Pump Only"

Well, I guess I'll get the *joy* of calling GE again and hopefully this time I won't get the rude person who's trying to tell me I'm wrong and I don't understand how the water heater works...along with the threat that I'll have to pay for the service "when they find there's nothing wrong".   If I'm wrong, I'll gladly blog about it and apologize.  Until that happens...which it hasn't to date...

Water Heater Woes Continues...

OK...so recall a little while ago (cue the Scooby-Doo music and squiggly lines), I was having some issues with my GE Geospring Heat Pump Water Heater.  Well on Friday last week, the back-ordered control board finally arrive and week later (yesterday), the GE repair guys showed up and installed it.  As a fun note, the water heater was showing the dreaded "FC/F14" (failed compressor) error when I opened up the crawl space before the guys arrived.

Well, go figure, today I'm getting ready to feed the dog while my wife was showering and I noticed on the energy monitor that the energy usage was sky-high.  Well, what the heck!  I checked and the downstairs heat was on...OK...that's about 2.5 kW (Stage 2).  The upstairs heat was not on.  And then while looking around I heard her hair dryer come on...that's about 1.5kW.  So I checked TED and this is what I saw the following:

Morning Power Usage.  The ~2.5kW is the heat.  The final blip is a hair dryer.  The big jump is the water heater.

 Huh...there' a huge roughly 5kW jump...so the electric element is on the water heater again!  WTH?!?  Didn't those guys fix that yesterday?!?

Well, at this point I can't do any more investigation because I needed to cook breakfast for the family. In case you're wondering, it was waffles.  And yes, they were awesome.

So after cooking and cleaning up I checked on the water heater.  While doing dishes, I did run over to the corner of the house and listen and I could hear the heat pump working.  Well that's good!

After I had finished cleaning, everything I checked the power monitor and *$%&$%, the electric heating element was on again!  Well, now I was free to check on everything.  Below is my series of pictures where I made sure everything was off.  There was no heat on, upstairs or downstairs.  The dryer wasn't running.  We weren't cooking or baking.  And nothing else was running (fridge, freezer, kegerator).  I also checked the temperature in the crawl space...and it was a healthy 59F.

TED5000 showing my energy usage

Temperatures.  Upper is Indoor.  Lower is Crawl Space.  Ignore the time, I've never set it.

Downstairs heat is not running.

Upstairs heat is not running either

Geospring showing it in Heat Pump Only Mode.

While down in the crawl space checking the water heater and taking the above picture you could hear the a click which I'm guessing was the electric elements turning off.  I verified it with the below pictures...

Yup, all heating (air and water) is off. 

Below is the TED screenshot.  You can see the event described earlier (~6:30am) with the hair dryer peak.  And then there's cooking breakfast followed by doing the dishes.  Then everything turns off while we eat followed by the final water heater peak when I was doing this investigation.

TED5000 energy monitor

So I'm going to try an experiment.  I relocated my weather monitor right next to the Geospring.  Not to say it was much further away...maybe 10-15-ft, but now it's only about 1-ft away.  And it is also right next to the crawl space door.  This should be the coldest it should ever read, if for some reason, air is getting through the insulated and weatherstripped door.  It happens, so I'm trying to give it the benefit of the doubt although one would think that if it were significant enough, I'd see huge fluctuation in the temperature in my entire crawl space...which I do not see.

Geospring with the weather (temp/humidity) monitor now located beside the water heater.  The door is about 3-ft away.

Looking at the monitor now, it is showing a lower temperature...53F instead of 59F.  Then again, I did just have the crawl space door open while I went inside to grab the weather station, then move it over and position it (it didn't want to stand up so I had to put it on its side), and then take the picture.  And even with that, it's still nearly 8F higher than the minimum temp.  So I'm overly surprised that the temperature it lower. 

Either way, I'm going leave this here for a while to see if the temperature drops to below the 45F threshold where it overrides the heat pump and goes to electric.  I *highly* doubt this is the case, but I can at least rule it out.  I'll keep y'all posted.  Otherwise, I guess I'll have to call GE repair again to get them over to figure out why this thing keeps running the electric heat. 

