The future is now for BMW. Can it live up to the past?
BMW readily admits that the i8 is not the supercar – the M1
successor – that many of its customers wanted.
The exterior, even
covered in blue camouflage, sends the right message
“They nearly threw stones at me in the Middle East,” i8
project manager Henrik Wenders says with a grin.
BMW isn’t interested in a halo that lives in the past. BMW’s
long-awaited electric-car sub-brand, i, arrives next spring in the form of the
i3 and the i8; it looks toward the future of automobiles on a hotter, more
strictly regulated planet. The task for the i8, the $150,000 plug-in-hybrid
flagship of this effort, is to prove that the new-era cars will still be BMWs.
With a few months remaining in the i8’s ambitious three-and-a-half-year
development cycle – “It’s been like riding a cannonball,” Wenders says – BMW
invited us to its test facility in Mirimas, France, to evaluate whether the i8
is in fact the Ultimate Driving Hybrid.
The exterior, even covered in blue camouflage, sends the
right message. Most green cars – including the mighty Tesla Model S – look as
if they were designed by a wind tunnel. The i8 looks like a carbon copy of the
2011 concept car. Karlheinz Ebbinghaus, head of i8 aerodynamics, assures us it
is not – his team negotiated with the designers over everybody panel to arrive
at a 0.26 coefficient of drag without butchering the design.
There were plenty of other complexities to iron out under
the i8’s skin: three power sources act on two axles via two transmissions. They
interact so smoothly that you might be fooled into thinking they’re all
connected to the accelerator pedal by an old-fashioned throttle cable. The
front-mounted electric motor’s 184 lb-ft of torque provides instant zip that
masks any lag from the 1.5-liter turbo three-cylinder engine, which then
assumes more of the burden at higher speeds. The seat-of-the-pants feel is not
unlike that from a powerful supercharged engine. The numbers are also the best
of both worlds: 0 to 62 mph in 4.5 seconds and as much as 95 mpg (in the more
lenient European cycle).
There were plenty
of other complexities to iron out under the i8’s skin: three power sources act
on two axles via two transmissions
The carbon-fiber i8 weighs a bit less than a BMW 328i, roughly
3300 pounds. Light and quick electrically assisted power steering telegraphs
its nimbleness, although we wish it telegraphed more of the road surface.
Concerns about weight and rolling resistance limit the width of the tires. A
smooth driver will be able to go very fast in this car. Your humble scribe,
still deciphering the driving line on the hot lap, hears the Bridgestone
Potenzas howling even at low cornering speeds. It’s still a lot of fun. As we
flit through a corner and dip into the flat-as-Kansas powerband, we start to
appreciate the i8 as more than just a fast hybrid.
“It’s good because of its concept, not despite it,” says i8
project director Carsten Breitfeld.
In other respects, the relationship between green car and
sports car is not so harmonious. Neither the silence of the electric motor nor
the reedy exhaust of the three-cylinder will intimidate at a stoplight. (The
engine sounds much deeper inside the cabin, thanks to active noise measures.)
The bulky battery and the mid-engine proportions conspire against interior
packaging. The back seats are Porsche 911-tiny, and BMW says it will offer
custom luggage for the i8’s rear compartment, which is a nice way of admitting
that the trunk is small. Slim front seats gain back some space and are actually
more comfortable than BMW’s typical thickly bolstered chairs. The biggest issue
is the brake pedal – spongy feel is an acceptable trade-off for regenerative
energy in a hybrid but not in a sports car.
Floating panels
disguise it, but the i8 is actually a teardrop, the ideal aerodynamic shape.
In being so determined not to build another M1, BMW may have
done just that. That car, lest we forget, was an expensive, poor-selling
failure in its day (1978–1981). Nevertheless, its excellence – the M1 is widely
considered the best-engineered supercar of its era – boosted the brand as it
transformed from a relatively small producer of sport sedans into the luxury
juggernaut it is today.
Now BMW is transforming into an environmental leader. Once
again, it has a sports car that lacks an obvious audience. We don’t know how
many buyers will forsake the likes of the Audi R8 V10 or the Porsche 911 GT3
for the i8. Neither, we suspect, does BMW. But if this light, fast, and fun car
indeed shows the way forward for BMW, we’re happy to come along for the ride.
