BMW i3 42 kWh overheated battery (rapidgate)
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In the german BMW Software the auxilary heater is called Standheizung. So that would translate to park heating.
This makes way more sense. How many other terrible translations are on these I wonder?
Let's keep this 'flaw' in perspective. For a significant reduction in complexity, the manufacturer chose to impart a minor increase in charging time so as to preserve battery life (couple of minutes) when charging from empty to full and needing to use the heat pump for cabin heating. As an i3 owner I'm fairly sure I'm never going to encounter this inconvenience. Useful to understand the limitations though. If I'm really on the minutes, I'll just use the heated seats.
Battery is not aircooled. It has coolant lines in it, I have them dismantled in my garage. Problem is that there is not necessary additional connection between heatpump, resistance heater and battery, so when you use the system to heat up cabin, it is not cooling your battery. Problem of one circuit only.
Stupid question maybe but is this the case also for heating up the battery? So I should not use "aux heater" while battery is warming up at a quick charger? Lets say if battery is 5-10 degrees.
@@Danne89 There is no difference, as heater in battery is simple resistance wire and is not connected to cooling in any way. So it wont affect anything.
It seems the smart thing to do in this case would be to pump heat from the battery into the cabin.
This. Should be available in places with cold winters (Canada, Northern Europe).
Or the owner could just make fire inside the cabin while charging!
Octovalves are hard to come by..
@@dandaly7305 except many Canadian dealerships just import ex-lease American i3’s
I also thought about this. So, is there some way to set up the HVAC to do this?
Tesla only has one AC compressor and several options to generate heat (motor while standing still + PTC). But it has some clever systems to divert heat, called the superbottle or the newer octovalve. Maybe now people understand better what is all the fuzz behind those two things.
indeed, the octovalve is the saving grace in the model 3 system, or in whatever form it is for the other teslas. single heat source, but not all customers necessarily want the heat, so the multi-valve system allows coolant passage to one system or another or all. in this case, you want cabin heat, but no battery heating, but there's no valving to allow this in the i3.
Wow. Great investigating this issue. It's been cool to learn the past couple years how temperature can affect charging speed and how the systems are built differently.
Congrats 200 000 Subs,
Glückwunsch 200.000 Abonnenten!
Nice one! I have my i3 for only a few weeks, but i now understand much better how the car works, thanks!!!
Great video. Sounds like it needs an Octovalve! Also the charge wiring may not be designed to carry the load of the cabin heater, battery cooling, and max battery charging simultaneously. The cabin heat, low battery lockout. sounds like a simple software glitch. My take on this is that all car companies have these types of problems. Tesla has realised this from the start and has moved as much of the car functionality as possible into software. The result of this is that these type of problems for a Tesla are easily to fix. Not easy for BMW because OEM parts do not play nicely in a software centered world.
Thank you! I have a better understanding of the charging time now.
Interesting, but what it means for the driver/passengers is more expenses. They do have to go to the nearest McDonald's for hamburgers they didn't plan to eat... or bring sleeping bags to keep warm.
@Bjørn Nyland Almost right. It have a heat pump, and this cools the battery as well. (same circuit and compressor like the air conditioner). But it also have a normal heater (like an immersion heater), but it would consumes a lot of electricity, so it try to use the hear pump as long as possible.
OH-New haircut,looks good👍 thanks for this info vlog.
Haha "Watts up" - nice touch for a discussion on batteries
Really interesting analysis, Bjorn! All other car reviewers only care about listing the specs and showing the car. I like your asian math style. I feel it comes from your programmer side. Me as a collegue, also thinks on this kind of thing about my (now feeling it as ancient tech) ICE car. Way back when cars do not have a computer I would calculated comsuption by hand on every charging stop or would do navigation to figure out ETA.
Great video and advice. Bjørn! BMW should watch you channel. Thank you very much!
