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BMW 5-Series (G30) Forum 2017+ BMW 5 Series (G30) General Discussions 530e owners..whats the point of battery control>? Do you use it?

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      08-25-2021, 09:52 AM   #23
ted99
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I have one trip I take every 3 mos, or so, that is about 6 miles in excess of a fully charged battery. The middle part of the trip is freeway. My strategy has been to run on Max-e on the city streets and shift to Batt control for the first leg of the freeway (about 6 mi) and back to Max-e for the streets at the end. I have enough battery to get back to home charging. If I were to go in Auto for the whole R/T, I'd be on gas for the last 6 mi of city streets going home, which I think would use more petrol than my 6 mi of battery control on the freeway. Obviously all supposition. I think that one's charging strategy is highly dependent on what the driving conditions are like. For instance, if I started a trip that needed cabin heat and that I also knew would require some use of battery control during it's duration, I'd opt for doing battery control right away to get the engine temp up for the cabin heater. BUT--I don't know if my car uses resistance heating when the cabin needs heating, or if the 530e has a heat pump. Anyone?
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      08-25-2021, 11:36 AM   #24
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Battery control is a complex one to unpack. I’m late to the discussion, but a lot of good has already been shared on its feature set and the complexity of deciding when it makes sense to use it or not.

The basic reason the feature exists, of course, is to enable eDrive Zone driving in Europe where they aren’t allowed to use the ICE in certain areas at all. The by proxy feature for us on this side of the pond is ensuring we have some charge to power stuff like preconditioning…

The other side of it is trying to manage to car’s energy efficiency. I have found that the car is generally very good at managing this on its own as long as you’ve put the destination into the car’s GPS. It will then do a solid job of bouncing between ICE and EV.

But if you know you’re going to be doing a lot of city driving bouncing around it can make sense to use Battery Control to charge up since you’ll have a smaller impact charging on the highway at a consistent speed compared to using ICE on a city street. Or if you know you need the preconditioning as others have mentioned.

If I remember correctly you’ll “suffer” around a 10MPG fuel economy hit using Battery Control on the highway compared to not using it. But on the highway you’ll be above 40MPG on the highway anyway so this will drop you to around 30MPG. In a city like Philly on a flat battery and carting around that excess battery weight AND having very short blocks you can average 10MPG on gas. As a result, you’re still more efficient charging using Battery Control if you were to be doing an extended amount of this.

I would recommend AUTO and in car GPS as your default, but battery control has its place and it is a valid thing to use.

Max eDrive is great too if you want to really go on electric since it allows you to go up to 90MPH on electric and “Auto” will limit you to 65MPH or so.
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      08-26-2021, 01:16 AM   #25
5Pilot
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the 530e uses electric resistancE heat. Warm air is certainly available almost instantly on a cold day. And use of the heat does seem to impact range.

There’s been a lot of good info and suggestions about Battery Control in this thread. I live in an area where summers are hot. As has been mentioned, BC can help to provide power for preconditioning. Basically, as I approach the end of my commute, I switch to BC at a point that will let the battery reach 20-25% or so, so that I can precondition with AC before having to climb back in the car at the end of the day.

There’s another way I have used it that I haven’t seen mentioned. In the summer, my garage tends to get really hot, partly from engine heat. I mean 95F in the morning is not unheard of. If I go somewhere that I can estimate how much battery is needed to return me to home, then sometimes I’ll use BC to force use of the ICE for the first half, or portion, of the trip, so that I can return on battery. The idea being to not be parking a car in my garage with a nice hot engine block. Hopefully using BC this way has allowed the engine to cool somewhat.
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      08-26-2021, 09:43 AM   #26
StuW530e
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As mentioned, the Sat Nav and Auto setting are supposed to give the best economy. Would be worth setting home as your final destination and your work address as an intermediate destination and see how that goes.....
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      08-26-2021, 12:42 PM   #27
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 5Pilot View Post
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the 530e uses electric resistancE heat. Warm air is certainly available almost instantly on a cold day. And use of the heat does seem to impact range.

There’s been a lot of good info and suggestions about Battery Control in this thread. I live in an area where summers are hot. As has been mentioned, BC can help to provide power for preconditioning. Basically, as I approach the end of my commute, I switch to BC at a point that will let the battery reach 20-25% or so, so that I can precondition with AC before having to climb back in the car at the end of the day.

There’s another way I have used it that I haven’t seen mentioned. In the summer, my garage tends to get really hot, partly from engine heat. I mean 95F in the morning is not unheard of. If I go somewhere that I can estimate how much battery is needed to return me to home, then sometimes I’ll use BC to force use of the ICE for the first half, or portion, of the trip, so that I can return on battery. The idea being to not be parking a car in my garage with a nice hot engine block. Hopefully using BC this way has allowed the engine to cool somewhat.
You're right. The 530e doesn't have a heat pump.
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      08-26-2021, 02:21 PM   #28
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I use battery control mode when towing a trailer in mountains, to take some load off the ICE going uphill.
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      08-26-2021, 02:31 PM   #29
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FredBa View Post
I use battery control mode when towing a trailer in mountains, to take some load off the ICE going uphill.
I don't follow the logic here. How would it take load off the ICE?
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      08-26-2021, 02:56 PM   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LogicalApex View Post
I don't follow the logic here. How would it take load off the ICE?
I switch to hybrid before climbing. As usual when the car sees a lot of battery capacity the engine constantly switches and combines (on steep inclines) power plants, which helps keep the temp of the fluids down.
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      08-26-2021, 05:39 PM   #31
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FredBa View Post
I switch to hybrid before climbing. As usual when the car sees a lot of battery capacity the engine constantly switches and combines (on steep inclines) power plants, which helps keep the temp of the fluids down.
I still don’t follow exactly. As you mentioned Battery Control being used in your prior post.

