BMW i3 completes North Cape to Tarifa journey with less than three hours of charging time

BMW completed a nearly 5,900-kilometer journey from the North Cape to Tarifa with the new i3 50 xDrive. According to the manufacturer, the electric 3-series required a total of only 2 hours and 46 minutes for recharging.

On the route, the BMW i3 consumed an average of 12.5 kWh/100 km.

It is November. Here in Northern Europe, the weather is turning cold, and for many in the Northern Hemisphere, thoughts are already drifting towards next summer’s holiday — perhaps somewhere in the south, like southern France or Spain. Or maybe a road trip right across Europe. And for those planning such a trip in an electric car, alongside hotel costs, tolls, and the question of how many pairs of shoes can realistically fit in the suitcase, there is usually one more factor to consider: charging time. BMW has now made this calculation significantly easier.

For the 5,886.7-kilometre journey from the North Cape at the top of Norway to Tarifa in Spain, the charging time for the new i3 50 xDrive added up to just 2 hours, 45 minutes, and 54 seconds. The so-called ‘Paneuropeana’ route took the BMW through eight countries. The focus was not on achieving the shortest driving time but explicitly on minimising charging time at predefined checkpoints. The team was free to choose which publicly accessible fast-charging stations to use and could tailor the route to the most powerful charging infrastructure, as well as weather and traffic conditions.

BMW states that the average charging power for the entire trip was 275 kW. With this, the i3 beat the previous Paneuropeana record from 2017 by more than seven hours.

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The BMW i3 on its nearly 5,900-kilometre Paneuropeana journey.

The pure driving time amounted to 3 days, 2 hours, and 41 minutes. During this time, the i3 achieved an average speed of 79.7 km/h and, according to BMW, consumed an average of 12.5 kWh/100 km. This figure is even lower than the official combined WLTP consumption of the i3 50 xDrive, which ranges from 13.4 to 18 kWh/100 km. Charging along the way was done exclusively at publicly accessible charging points.

BMW equips the i3 with up to 400 kW charging power

The technical foundation for the short charging time is the sixth generation of the BMW eDrive system. The new i3 features an 800-volt architecture and cylindrical cells, achieving a maximum DC charging power of 400 kW. Under optimal conditions, up to 423 kilometres of WLTP range can be recharged in just ten minutes.

The i3 50 xDrive used for the record drive is equipped with an electric motor on both the front and rear axles. Together, the two motors deliver 345 kW (469 hp) and 645 Nm of torque. The all-electric all-wheel-drive vehicle accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 4.7 seconds, with a top speed of 200 km/h.

The usable capacity of the high-voltage battery is 108.7 kWh. BMW specifies a WLTP range of up to 912 kilometres for the i3 50 xDrive. The vehicle uses the NMC variant of the new Gen6 battery. That said, BMW does not intend to offer the Neue Klasse exclusively with this cell chemistry in the future. As BMW CEO Milan Nedeljković recently confirmed, LFP batteries will also be used in selected models. One early example is the iX3 30L developed for China, while higher-positioned variants will continue to use NMC cells. BMW is not planning on making a general switch to LFP.

Efficiency is also enhanced by a drag coefficient (c d) of just 0.21 and low-rolling-resistance tyres. According to BMW, the energy losses of the Gen6 electric motors have been reduced by 40 per cent compared to the previous generation. The volumetric energy density of the cylindrical cells has increased by 20 per cent compared to the prismatic cells of Gen5.

Regenerative braking also plays a role. BMW states that more than 95 per cent of all braking operations are controlled by the central computer, ‘Heart of Joy’, via the electric motors, allowing a large portion of the kinetic energy to be fed back into the battery.

BMW also emphasises that the vehicles used for the Paneuropeana challenge were fully representative of the series production standard in both hardware and software. In addition to the record-setting vehicle, another i3 and an iX3 50 xDrive accompanied the journey as support vehicles. The new electric 3 Series is produced at BMW’s Munich plant.

Of course, a record drive optimised for minimal charging time is different from a family holiday in August. There are traffic jams, roadworks, hungry passengers, and people who only realise five minutes after the last charging stop that they need to use the toilet after all. But if the car requires less than three hours of charging for nearly 6,000 kilometres, at least one of the classic electric car problems seems to be gradually shrinking. Now, BMW just needs to come up with a solution for the analogue challenges of a European road trip—roadworks, for example.