BMW I3 has 2 source of heat. 1 being the heat pump and the second is the resistive heater in the prestone. The resistive heater is in its own loop not sharing the thermal scavenging, reason it has 2 Preston reservoir even for the non rex versions. For example the golf use only one Prestone loop and re-use thermal scavenging to warm the cabin. The reason it takes some time to feel the heat when you activate auxiliary heater is simply the same reason water does not boil instantly in the kettle. They do not allow the primary ( heatPump ) when charging, likely to ensure voltage is not fluctuating top the dc motor running it. On the other hand, you can supply any resistive element with any voltage / frequency you want and it will not care. The battery will overheat for the simple reason you are abusing it by charging it and using resistive heating at the same time. This is a design flaw as the battery is cooled with lines of refrigerant and the source of cooling is the heatpump... Resistive heater is also not allowed in low battery soc as the consumption is very high compared to the heat pump. Resistive will also kick in on its own if outside temp is below -12c
That’s what I normally do with mine, just start a pre-condition cycle from the app 5-10 minutes before I get back in when charging. Enough to clear the screens and take the chill of the cabin in the Winter, or make the cabin comfortable in the Summer.
the BMW has a very simplistic design on their heat pump / air conditioner - battery cooling system, I hope they address this in newer models.
As usual a very interesting video from Bjørn. I hope BMW watches your video and makes sure to customize the software so that overheating is avoided. To be a little bit harsh, I would like software designers to use the car much more on a daily basis the way people use it. Why can only Porsche and Mazda show the battery temperature? It should be standard in all electric cars.
I think Tesla uses the magic "octo-valve" to avoid this problem, sends the liquid to battery and hvac at same time.
MC Hammer is pre heat pump model
Not with old pre-2021 Teslas.
TMS is running liquid cooled - but needs the compressor, that is also needed for the heat pump, yes. No compressor -> no cooling für TMS...
I'm not an engineer, but what can I deduce is a couple things: - Most manufacturers won't expend R&D in temp management. This car has an simple AC system: when you go for cooling, you pump heat into the atmosphere; when you want heat, you pump it to the cabin by reversing the compressor. The problem arises when you need both. - Tesla is ahead of all of this. They've been using heaters and motors to warm up the cabin, but the fact is that ACs are... Well, as their own name suggests, heat pumps, they actually move heat from one place to another, and they do it extremely efficiently, as they produce as much as 3 to 5 units of energy per one used, whereas a PTC will be a 1:1. This efficiency is specially critical in vehicles in which every watt saved matters. Dumping heat when charging to the atmosphere when there are other things (like the cabin) that needs this heat is a true waste of energy, so why not to literally transfer this excess heat where you need it? As far as I know this is what is Tesla doing with their new octovalve, which allow any condenser to be an evap and viceversa, therefore dramatically increasing efficiency of the system specially in winter, as the battery is both a gigantic thermal mass and a heat source.
Yes, it is true that the i3 only has a single (massive) AC compressor serving both the cabin and battery cooling. And am sure that’s the reason why BMW decided to implement the heating as “auxiliary heater”, not necessarily because the software is ported from an ICE.
Thanks, Bjørn! Very interesting! I never fastcharge my I3, but good to know! Perhaps in -10 degrees the battery will not overheat with heater on?
In older firmware on i3 with heatpump, it used only resistive heater while prehating. Then this problem did not occur, but it costed little more electricity to heat up the car.
I guess BMW should do a software update for this. From digging around the configuration options I remember that you only get the preheating functionality if you order the heated seats. But this also gives you preheating for the battery pack. And since this is usable with a high enough SOC even when you are not plugged in, maybe the software is not properly tuned for this situation and preheats the battery while it is being fast-charged...
Question: the i3 comes with air-con as standard in the uk, for which there must be a heat pump. In addition you can spec a heat pump (as an optional extra) which i assume provides more efficient cabin heat as opposed to a simple electric element (£560). For those choosing this optional extra does the car then not have two heat pumps? One for cooling & one for heating?
So while charging with heater in winter it works in eGolf mode 😁 same cells supplier Samsung SDI by the way 🙂
If there was a valve to divert air coming into the heater, it could pull outside air through the battery first. This would preheat the air before it reaches the heater, and cool the pack.