Hybrid (Auto) mode makes sense as the car can dynamically source power (or combine) to get the output needed to climb a steep incline. But I wasn’t understanding why you’d want to activate Battery Control during this process as it would add additional load to the engine.
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      08-26-2021, 08:02 PM   #32
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LogicalApex View Post
I still don’t follow exactly. As you mentioned Battery Control being used in your prior post.

Hybrid (Auto) mode makes sense as the car can dynamically source power (or combine) to get the output needed to climb a steep incline. But I wasn’t understanding why you’d want to activate Battery Control during this process as it would add additional load to the engine.
Sorry I wasn’t clear. I use battery control mode to avoid depleting the battery before reaching mountain passes. Sometimes in between two passes too.
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      08-27-2021, 08:35 AM   #33
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FredBa View Post
Sorry I wasn’t clear. I use battery control mode to avoid depleting the battery before reaching mountain passes. Sometimes in between two passes too.
And that makes sense.
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      09-19-2021, 02:43 AM   #34
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I tried using 100% battery control last night on a 70 mile trip after my full charge ran out. I got back up to 50% after 20 minutes or so and then went back to full electric mode. I got 75mpg overall. But I noticed even when I was using 100% battery control the car still went over to electric running on a couple of occasions for a very short time. I thought that you would run only on ICE in 100% battery mode. Am I wrong?
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      09-19-2021, 06:30 AM   #35
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuckyarla View Post
I tried using 100% battery control last night on a 70 mile trip after my full charge ran out. I got back up to 50% after 20 minutes or so and then went back to full electric mode. I got 75mpg overall. But I noticed even when I was using 100% battery control the car still went over to electric running on a couple of occasions for a very short time. I thought that you would run only on ICE in 100% battery mode. Am I wrong?
The car doesn’t allow pure ICE under any operating mode. It will use the EV motor where it needs to. You were likely accelerating when this happened and the car tapped into the EV motor to deliver the performance you expect from a car like this.
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      09-19-2021, 07:22 AM   #36
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Actually it was the opposite! It was when I was going downhill with the foot off the pedal.
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      09-19-2021, 08:33 AM   #37
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuckyarla View Post
Actually it was the opposite! It was when I was going downhill with the foot off the pedal.
Were you going very fast? If so, once you went downhill your speed might have exceeded the higher limit for electric only driving.
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      09-19-2021, 08:43 AM   #38
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuckyarla View Post
Actually it was the opposite! It was when I was going downhill with the foot off the pedal.
Sounds like it is working perfectly.

In Sport Mode regenerative braking is enhanced (a lot, maybe most, PHEVs give you a toggle of some kind to "control" brake regeneration power. BMW put this behind driving modes instead). So as soon as you take your foot off the accelerator the car will start using brake regeneration. If your foot is off for more than a couple of seconds it will turn off the ICE and let regenerative braking work. It will fire back up once you hit the gas again.

Sport mode isn't about "ICE all the time" as that really isn't something you want to care about on these cars. Sport mode is about faster shifting response, holder gears longer so you accelerate faster, and about adjusting the pedal acceleration curve so you have a more dynamic driving experience. The ICE is kept on where possible to eliminate the millisecond delay you'll have kicking it on.

Additionally, the torque of the EV motor is what really makes the 530e the better car compared to the 530i IMHO. You don't have that turbo lag feeling ever. You are in a mode for spirited driving you can just knock the shifter to the left, hit sport mode, and go. I had a MY2021 530i loaner and the turbo lag was extremely noticeable. Once it was spooled up it felt decent, but until it was the car felt very sluggish. The 530e never feels sluggish. I enjoyed a spirited driving session just the other day where I was sliding between 50MPH and 110MPH in Sport Mode w/ shifter to the left and smiling the entire time.

Enjoy the driving dynamic and the power delivery and focus less on where the power is being delivered from at any given moment.
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      09-19-2021, 11:13 PM   #39
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I use it when my battery is depleted and I need to run the climate while the car is parked on a cold or hot day
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      09-20-2021, 09:43 AM   #40
ted99
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My car allows me to program the max amount the battery will be charged to in batt control. I've learned to set this to 80% or 90% (depending on the terrain I'm in) so that there is "room" for a charge on throttle lift. (90% in Houston's flat terrain where the only charge comes from "braking" and 80% if I'm in an area with hills where I can get a good charge going downhill.
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      09-20-2021, 07:34 PM   #41
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don't have a 530e, but my sister has a x3 30e. she mainly uses the battery control to recharge the battery on the highway, so once she gets off the highway it is all battery power on her commute. the x3 30e only has approx. 14-17miles e-range tho.
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      09-21-2021, 06:14 AM   #42
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So when going into sport individual and configuring engine and transmission into comfort mode, will I then get the comfort regeneration or sport regeneration when letting go of the gas pedal?

I use sport individual in those settings to give me the red HUD (MY 2020, idrive 7 lite) but without having the ICE being on all the time
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