Nov/Dec Duke Energy Bill

I've been slacking a bit on posting my energy usage as I'm hoping to use Groovestream to upload my stuff automatically.  Still working on it so stay tuned.

My Nov and December bill results are posted below.  November (Oct 1 to Nov 1) wasn't too bad, but December (Nov 1 to Dec 1)...wow...I blew that out of the water using 50% more than last year.

November 2014 Daily Energy Consumption.  Note around the 16th how my energy usage significantly increases.

November Bill (Oct 2 to Nov 2) 2013
Total Consumption = 651 kWh
Days = 31
Average Daily Consumption = 21.0 kWh/day
Bill = $64.02

November Bill (Oct 1 to Nov 1) 2014
Total Consumption = 510 kWh
Days = 31
Average Daily Consumption = 16.45 kWh/day   (21.66% reduction vs 2013)
Bill = $63.14

December Bill (Oct 28 to Dec 1) 2013
Total Consumption = 906 kWh
Days = 34
Average Daily Consumption = 26.65 kWh/day
Bill = $96.66

December Bill (Nov 1 to Dec 1) 2014
Total Consumption = 1,202 kWh
Days = 30
Average Daily Consumption = 40.07 kWh/day   (50.4% increase vs 2013)
Bill = $126.46

I wanted to know what I used so much energy in 2014 vs 2013.  Yeah, I did host Thanksgiving this year and had family over, but that really couldn't be THAT much over 2013 given that it was just a week.  

For Comparison:  November 2013 Energy Consumption

Digging in, I see that I ran my HVAC system longer (see figures below)...which accounts for about 70 hrs longer in November (@2.25 kW) or 158 kWh/mo.  That's a good chunk.  Beyond that there's my my issues with the water heater, but that's tough to quantify....maybe 60-80 kWh/mo?  The 2x extra showers with family in the house could boost that a little bit...but that can't be more than 10-20 kWh/mo I would think.

Downstairs HVAC Usage from Ecobee (Weather Adjusted)

Upstairs HVAC Usage from Ecobee (Weather Adjusted)

You can easily see my energy usage spike after Nov 16th (Note:  I was away at a Conference!).  The low on Nov 25-26th is because the circuit breaker which the TED5000 was attached to busted (thank you Squirrels!), so I had to replace it and I lost a big chunk of data.

One thing is that my wife has been on a crazy clothes cleaning binge as she's prepping all the old kids clothes for the upcoming consignment sale.  So an extra 6 kWh/week (24 kWh/mo)?  That could put me in the neighborhood for similar energy usage.

Duke Energy Home Energy Report 2014

In Decenber, my home used 25% less energy than an "Efficient" Home according to Duke Energy.  Damn right!

So yesterday I got a fancy document in the mail from Duke Energy that was my "home energy report" for the year.  I had to share since it indicated that my home is "among the most efficient in your areas and is the envy of your neighbors".  Well, duh...yeah!  As it shows in the pic above for December 2014 alone, my house was 25% more efficient than Duke's "Efficient Home". 

My Energy Usage over the last year.  I'm the yellow line way below the "average" home (blue) and the "efficient" home (green)

They also included a nice graph of my energy usage over the year compared to an "average" home and an "efficient home".  My house is WAYYY below the average home (50-60% less?) and is well below the "efficient home" (25-40% less?).  Maybe Duke needs to revise their definition of an "efficient home"! 

Water Heater Woes

Go figure, as soon as it gets cold, then issues arise.  Recall that i have one of those fancy GE Geospring water heaters that use a low energy heat pump to heat my hot water.  To date, it's worked nearly flawlessly with the only hiccup being a Thanksgiving when I had so much family in the house, that my water heater couldn't keep up with demand in the "heat pump only" mode that I have my unit set on.  So I just changed the mode to be "hybrid" to allow the electric elements to kick-on and produce the extra hot water necessary for ~6 showers in the morning.  