This is not done by air, but by one single refrigerant system. That's why it's not possible to do both at the same time. It might be possible to solve by using at least one 4 way valve and two shut off valves in the refrigerant circuit, and alternate between cabin heating and and battery cooling. It becomes pretty complex by that point. Tesla has solved this brilliantly. And they didn't even prohibit anyone else to make an identical system. Open patent.
The i3 actually has no liquids for thermal management inside the battery. Heating is done by PTC elements directly integrated inside the batterypack. Cooling is achieved by flowing refrigerant directly through heatexchagners inside the battery. This is highly effective but has the drawback that you need the compressor to generate any kind of cooling.
The heat pump is an option in the UK. I guess it would be nice if they left the resistive heater element in the car as well for use while plugged in. It comes with heated seats as standard so I guess use those. But the average person won't realise that the heat pump is stealing cooling from the battery and throttling the charge which seems a bad design.
it is not the compressor, the valve design needs to divert coolant to the battery to draw the heat from battery to the cabin heater, my Kia Soul EV does does this
Open KZhead to watch a couple of videos while charging, end up watching this video of Teslabjørn charging in the exact same spot I am charging . The EV world is still small! Haha! Circle K 32565 FTW!
Shouldn't turning on this auxiliar heater on in winter during fast driving and strong recuperation also overheat the battery as the compressor is in heating mode and thus cannot cool the battery? Maybe the additional air cooling will be strong enough in that case to compensate.
The i3 cools the Cells directly with the Heat Pump coolant. It therefore cannot heat the cabin and cool the battery at the same time. I hope newer BMWs will have a better Thermal System Design.
Especially when it would be pretty easy to design additional tube from 2kW PTC auxiliary heater, so it could work together with heatpump.
The i3 has another severe design flaw only few know about. There is no chance of canceling a quick charge session from the car side. If the charger bugs or simply doesn't have the possibility to cancel an ongoing charging session the only way you can unplug is by pulling the emergency unlock in the lower rear corner of the passenger door sill. Issue is: It's highly likely that the locking pin gets stuck during this. This means you can not charge as the locking mechanism is stuck in the open position now. You need to dismantle half of the rear bodywork to reset the actuator. If your car is out of warranty this is a wealthy three figure to get this done at a BMW dealership.
very interesting!
Could you please do this check battery temp on zoe 41kwh and 50kwh
I just discovered the bug last week! My car is a 2015 i3 and it looks like even the 2020 i3s haven't had this bug fixed. I need to reboot the car to use the aux heater. The car actually uses the phase change a/c system to cool the battery. The same compressor that's used for the cabin is also used for battery cooling. So I believe it's a software limitation where the car cannot turn the cabin heater and the a/c system on at the same time, even though they have different uses. Forcing the cabin heat to be on (aux heater) will disable the a/c system, overheating the battery. That's my guess. It's a pretty fun car though.... if you don't have a Model 3.
I suspect that BMW is of the opinion that you should be happy with what they give you, possibly grateful that they honored you with as much as they did, without charging extra.
Might sound obvious but not just the Heater if you are under 10% also the Aircon, in my experience.
it's not air cooled but since the compressor is working on other things that is why it allows the battery to overheats as it simply cannot keep up with cooling the battery down
Tesla have two evaporators on one compressor, one for air and one for water. The water evaporator (AKA battery chiller) cools the battery if the radiators is not sufficient. A three way valve controlled by the BMS code sends coolant liquid to the chiller if needed. I would rather have the i3 way, than the MiEV way. MiEV completely disable the heater, even if cooling is not needed.
Can it (Tesla) also use the heat pump for heating the battery? Thanks.
Seems like a simple problem. Battery giving off too much heat, but cabin cooling off. I'm not sure if it is cost or space or weight effective to solve this just to aid charging comfort. But these are the features that diiferentiate one model from another
Is it also because we are doing opposite things with the a/c? What if we had to cool or heat the cabin and battery? Would be interesting to know if there is a scenario where the compressor is shared between the cabin and battery.
