Quote:
Originally Posted by LogicalApex
My MY2020 530e is my first BMW so I don't have experience with the 530e from 2018, but your experience is dramatically different than mine. So much so that it sounds like a completely different car. Perhaps there were some updates not installed for I-Step or there were issues with the car?
1. My EV and ICE work together seamlessly and without issue. The only time you are living on the ICE primarily is when you're going fast enough to kick on the ICE, but you're in ECO-Pro mode. Gets you a weaker throttle response and will hold you in the ICE (or EV) longer to save energy. But when I'm on ACC and going at a constant speed that's not a big deal. I've never had the car struggle at merge or even feel like it can't respond well.
2. This must have changed in later model years? For me, in Auto eDrive the car will do up to 65 MPH on electric without issue. Once you've exceeded that it'll kick over to ICE. I've put the car in Max eDrive and got it up to 90 on electric before I had to slow down as I was running out of open highway. So it will allow me anywhere between 90 and 100MPH on Max eDrive.
In Auto eDrive the car will use the EV motor up until about "40%" power or so before it kicks over to ICE. So if you're treating the accelerator like an on/off switch and flooring it at every stop light then, yes, you'll see a lot more ICE action as a result. But I wouldn't run any car that hard PHEV or not.
3. As I noted, I've been up to 90MPH in Max eDrive, but I didn't use ACC to see if that had a hard limit on it. I've never experienced what you've experienced here. I haven't driven on extreme grades though. But are you saying the gas engine couldn't keep up on an extreme slope? I have been on some hilly roads where the ICE kicks on fairly quickly, but this is expected... A steeper grade requires more energy to climb and since your EV motor is only 111HP it might require the combined Gas + EV to climb such a steep grade adequately.
4. This is also not how my car operates. The ONLY mode that has this behavior for me is ECO Pro. If I'm in Comfort mode any request for harder acceleration that doesn't activate kick down will automatically go into eBoost and use combined EV+ICE. Activating kick down gives you a bit more push though as you'll be telling the transmission to go into the lowest safe gear to give you some additional push.
Sorry to hear you've had such a bad time once moving the car to Vegas. But I don't think your experience is typical.
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I think you're right in that my experience isn't typical. Maybe someone else from challenging terrain areas can chime in?
Just to clarify, #4 was for EV only. ICE will pull it, but will report 80-90% power doing so. Granted, I'd be going 90mph+, but still... shouldn't have to max out just to keep up with fast-moving highway traffic.