My GE Geospring water heater in my crawl space

Well, all was great until just after Thanksgiving when I noticed I had a lot of energy usage.  Trying to troubleshoot led me down to the crawl space where I found a "FC" error code on the GeoSpring.  Thanks to the "Google", I found this this meant "Failed Compressor" and (apparently) it's not an unusual occurance via comments and blogs.  I went ahead and called GE customer service and scheduled an appointment for after the Holidays (I was traveling).  They mailed the parts to me ahead of time which included a bunch of new parts.  

On Monday, the guys arrived and they plugged in their laptop (when can I get one of those appliance communication modules?!?) and ran a test to verify that "Yup, the compressor is broken".  So they ripped out the old one and put in the new one while leaving me to scramble for PVC parts to reattached the drain piping.

Old Evaporator.  There's a surprising amount of rust here for something that isn't even 2 years old!

Pic i used to go to Lowe's where I picked up a union and a nipple to reattached the drain piping

So after they put everything back together, it appeared that everything was working.  The fan was running which indicated that the compressor was running producing hot water. 

Well, funny thing, the next day I was getting ready to feed the dog when I glanced over at the energy monitor and saw it using 6 kW.  Wow...that's a lot!  So I searched around the house.  Drying not running; upstairs heat off; downstairs heat off; Oven off...huh.  My wife was making some stuff in the toaster oven, but that's rinky-dink...only 1.5kW.  So I set off to the crawl space to check on the water heater.  Suspicious, I flipped the breaker and guess what?  The electric demand instantly dropped...bullseye!   Below is a screenshot of the power usage via the TED5000 and my phone.

Real-Time Energy Usage showing the water heater on...then off at the sudden drop.  And the pick-up when I flipped the breaker back on.

Once I verified, I flipped the breaker again and you can see the water heater heat pump turn on as it goes through its start-up cycle.  Huh...so why was the electric running when I had the unit set to "heat pump only"?  No idea.  So I just assumed it was a minor blip...I made sure the temp was set right and it was still on "heat pump only", then closed up the crawl space and went on my merry way.

Well, the next morning, my wife wakes me up to say, "there's no hot water".  WTH?!?  So at 5:30am I trudged down to the crawl space again.  No error codes present.  So I changed the mode to "hybrid" to enable the electric heat.  As soon as I hit enter, you can immediately hear the electric units turn on and hum.  And the energy monitor verified that the electric heating was on with an instant 4.5 kW bump in usage.  This got me annoyed...why was the heat pump not turning on???  I closed up the crawl space and checked the temperature and even after the crawl space door was open when I was checking the water heater, the temperature still registered 63F..no where near the 45F limit.  

So I broke down and called GE again to get my unit serviced.  After the troubleshooting guy argued with me about the crawl space temperature (I monitor it...trust me, I know it stays between 60-65 all year round...coldest ever was 58F), I got an appointment with a stern warning that if they don't find anything wrong with the unit, they'll charge me.  Since then I got a call from one of the service guys who I talked through what I saw (very nice gentlemen) and they suspect it's the control board.  So that's been ordered...and actually its on back-order...with a tentative appointment to replace it on the 20th.  I'm really hoping that'll fix it. Luckily, this is all no-cost to me since it's well within its 10-year warranty.  

Today's energy usage on TED.  Maybe that step around 5-6am is for the water heater?  After 7am is the dryer.  At ~8pm (19:00) the previous day you can see the water heater come on for the kiddo bath-time usage

This AM, I did try to check to see if the electric water heating was on, but I can't see it on the graphing which is odd  (maybe it is hidden in there around that 4.5-5KW area before 7am?).  Granted I didn't get the opportunity to go to the crawl space and check.  There was plenty of hot water this AM which was nice given that it was a frosty 11F outside (20F colder than yesterday).  

Anyway, we'll see if and how this gets resolved. It's a little annoying that this is happening to a fairly new unit.   