Did this bug affect the 1000km challenge time? But I find it kinda funny. 5 degrees more not even hitting 40 degrees BMW is overheating. Tesla is purposely heating the battery to about 50 degrees for DC fast charging on superchargers. Opposite strategies. Who is winning the degradation race? BMW or Tesla? I know for a fact that i3 battery's are very good long term, excellent low degradation.
Yes
I was going to ask the same, thank you guys for clarification. That explains why i3 did 1000km slightly longer than it might.
@@JPetr94It's realistic in winter, nobody would turn of the heater in winter. So everything is fine with the 14h time.
3rd option: while DC fast charging turn on accessories and enable both heated seats.
Yeah, if you're in the car, then it's better to use heated seats and steering wheel (does it have a heated steering wheel?) and in summer, well, get the hell out of the car and find some shade XD
Having a 2014 REX , I am confused. I thought the dash buttons for Defrosting activated Resistance Heat, separate from the Heat Pump. Are these buttons what you refer to as “Auxiliary Heater?” The Defrosting buttons rapidly deplete the battery and offer instant heat while driving or preparing to leave to my experience, but I have experienced the shutdown of the Heat Pump while rapid charging. There is a short time limit to the Defrosting Buttons’ action, though, even if actively charging. So maybe that is why you initially get heat on your reading that drops off after a few minutes.
BMW has just made it that way. They have figured that adding a new compressor will bring the price up. And the battery is not overheating. It is just getting towards hotter temps and so the charging is slower.
If the Car is fastcharging, the System could use the Resistant-Heater for the Cabinet, and the Heat-Pump to cool the Battery in the same Time
REX does that
Björn, can you do the same with the MINI-e, as it has the same platform and I wonder if they fixed it on just simply "copy paste" over to MINI
Bjorn i think auxiliary it’s when the vehicle is park, or need more hot because the weather. Why you don’t use the switch to change temp from cool to hot? When you used the thermal camera, the switch was 21 and the camera was saying 28, it doesn't make senses
Yup, I knew. Even did it once by going 155 kmph on highway.
i3 has an electric heater as well, which is used to heat the cabin if it is really cold outside and heat-pump can't manage it. Why wouldnt the car use the electric heater for the cabin and compressor (heat-pump) only for the battery cooling? Everything would be fine in this case.
1:20 - it does heat/cool the cabin actively when charging BUT you have to select 'Auxiliary Climate Control' in Settings or turn the car into 'ready' mode and then it summer it will cool; in winter it will heat - all with AC. Otherwise, as you've discovered, it's just the fan. This is in the manual... and has been for 7 years. 😉
Not possible to turn the car in "Ready" mode when plugged in. "Ready" means it can drive.
I dont have that problem with my 2019 i3s rex, also I've tried just using the app to turn on the heater and keeping all other systems off and that seems to work also.
So for me to understand this correctly, with my BMW i3S Rex (has heated seats, so has heat pump I presume) I use the climatise function, which I believe either warms or cools the vehicle depending on the outside temperature. Is this now a bad thing to use while the car is charging? Secondly, if I’m charging my car at home on a 7Kw charger, if I setup a departure time, I can condition the battery prior to departure, i.e if it a frosty morning it will warm the battery during charging, but also climatise the cabin as well. Is this practice nolonger advisable? Finally, during the summer, when charging, I often climatise the cabin {aircon}, is this robbing the cooling of the battery? Appreciate any reply to these questions. Cheers
I hope some one at BMW sees this video and finally update the heating bug. Just a small bit of additional weirdness the I3 ReX version does not have heatpump for cabin heat, just a electric water heater. So the ReX might not rapidgate, but on the other hand it uses more power to heat. How did you make the graph? did you manually input the data?
Yes
I have the Rex and not Rapidgate 😬, but it’s due to design the Heat/cooling circuits... It’s need to complete separate these circuits, but I want see how do PSA and VW with HeatPump make it better without complex valve or Octovalve...
I wonder if they changed the design for the MINI Cooper SE, since that’s using the I3S’s motor.
