Bimmercode - low energy recovery (regeneration) on start?

I have not seen anyone mentioning default regen on various Bimmercode threads. I might tinker with Bimmercode in the future. I would most likely turn off the seat belt chime, if nothing else! I always belt up, and that LOUD reminder ruins the start up experience if I forget to buckle before hitting the on/off.

 

What I do is hit the Power switch as I'm getting in without pressing the brake pedal. That turns on the radio, raises the HUD, etc. without sounding the seat-belt reminder. Then, after buckling my seat belt, I press the brake pedal, hit the Power switch again and I'm motoring a fraction of a second later, never having heard the tattle-tale sound.

 

This works too, but I prefer not to have to hit the button twice. If I could disable the chime, I would prefer that solution.

 

It's been difficult, but I've been trying to train myself to buckle up and then activate the car. I think the "start then buckle" habit was a way to get an ICE vehicle to go through its fluidic warming before driving off, which obviously the SE doesn't need.

 

But if you were listening to a baseball game in the house before going out to your SE, you want to turn on the radio ASAP so you don't miss a play. Wait. I can't listen to the baseball game in my MINI Cooper BECAUSE IT'S ON THE AM RADIO BAND! Oh, how I wish Bimmercode could activate the AM radio band (which it apparently could do in some BMW i3 cars). Now that I've eliminated the fake bonnet scoop, the missing band is my only peeve.

OK, start over. But if you were listening to a compelling story on NPR in the house before going out to your SE, you want to turn on the radio ASAP so you don't miss a key part of the story. That's when flipping Power switch as you enter to get quickly back to your show makes it worth the effort to flip the switch a second time to begin motoring immediately after you're belted up.

 

How about an AM radio with bluetooth? I have a large CD collection, so I'm thinking I might get a CD player with bluetooth (I have some stuff digitized that I could put on a flashdrive, but I don't have time to do that with most of my CDs). I know it's not the same, and I wish the MINI came with a CD player (especially with the nice harman/kardon system), but I realize most people don't care about that.

 

Thanks for the suggestion--is there such a radio? I've seen radios that receive Bluetooth signals, but never one that sends. If I HAVE to listen to AM in our SE, I use a small AM radio with an earbud.

Interestingly, the MINI Cooper SE produces way less RFI than my old gen-1 Honda Insight hybrids did, so the small amount of static--even though the antenna is completely inside the car--doesn't bother me. This 2016 article explains that the RFI created by electric cars is the reason they don't have AM radios, but my 2021 experience differs.

 

Since I had looked up CD players with bluetooth, I thought there would be a radio with bluetooth as well, but they all seem to only receive bluetooth signals. What you need, then, is a bluetooth transmitter that you can hook up to your existing AM radio with an AUX cable (could it have cost MINI that much to at least include an AUX input?). Something like this might work. Or this. Hope that helps!

 

If I wasn't so fond of the old-fashioned sound of the Detroit Tigers' AM radio broadcasts, I could simply tune my MINI's satellite radio to Sirius/XM channel 178 (I just this second got around to googling that).