RANGE TEST BMW 530e xDRIVE TOURING PLUG-IN HYBRID

I’m going to test the range on the highway first. I want to find out the minimum range of this car by testing it at higher average speeds. At the beginning of the drive, the battery is fully charged to 100%. The range indicator is at 45 km. I did the test in August and it was around 19.5 degrees. After the first checkpoint, the battery was at 75%, I covered 11.7 km and the range indicator is at 33 km. The average consumption is 21.7 kWh. The theoretical range would be 11.7+33=44.7 km. The battery is now at 50%. I have traveled 24 km, the average consumption is 21.3 kWh. There is still 20 km of range left. The theoretical range would therefore be 24+20 km = 44 km

When the battery was at 25%, I noticed a drop in consumption to 20.5 kWh. I have driven 35.1 km and there is still 12 km of range left. The theoretical range has been increased to 47.1. I am curious about the final results. I ran the battery empty and the final result is 49.3 km of range. The average consumption is 20.2 kWh. So even on the highway we went a wee bit over the minimum WLTP range of 30 miles.

Now let’s test the range at lower average speeds in the city. I want to know what the maximum range of this car could be. We still have 50% range in the battery. I drove 32.5 km. The average consumption is 18.8 kWh. There is still 22 km of range in the battery. The theoretical range is 54.5 km, we are already beating the upper limit of the WLTP range. There wasn’t much to report at 25% battery, so let’s get straight to the final figure. The range in the city is 55.2 km and we consumed 19 kWh, so we had 2 km more range than the upper limit of the WLTP range.

Now let’s see how long it takes to charge the battery. This battery has a gross capacity of 12 kWh. BMW says it takes 3.6 hours to charge the battery with a charging power of 3.7kW. I did a test at a public charging station. At the start of the session, the car indicated that it would take 4h5 minutes to charge. In reality it took me 3h25 minutes to fully charge the car.

It is also possible to charge the battery while driving with the battery control mode. I wanted to know how long it takes to fully charge the battery while driving. I tested this while driving on the motorway at a constant speed of 120 km/h. It took me 48 minutes to fully charge the battery while driving at 120 km/h and the total distance I covered was 82.7 km. After 10 minutes of driving I had already charged the battery for 25%. I found it remarkable that I could charge the battery in less time while driving than at a real charging station.

What about consumption, you may ask. As far as mixed consumption is concerned, I did a first check after 189 km. Average consumption was 6.2 l/100 km and 4.8 kWh. I had driven about 126 petrol km’s and 63 electric km’s. I did another check after 380 km and the average consumption was 6.4 liters and 2.3 kW. I had driven 254 petrol kms and 126 electric kms.

I also tested on the motorway how much consumption is when you are driving with an empty battery. After a short drive of 26 km, the fuel consumption indicated 8.3 liters. Fuel consumption on the highway while charging the battery was 9.7 liters.