@@gronkjor Yes and all mini's have the heatpump. would be interesting for Bjorn to test this to see if it's fixed in the mini. I have a i3S Rex, but to be honest very rarely sit in the car while charging so always been pleased with the charging speed on my i3S the 50kW is fine for the smaller battery and it throttles late so completes charging quickly to 90+ often more quickly than I can eat lunch,
Is the car equipped with Heat Pump or is it Resistor heat ?
Great information . I keep getting a check engine light on my I3 when I charge at a fast charger at the supermarket. The light goes away overnight . It doesn’t happen at the fast chargers at work. Any Idea why this is happening? Thank you again!
The battery is toasting and the driver is freezing. Yes i would say that is bad design. Should not be difficult to route heat from the battery to the heater. If Liquid use two circuits and use valves to put in series. They just did not think about it.
What app are you using to see this information?
So the electric Mini has the same issue since they are sharing the drive train?
The channel is called "Yo Watts Up"... and it always has been.
“your whatsapp” if you use CC
I've watched tonnes of his videos without realizing it was a pun, until he pointed it out today!
This should happen only in i3's with heat pump
I'm not clear what options your i3 has? In the UK a heat pump is an optional extra. Does your i3 have that option?
Heat pump is standard in Norway.
Do you know whether the heat pump is capable of warming the battery when battery warming is desired?
It isn't. Battery pack heating is resistive-only as far as I know.
Switch auxiliary heating on for heater when charging
...and the battery will overheat.
My i3S 2018 94Ah Rex is overheating by mountain road in sport mode and I’m very disappointed of this inconvenience. Wy BMW don’t forced the AC for cooling the battery in sport mode ? It’s a ridiculously bad experience...
Interesting findings Bjorn. Because the Mini electric uses I3 hardware do you think the Mini has the same characteristics?
Probably
@@bjornnyland My feelings the same. Cheers Bjorn and keep up the great content 👍.
Hi, what is the name of the application you are using to measure? Thx
I see ... Electrified, but sadly it´s only for Android.
Might be a silly question, but could cabin heat travel to the battery? ie is the thickness of the floor between battery and cabin thin enough to allow some cabin heat to trickle to the battery? I'm not super familiar with the i3 but I'm wondering if it has an effect, if small
No, cabin heat won't affect battery temperature. If that was the case, then cooling down the cabin would cool down an overheated Leaf battery. Cabin temperature has no influence on battery temperature.
@@bjornnyland Ok, wasn't sure how effective great transfer was. Thanks Bjorn
If you look here www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/partgrp?id=8P23-USA-10-2018-I01N-BMW_i-i3_120Ah&mg=64 you can see that there is the auxiliary heater with pump. Plus a control unit for heat pump. If you scroll down completely there is a battery dryer, wonder what that is for.
Use your heated seats?
Obviously not the same.
I wonder if maybe the 'rapidgate' only affects cars with heat pumps.
Interesting point. Here is a test with id3 with/without heatpump and the heatpump uses less energy but also charges slower kzhead.info/sun/adKDkdGMqqKJgGg/bejne.html
Will you get the iX3?
Looking forward for Björns test (I ordered one. Should arrive in January). Will learn more about the car from Björns review than the manuals most likely 😂
What kind of OBD do you recommend to use with an iPhone?
I have no idea because I use Android only.
Nevertheless thanks
Tesla Heat pump with Octovalve Sorted
Hmm a Yo wassup subtitle ooo thats proper YO WASSUP
It's a pun, "Yo watts up". Didn't realize it until this video. :-)
👍
How do you clear the bug on I3 after you get it?
Unplug and put the car in drive.
Hello, I want to know what your ethnicity is? :) love your videos I will subscribe.
Read his Twitter bio, it explains it. :-)
@@ScrapKing73 thank you!
They would not need another compressor if they simply would route the battery heat into the cabin.
Turn on the seat heater! Some have heat pump, some have electric resistance heater.
Seat heater will not heat up the cabin.
@@bjornnyland But it would heat up you!
I had an i3 the heater in the seat got me toasty, so I didn’t have to run the battery down with the main heater....
I think Marco Rodriguez is probably correct.
Also, this will only happen on very long trips... Very occasionaly.
And only in winter, when everything is cold anyway.
