BMW i8 Can BMW’s baby hypercar blow the lid off performance convention?

Taking centre stage under the road test spotlight this week is the sports car of the future. That’s what BMW would have us believe the new i8 is and it’s a believable claim of a car that is daring, exotic and state of the art in just about every way you might judge it.

But the i8 also marks BMW’s return to a part of the market that it has flirted with in years gone by, and rather memorably so. The Z8 and M1 have a successor in this car and they are some daunting acts to follow.But neither the Z8 nor the M1 had a start in life quite like this. The i8 was conceived to redefine sports car conventions rather than abide by them. It is made from the lightest, strongest materials using the most advanced techniques that BMW could apply, and it’s driven by a revolutionary petrol-electric plug-in hybrid, all-wheel drive powertrain.

This is Munich’s little miracle: a modern hypercar done for a fraction of the price. And it looks sensational.But does all of that technological sophistication deliver the type of drive that no class-leading sports car can be without? Or are there limitations to all of this cutting-edge complexity?

There’s no engine in the front to need the cooling effect of this bonnet scoop.
Instead, this sizeable crevice is a thermal aide to the electric motor’s operation.

The 20in wheels quell “efficiency-reducing turbulence”. There is a choice of designs; our car’s
alloys were a £1150 option.

The flattening of BMW’s iconic kidney grille is pronounced in the i8. It’s also almost completely capped off as part of the model’s drive towards a more slippery drag coefficient.

The all-LED headlights’ DRLs are in the i-brand U shape. Laserlights are set to be introduced as an option later this year, promising to dramatically increase the high-beam range.

DESIGN AND ENGINEERING

BMW’s LifeDrive platform is the genius behind the i8. It combines a passenger cell and doors made of resin-injected carbonfibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) with front and rear subframes and crash structures in aluminium to create a superlightweight body. The CFRP tub is 50 per cent lighter than if it had been made of steel and 30 per cent lighter than had it been aluminium. 

Inside hides the normally punitive mass of a combustion engine, an electric motor and a lithiumion battery pack, but the overall weight is 1560kg as claimed, or 1575kg on our scales which is quite something.

The last Porsche 911 we weighed a Targa 4S was also 1575kg, while a V6 Jaguar F-type tops 1700kg. Power comes primarily from a reworked version of the 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol triple you’ll find in a Mini Cooper. Here, though, special internals and new induction technology conjure 228bhp and 236lb ft from that modest swept volume. The engine drives not only the rear wheels via a six-speed automatic transmission but also a high-output starter-generator electric motor, which shuff les power back into the 7.1kWh lithiumion battery under the cabin f loor.

Up front, there’s a 129bhp, 184lb ft‘hybrid synchronous’ electric motor, which drives the front wheels. It is of BMW’s own design and gives a more balanced delivery of torque than a simpler traction motor. It is also ground-breaking because it drives through a multi-speed automatic gearbox (see ‘Under the Skin’, p63).

Combined outputs for the i8 are 357bhp and 420lb ft the former a bit meagre for a £100k sports car, the latter promising to make up for the deficit. Meanwhile, design conversation pieces include narrow, aerodynamically profiled 20in alloys, ding and corrosion-proof thermoplastic panels, superdistinctive architectural surfacing and a particularly wide rear track.

Dihedral doors provide visual impact when stationary. They are around 50 per cent lighter than normal doors thanks to their aluminium, carbonfibre and thermoplastic construction.

The layering of the i8’s aerodynamics are most obvious here, where the  tail-lights blend into the air
duct channels.


These contoured side skirts ahead of the rear wheels, and the aeroflaps above, work to further dampen and direct the airflow around  the back end of the car.

As with all plug-in hybrids, the i8 gets two filler caps. One, on the offside rear, is for unleaded; the other, on the nearside front, is the seven-pin socket used for gathering electricity.

INTERIOR

Open an i8’s doors and you’re greeted by a cabin that is at once extremely beautiful yet, if you’re used to seeing inside BMWs, reassuringly familiar. Just as it should be, then: special yet also entirely usable.

Pleasingly finished, high-grade materials are presented in an interesting, slightly futuristic fashion. Blue the motor industry’s eco colour of choice features here and there, but for the most part BMW’s traditional materials abound.