BMW i3 Rex Extended Test Drive

BMW i3 ReX Sitting in my garage

So I've been eying the BMW i3 for some time now.  While it's pricey (starting price ~$41-$45k, avg price ~$50k), this car is a game changer.  The addition of the Range Extending engine (Rex) effectively brings the range of this car from ~80 miles to 160 miles using a tiny engine and a 1.9 gallon tank.  That's a pretty good safety net for anyone with range anxiety.  And the engine does not drive the car.  It's sole purpose is to recharge the battery.  Pretty cool stuff, right?   Oh, and its the most efficient car on the road (by EPA MPGe standards).  Sounds right up my alley, right?  Given that I live in a City and most of my driving is city-esq driving, an electric car for me is almost a no-brainer.  If I travel long distances, I can use my wifes car.  Or you can use BMW's exclusive (for i3 owners) flexible mobility car rental where you can use borrow a car for long trips.

Well, when they i3 first came out, they had a special event at my local BMW dealership (Hendrick BMW) where I signed up, brought my dad with me, and we test drove the car.  I did a second test drive about a month ago over Thanksgiving with my dad and brother.  Those 2 test drives were fun and it showed me that there was ample room in the back seat for any tall people and even with the "suicide doors", It was fairly easy to get in and out of and the trunk was small (not surprising there)  Oh yeah, and its fun to drive.  But...I still wasn't sure if it was the car for me.  Why?  Because of the kiddos.  To be clear...I've got 16 month twins.  And for all you parents out there, you know the ability to (a) put a car seat in a car; (b) the ability to get kids stuff in the car and (c) the ability to get kids in and out of the car are 3 of the most important car buying issues. 

View of the kiddos getting strapped into their car seats in the i3

So I really needed to test this car in "Real life".  Not a test drive where I got to go 5 miles around a couple streets.  I needed to really drive this car as if it was mine.  Located in my garage. So I could see if this car would fit in the lives of my 'modern family'.

So when BMW said they were offering 'extended test drives' (aka take the car home for the weekend) I was thrilled.  At first, it wasn't offered in my area.  But when I queried during my 2nd test drive, it was available so I signed up.  The folks at Hendrick BMW are great.  Nice folks and professionals.  I was given a BMW i3 Rex "Mega World" with the Tech and Driving Assist Package in Ionic Silver.  MSRP of ~$50.25k (Lease of ~$400/month).  I picked it up Friday afternoon (after a meeting).  I drove it to work for the day before taking it home. 

The 240v charging station is pretty much a MUST.  It takes 20hrs to charge from empty on 110v.  Or 3 hrs with the 240v. 

So let's talk about my thoughts.  Before I begin, let's note that this review is just based on the issues I wanted to look at via the kiddos.  If you want to read about range, styling, etc.  Go to one of the dozen-plus automotive websites and check those out. 

OK...so when I took the car home, they first thing I wanted to check out where the 'suicide doors'.  These concerned me because I wasn't sure how they would work in the garage.  Would the doors hit the wall making it impossible to get anyone out of the back?  This would be a similar situation in a parking lot.  If you can't get the kids out of the back without trickery, then this is a no-go.  So...I parked the car in the garage and checked it out.  First thing I did was check it out without any modifications.  What I mean by that...I didn't move anything already there.  You'll see from the pic below the door was able to open fine with my bike and bike carrier still on the wall.  Was it easy?  No.  However, those things are a pain even with my Prius.  So no foul there.  And this spring I'm building a storage area under my new deck...where the bikes and such will be relocated. 

i3 with the doors open in my garage

 OK...so that worked. I will say that there was zero door issues after I moved everything.  Oh, it'll be so nice when I get that storage project done. 

View after I removed the bike and carrier.  Lots more room.

Doors opening in a parking lot next to another car.  No problems getting in and out.  The stroller was trickier, but I was still able to do it.

A view of the front door as it opened against my bike.  It does that with my car too.

My sons car seat in the Mazda 5

So the next thing we needed to check was how well we could get the kids in the car seats.  Below is a pic of the the room I have with our Mazda 5.  Not a fair comparison, I know...a 'mini' minivan vs the i3.  But it's just for reference.  Note how much space there is above the car seat.  And this seat moves forward and back so you can fit things in as needed.