Selling an EV in Norway that cannot provide heat while charging, at low SoC? That is a big problem. Even my old 2012 LEAF can provide heat while rapid charging.
Well, BMW gives you choice...
Yes, but those can be bad choices :) Either you freeze or you overheat the battery.
Lol. Watts up Like it
Now that I've heard it, I can't un-hear it.
Ive had my i3 for 18 months and although its a good car, I’d recommend people dont buy bmw EV’s, as the bmw are not interested in sorting out glitches and continuing to support all the electronics on the i3. The app is hopeless as its so lagging and they dont want to improve the i3 with software upgrades like other manufacturers. We the customers want our i3’s to last a reasonable amount of time (bmw made such a thing about recycling and environmentally friendly manufacturing and materials) but they have given up on the i3 and its owners, they wont even offer battery upgrades!!! Needless to say I wont be replacing my i3 with another bmw.
Is the OS7 which is in the new models not solving this with ota updates?
I think that BMW only equipped one compressor as they wanted the I3 to be "light"
There is also resistance heater.
But one compressor should be enough 🤔. It would just need to have more advanced valving and two evaporator sections.
@@tkermi There are actuali 3 multivalves, pretty expensive ones. But just one evaporator... Which is the problem. And auxiliary resistance heater is heating coolant, not air directly.
@@josefsoltes8572 Oh, thanks for the info!
the main idea probably was that if you are cold, then heat the saloon and also keep the battery on good temperature :) if you are intereseted, you can see how the battery looks from inside kzhead.info/sun/f6Zvh61wmoSwmqs/bejne.html
Overheating I think is a false statement. This would imply it exceeds the maximum permissible temperature. The battery gets warmer may be a suitable description.
Ergo, overheats.
Bjørn Nyland overheats implies is a threshold has been breached beyond which damage may occur. Please advise the threshold temperature.
No, overheating does not mean damaging. Overheating just means beyond a limit where there are consequences. And the consequence is charging power throttling.
@@bjornnyland }
Nein Nein Nein! Das ist Nicht Design Flaw! Alles das ist Deutsch ist gut und alles das ist gut ist Deutsch! 😆😂
Sicher!
Tesla solution is not an advanced one i would call it rather a shit one, but in this case looks better. It has no heat pumps for heating it uses a heat coil which result half range during winter. BMW uses a heat pump like an air conditioning device and clever way use it for heating and cooling. The issue is the software again. The software should monitor the battery temperature and switch off the heating if the battery needs cooling and when the battery is cool enough switch back the heating again.
Tesla's solution allows you to keep the cabin nice and warm when it's -20°C outside and still not overheat the battery ;)
@@bjornnyland Yes indeed, but in other hand you loose half of your range because when you are moving with tesla the heating is ineffective compared to a heat pump. That's why i wrote, theoretically BMW could make a solution with a software update, but they simply does not care about this issue, which is not nice.
@@istvankoncz8923 I see you only read what the short sellers write. You definitely don't lose half your range even with the resistive heater. Maybe 20% at -20C. Now that every Tesla has a heat pump, the loss is even less. So your point is incorrect and outdated
@@alt572 Well, read e.g. this study electrek.co/2019/02/07/study-electric-cars-lose-range-temperature-tesla-disputes/ it is about 41 or 39% with Model S. it is not the half, but almost. :) Of course, they measured at 20F which is -6C quite warm compared to -20C what Bjorn mentioned. At -20C there will be more than 50%, i am sure :)
BMW always lets the public do the beta testing and by the time they address the issue a new model has come up and it all starts again
I really don't get it. The car is a city car you drive daily for short trips,commute etc and fill up during night at home...Thats probably what 99% of the owners of this car do. Its not a car designed for fast charging,long trips etc. You can,but this is not that kind of car. That said,BMW should fix the stupid heater issue.
That's pretty unrealistic. Who is spending 40 to 50k€ on a city car?
@@alt572 I did,but it did not cost more than approx 30k Euro. Use it for commute 110 km a day
really bad design. They could take heat from the battery and heat the cabin. So the warm side of the heatpump is not environment instead it is the battery.