One of our photographers thought it a pity that the bold material choices of the BMW i3’s interior hadn’t been continued here, but by and large our testers felt it spot on.
The driving position and controls are sited entirely as you’d expect them to be on a BMW sports car or GT. You can sit long and low, with a good wheel extending out towards you and backed with classy paddles.

The front passenger fares equally well. The window line is high, so it’s snug and secure rather than airy. The i8 also joins the Lotus Evora as being the only cars on sale that are both mid-engined with +2 rear seats. It’s unusual because there’s only so much space in the wheelbase behind the front seats, but BMW has done adecent job. You can fit nippers back there, but really it’s a three-seater, asa tall adult driving all but eliminates rear legroom on that side.


Behind all of that lies a 154-litre boot, nine litres larger than a 911’s.

Driving position is excellent, with fine front seats, which are widely adjustable and supportive. Centre cubby is a touch shallow, if you want to be picky.

Things aren’t great back here, but headroom is broadly the same as a Porsche 911’s. Okay for kids, but legroom disappears if there’s a tall driver in the front.


As with rear seat space, boot capacity is broadly similar to that of the 911, but here there is also room atop the engine cover for thinner items.

PERFORMANCE

The i8 is absolutely on the pace in terms of raw speed, way ahead of it on quality of delivery and unequalled on fuel economy. The sporting service this car provides in the real world is nothing short of excellent. Incredible, in fact, when you think it’s all coming from a three-cylinder petrol engine and some mains electricity.

There’s little compromise on acceleration. Our i8 was quicker than both a Porsche 911 3.4 and a Jaguar F-type V6 S to both 60mph and 100mph. There are quicker cars on which you could spend £100k, but a departure point like that shouldn’t be
hard for anyone to stomach.

It’s easier still when you consider how flexible the i8 is and how muscular it feels the instant you move the accelerator. Select Sport mode and the car will hold a gear at high revs. Chase the red line and the engine feels willing and powerful, but never more so than when you’re simply squirting along in a high gear on a motorway or picking off an unhurried overtake. Locked in fifth gear, the i8 will get from 50-70mph in a brawny 3.3sec. The aforementioned 911 needs to be in second to sprint more quickly than that, while even the supercharged Jag needs fourth.

That immense flexibility makes the i8 a brilliant grand tourer. The low-profile tyres and super-stiff structure combine to create a bit of road roar, and you’ll wish there was a way to turn down BMW’s speaker-conveyed, frequency-augmented engine noise in Sport mode, but you can cover long distances at effortless high speeds in this car, while being as involved with the i8’s powertrain as takes your fancy.

And when you do, it’s remarkable how economical the i8 can be. Our touring test, driven partly on electric power, coaxed a whisker under 50mpg from the i8. But out on the road, you can be as brutish as you like with the loud pedal and seldom get less than 40mpg, while rivals would be struggling towards the high 20s.

In town, meanwhile, the electric-only range proved to be about 16 miles after a full charge.

On the limit

A mixed bag here. The i8 feels at some stages agile and at others hampered both by the roles it’s meant to play and by its mechanical layout.

It’s quick to turn, and the steering’s consistency, if not its feel, is pleasingly reassuring. It quickly falls on to its outside front tyre, which, at just 215mm wide, is bound to give up grip before the 245mm-wide rears. At least, that’s the case in the dry.In the dry, you drive up to where the front lets go and then manage things; in the wet, it’s a slightly different story.

The front end lets go first on a steady throttle, but it’s possible to push through that and unstick the rear, which is, of course, driven by the three-pot Mini engine. Even with the stability control apparently disengaged, from then on the i8 doesn’t behave like you might expect.

The throttle pedal induces little but lag, and when power does arrive, it’s frequently biased to the front electric motors, which clumsily drag the i8 straight again. It can be quite quick, but it’s not always wildly entertaining.

RIDE AND HANDLING

What’s important with the i8 is to manage your expectations. Come at it hoping for a straight rival to a Porsche 911 or an Audi R8 and you’re likely to come away if not disappointed, then at least slightly bemused. Expect it to be closer to BMW’s own 6-series or another grand tourer and the i8 is perhaps more likely to fulfil your remit.