So here's the same car seat in the i3. With the front seat down, it was easy to get the car seat into place.  No issues, plenty of room...at least for this 5'6" 140lbs guy.   Once the car seat was installed and I put the drivers seat into position, the car seat was touching.  Uh oh...while this is fine for a person of my stature, anyone taller would be uncomfortable.  I did have my dad (6'2") get in and he can technically fit, albeit not comfortable.  He has the same issue with the car seats installed in his BMW 3-series Diesel wagon. 

Car seat in the i3 with the front seat folded up

Car seat with the front seat in driving position

My daughters infant car seat.  Hitting the passenger front seat.

Next, I wanted to see if I could fit the double-stroller in.  I wasn't going for the super-big jogging stroller...just the 'umbrella' version.  I can barely fit the jogging stroller in the Prius so I knew getting it in here would be impossible.  I already knew putting the stroller in the cargo area was a no-go.  Way too small.  But what about in the foot-area of the backseat?  Well, that worked, but it did involve a lot of shoving.  To get it in, I had to fold the drivers seat up, put in the stroller, and then reposition the seat.  It did fit as the pics below show.  But the wheels were marking up the seat.

Double Umbrella Stroller in the i3

Stroller wheels right up on the seat...marking it up

Plenty of legroom for me.

Next up...can you get the kids in?  Short answer, yes.  Easily:  no.   So...my kiddos right now are small for their age.  My son is in the 1-3 percentile.  My daughter is on her own curve...technically 0.1 percentile.  At 16 months and about 16 lbs, she's still in her infant car seat.  And most infants at 6 months weigh as much as her.  My son is about 20 lbs which means he could still be in his infant car seat too (max ~25 lbs) but he's in a convertible car seat. 

My wife getting my daughter into the car seat.

So, getting the kids into the car seats specifically with the odd doors.  No problem, especially once I got the stuff out of the way in the garage.  Asking my wife how it was getting my daughter in, it was not a problem with the doors and in one respect, a little easier without the middle door pillar. 

View of my wife getting the kids in the car

However, there was one glaring issue.  In order to get the kids in their seats, you almost literally had to hold them out horizontal to get them between the door opening and the car seat before you could place them in.  I couldn't hold a kid and take a pic at the same time (no Google glasses or Go-Pro), so I had to use a surrogate.  Enter blue bunny.  As you'll see below, blue bunny is about the same size as my son.  So from the pics below you can see that its a tight fit.

My son with blue bunny.

A tight fit trying to get blue bunny into the car

Another view with blue bunny

 
Now, if your kid is calm you can do this easy.  Ok, got that image?  Now..clear your mind and  imagine if the kid is having a temper tantrum.  You're never getting that kid into the car seat without bumps and scratches.  Ugh.  How about when they get bigger?  Or maybe you have a 50-percentile kid?  Or for that matter at 100-percentile kid?  Getting the kid in is only going to get harder as they get bigger (taller and heavier).  Now, if you only have 1 kid and could install the car seat in the center area (I'm not sure if you can since there's no official center seat), then maybe this issue goes away.  I'm not sure...if anyone wants to try this out, go for it.  I have 2 kids, so I'm doing what's important to me.

Now, in about 1.5-2 years the car seats will be FWD facing.  In that case, getting the kids in and out should be downright EASY.  Especially with these doors as there will be a ton of room.  The problem here...is that it's 1.5-2 years away for me.  And that's the length of a car lease.  And by 2017, the Tesla Model 3 will be out.  So while I really like this car, it's not going to work for me.  If you have 1 kid and its determined that you can put the car seat in the middle-back, then this car could work for you.  If you can't well...those folks would be in a similar situation as me, unless you want to crawl over the back-seat from the opposite side to get your kid in and out. 

So BMW and other electric car makers...can you make a car that can handle this?  And make it reasonably affordable?   If so, I'd probably be first in line to get your car. Yes a Tesla would probably work for me, but I can't afford $80k.  Heck, even $50k is stretching the budget, although I'd most likely lease the car.  Overall, this BMW is soooo close to meeting all that I'd need.