i8 - how and where to charge?

[notax]

I'm taking delivery of my i8 next week and thought I'd try and get my head around how to charge it in public. Any advice? Can I use Tesla points? Seem to be different change levels, types of connection and membership schemes. Very confusing! Can anyone share real experience? I work in Southampton and travel all over. Thanks

[E-bmw]

If I am honest, I MIGHT have looked into that before ordering!

[notax]

Good point! I hadn't intended to buy one until I was invited by PH to drive one a week ago and having decided to buy one thought I'd get the order in before the April tax changes and save myself £2k over 4 years in the process. As it isn't purely electric I can always charge from home and then run on petrol, just wondered how the public charging worked - and whether it is worthwhile in a car that only does 20 miles on electricity anyway....

[wilwak]

It's great for doing a quick under 20 mile trip out on pure electric.

Anything over that I just let the car look after the petrol/electric mix.

I've never charged it away from home. Not worth the hassle.

[TheBMWDriver]

I only really get 11 to 13 miles on electric mode.

I don't bother to plug it in unless I am at home. I just put it into sport mode and it charges it self.

[notax]

Thanks, I was wondering whether to have a home Bmw fast charger installed, but I would need a 15m lead which no one seems to offer, so may just use a standard extension lead. Am I right in thinking that takes about 6 hours to fully charge? I guess it is rare to run out of battery completely using sport mode, so I guess it may be faster if starting from a partial charge?

[trickywoo]

notax said:

Thanks, I was wondering whether to have a home Bmw fast charger installed, but I would need a 15m lead which no one seems to offer, so may just use a standard extension lead. Am I right in thinking that takes about 6 hours to fully charge? I guess it is rare to run out of battery completely using sport mode, so I guess it may be faster if starting from a partial charge?

Plugged into a standard household supply, the i8 takes around eight hours to charge from flat, though with a special BMW-supplied wall box (£315) an 80 per cent charge can be achieved within two hours.