The steering, for one, is definitely more that of a tourer than sports car. It’s Responsive and accurate, no question, but lighter than we’d expected, and with little discernible increase in torque effort off the straight-ahead to replicate the feeling of cornering force transferring to the rim. Instead, it retains its consistent, oily slickness at all speeds. It’s far from unpleasant but less connected than you might have expected.

The chassis, too, feels more tuned for dabbling in straight-line demolitions than it is for consuming corners. There’s a spot of fidgeting around town, but that clears on the open road and, given that it has excellent straight-line stability, the i8 makes a superb cruising companion.

Where the i8 is slightly less convincing is if you ask it to do the things you’d normally ask of a £100k sports car. It’s not that it’s incapable; it wouldn’t record a lateral g figure of 1.03 if it were. No, it’s just that the balance isn’t quite suited to outright sportiness (see ‘On the Limit’).

We have no qualms with the brakes, though. They stopped the i8 in short order, repeatedly, and with excellent feel.

BUYING AND OWNING

A plug-in hybrid’s appeal can often be boiled down to what appears in this section – cheapness to run being, after all, most of the point. For now, the i8 is so obviously innovative that its running costs and asking price are perhaps less immediately consequential to buyers than the Philip K Dick-style cool radiating from the concept (although BMW’s Park Lane showroom in Mayfair reports that even very well heeled buyers are keen to avoid London’s congestion charge). Either way, the i8’s near six-figure price ensures that this is as rarefied an option as an R8 or a 911 – more so, in fact, given that this year’s UK allocation has already sold out and the waiting list extends well into next year. Its efficiency, therefore, must be considered in the proper context.

But unlike the R8 or 911, the i8 is exempt from road tax and qualifies for just five per cent benefit-in-kind tax until 2016, thanks to its 49g/km CO2 emissions. It’s also eligible for the government’s plug-in car subsidy, and clearly no conventional rival can compete with its 134.5mpg combined claim or, of course, the 23 mile electric range. These numbers are, of course, mitigated somewhat by real world use, but given the exclusive segment in which it sits, that doesn’t prevent the i8 from garnering as many stars in this section as it does elsewhere a unique advantage that makes it every bit the trailblazing prospect that BMW intended.

NOW YOU’RE TORQUING

BMW’s ‘hybrid synchronous’ electric motor is due a big chunk of the credit for the i8’s performance. Munich’s own proprietary tech is ostensibly a permanently excited synchronous motor (the kind used widely in EVs) with an asymmetrical rotor. This creates what’s known as reluctance torque as it spins, in addition to the normal electromagnetic torque delivered by the alternating current. That extra torque delivers more power at higher rotational speeds than most electric motors can manage and therefore more electric boost for the i8 at higher road speeds.

The motor wouldn’t add so viscerally to the i8’s motorway pace without a second key bit of powertrain technology: a two-speed automatic transmission dedicated to that front-mounted electric motor. This gearbox, which is manufactured by GKN Driveline, is controlled in harmony with the primary engine and gearbox and shifts ratios seamlessly. It allows the electric motor to chime in with all of its 184lb ft at much higher road speeds than would otherwise be possible.


BMW i8

On-the-road price  £99,845*
Price as tested  £105,825*
Value after 3yrs/36k miles  £54,200
Contract hire pcm  na
Cost per mile  na
Insurance/typical quote  50/£1195

EQUIPMENT CHECKLIST

Adaptive LED headlights
Two-zone climate control
Leather upholstery
8.8in multimedia display
Adaptive cruise control
Drive Performance Control
Bluetooth, USB and voice control
Head-up display
Satellite navigation
Park Distance Control
Front heated seats
20-inch W-spoke alloy wheels    £1150
Driving Assistant pack (inc rear-view 
camera, surround view, high-beam 
assist, forward collision warning, 
pedestrian protection, city collision 
mitigation and speed limit info)    £1490
Halo Interior World (inc anthracite 
headlining, BMW i Blue seatbelts)   £2150
Internet connectivity    £95
Harmon/Kardon sound system    £895
Univeral remote control    £200 
Options in bold fitted to test car

ACCELERATION

MPH  TIME (sec)
0-30     2.0
0-40     2.8
0-50     3.6
0-60     4.5
0-70     5.7
0-80     7.0
0-90     8.6
0-100  10.6
0-110  12.8
0-120  15.4
0-130  19.0
0-140  23.4
0-150  28.8
0-160