[Bogey4me]

I have a 50 mile commute each way. It's probably 46 miles on the freeway at 80 mph and 4 miles of City driving. The best I've been able to do is 46 mpg, but that was only once with no freeway traffic. I've found that keeping in Auto eDrive is best until I get about 15 miles out and I usually have around 50% left on battery I'll put on Max eDrive to fully deplete the battery for last part of journey home. I'm thinking it's probably not possible to get the 67 MPGe? My life to date is 37 MPG. I've only had the 530e for a couple of weeks. Any tips from more experienced 530e owners?

[Ph0zenstone]

My life to date is 31.5mpg with mostly highway driving so i'd say yours is pretty good!

[AP]

Slow down from 80mph to say 65 and that will make quite a difference.( just leave 10 mins earlier)

[JOHNBMWM5]

Originally Posted by Bogey4me

I have a 50 mile commute each way. It's probably 46 miles on the freeway at 80 mph and 4 miles of City driving. The best I've been able to do is 46 mpg, but that was only once with no freeway traffic. I've found that keeping in Auto eDrive is best until I get about 15 miles out and I usually have around 50% left on battery I'll put on Max eDrive to fully deplete the battery for last part of journey home. I'm thinking it's probably not possible to get the 67 MPGe? My life to date is 37 MPG. I've only had the 530e for a couple of weeks. Any tips from more experienced 530e owners?

Get shot and buy as Diesel, quicker and cheaper to run.

[Chem14]

I still have not filled up the gas tank since I purchased two months ago. My commute is 11mi so I usually hit max edrive before I leave the house and then fill up for free at work, which gets me back home on battery only. Agree with others that slowing down will likely help.

I have noticed that using level 1 vs level 2 charging gets you different fill levels for battery.

[Bogey4me]

Originally Posted by JOHNBMWM5

Get shot and buy as Diesel, quicker and cheaper to run.

Diesel is same cost as gas in California so no benefit there, plus there is currently no 5 series diesel. With Hybrid tax rebates nothing beats the 530e from a cost perspective for a luxury BMW sedan.

[Bogey4me]

Originally Posted by Chem14

I still have not filled up the gas tank since I purchased two months ago. My commute is 11mi so I usually hit max edrive before I leave the house and then fill up for free at work, which gets me back home on battery only. Agree with others that slowing down will likely help.

I have noticed that using level 1 vs level 2 charging gets you different fill levels for battery.

I've been using a level 1, but going to get a level 2 set up so I can get quicker mid day charges when I'm around home. Thanks for the tip

[Bogey4me]

Originally Posted by AP

Slow down from 80mph to say 65 and that will make quite a difference.( just leave 10 mins earlier)

I keep telling myself that, but with a 50 mile commute each way that ends up being 25 minutes more commuting every day! My other car is an F85 X5M which gets 13 mpg, so the 530e is helping me for days when I don't want to have such an involved commute, but not willing to take much more time. At this point it's more of a challenge to see how good I can get it without driving in the slow lane.

[Bogey4me]

Originally Posted by phozenstone

My life to date is 31.5mpg with mostly highway driving so i'd say yours is pretty good!

Wow that is quite a difference. Do you have it in sport mode most of the time?

[diinky]

im averaging approx 36mpg.
thats driving on all kinds of roads, 6mpg less than my old F10 2.0D
Happy with that, espe ially as i dont have to pay for the fuel.

[hantsxlg]

Us gallons i assume... Worth mentioning as not all the world has same units of measure

[Ph0zenstone]

Originally Posted by Bogey4me

Wow that is quite a difference. Do you have it in sport mode most of the time?

No but I've been doing 120 mile drives a couple times where I only get about 15 miles of all electric then switch to auto edrive...the rest being mostly gas while cruising at 75-80. I also don't have a charging station other than Home which sucks

[Ph0zenstone]

How long does it take you guys to get a full charge on regular 110v home outlet? It seems like it's way more than 7 hours for me.

[Chem14]

Also turning the heating/cooling off seems to help increase range.

110 takes forever to charge.

[Ph0zenstone]

Originally Posted by Chem14

Also turning the heating/cooling off seems to help increase range.

110 takes forever to charge.

i just realized there is a charge setting from "Maximum, Reduced and Low" - have mine default at low but i just bumped it up to Reduced. we'll see how it goes.

[JYSC]

my commute is 6 miles one way, so I can drive both ways with pure electricity power.
With some highway driving during weekends, my life-to-date average is 53mpg.

A BMW technician once told me to use navigation every single time, because the car can save power by analyzing the route.

[Bogey4me]

Originally Posted by JYSC

my commute is 6 miles one way, so I can drive both ways with pure electricity power.
With some highway driving during weekends, my life-to-date average is 53mpg.

A BMW technician once told me to use navigation every single time, because the car can save power by analyzing the route.

I noticed that it did that! That's pretty a awesome that the navy is configured for the 530e. I live slightly higher than rest of the city and the nav wanted me to maximize the coast down I assumed for retentive braking. It was only 3 minutes longer and so I tried it.

[Bogey4me]

Originally Posted by phozenstone

How long does it take you guys to get a full charge on regular 110v home outlet? It seems like it's way more than 7 hours for me.

It's been taking 5 hours in a 110 outlet with the setting set at maximum in car. I'm going to add a 220 outlet when I get a free weekend over the weekend. It will help for those days when I'm home and can benefit from a quicker charge. Also in my area the electricity is cheaper after 10 pm so I schedule to overnight charge to start at 10 pm.

[jukkha156]

This is a great thread and hopefully will result in us all finding the right 'Drive' strategy.

Since getting the car in July I have done 6500 miles and 3300 of that has been pure electric. My lifetime MPG is currently 78 mpg. (Just to add my annual mileage will be in the region of 15,000 miles).

I have been driving to work and back in Max e-Drive all the way on all journeys and it is more than quick enough in all situations. (50% of my journey is on the motorway).

My home to work commutes are 18 miles one way and i get to charge at both ends.

However, since it has got colder i am no longer doing 100% electric and it is falling a few miles short. (so am currently getting between 100- 700 mpg atm)

As well as my work to home commutes, all local journeys tend to be mainly electric too (as long as i have sufficiently charged). I have also tried to take advantage of shopping/public charging whenever I can and this has worked out really well.

In those 6500 miles I have driven to London at least 3 times (from Manchester) and various other places around the UK. Most of these times I know I won't get a charge at the other end so leave my car fully charged (leaving home) and battery save set to 100%. I will then use this up with 20 odd miles left on the route back home. These longer motorway journeys tend to be 38-41 mpg overall.

I am still not sure if this is the correct strategy or should i just leave it in Auto e-Drive for these longer motorway journeys? Also any other tips?

I think my journey scenarios have worked out really well overall and i am so glad i went the plug-in route.

[lnaukkar]

Originally Posted by jukkha156

I am still not sure if this is the correct strategy or should i just leave it in Auto e-Drive for these longer motorway journeys? Also any other tips?

Really, just leave "auto edrive" on and plot the route to the nav. With auto edrive and nav on, the car will calculate how it can best utilize electric drive considering speed limits, elevation, traffic and so forth. You only get the benefits of this when the car is in auto edrive.

And frankly I don't think using "keep battery charge" ever makes sense range or consumption wise. There are lots of reasons you might want to charge the battery or save up juice, e.g. to preconditioning the car or access restricted areas (electric drive only areas in some countries). But, there's really no way it can improve your consumption for you.

[jukkha156]

Originally Posted by lnaukkar

Really, just leave "auto edrive" on and plot the route to the nav. With auto edrive and nav on, the car will calculate how it can best utilize electric drive considering speed limits, elevation, traffic and so forth. You only get the benefits of this when the car is in auto edrive.

And frankly I don't think using "keep battery charge" ever makes sense range or consumption wise. There are lots of reasons you might want to charge the battery or save up juice, e.g. to preconditioning the car or access restricted areas (electric drive only areas in some countries). But, there's really no way it can improve your consumption for you.

Thanks Inaukkar, i will try this next time.

[SteveinArizona]

What I do on my 330e (and I expect to do on my 530e in a couple of weeks when I get it) is drive in auto mode without nav if I am driving beyond the Edrive range and then, based on my experience, use edrive to get home.

I don't especially care about mpg (I only drive about 8K miles a year) but do care about the environment so I try to end up with little or no electric drive capacity. But I prefer to have the battery capacity on the way home so I know I will always have my electric drive if I need it. I think, if I understand the system correctly, that if I use the nav to get me to my destination, it will leave me little or no capacity to get back in terms of electric battery.

I have never driven in eco mode so I have no idea what will happen if I do. I mostly drive in sport mode and when I have trracked my mpg (for giggles) I have gotten between 34 and 55 mpg (not counting the impact of electrons).