How does it work? 135,700 supercar designed for maximum eco appeal with styling from the 23rd century. And last week, I was among the first to find out. In BMW engineer speak, the 2015 i8 is properly called a “plug-in electric hybrid sports car” — one with a 129-hp electric motor driving the front wheels and a turbocharged,1.5-liter three-cylinder engine with 228 hp driving the rear axle. 137,000 car is, like, a complete rip-off, man. That someone can buy two Ford Mustang Shelby GT500s for the price, blow an i8 away when the light turns green, and put the rest in a bank account. I wish them peace and happiness with this, but pure speed isn’t the point of the i8, although it can hustle to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds or less when set up in Sport mode. The i8 looks like no other car, and its complex drivetrain (with two transmissions, a lithium-ion battery pack and more software than the starship Enterprise) leaves us grasping for comparisons.
But there were a couple of refinement issues for me (and for other testers) on these launch cars that caused healthy conversation. The first one was the less than seamless transitions when going from the 129-hp front-wheel-drive eDrive to the all-wheel-drive 357-hp parallel hybrid mode in either Comfort or Sport. There is a slight feel of driveline shunt every so often, and I mean slight, but enough of it to make me wrinkle my nose whenever it happens. Between the software, the central electric brain, and a secondary 15-hp e-motor attached to the rear engine to in part help with these transitions, every so often an order or two gets missed. Then, when a wheel happens to leave the pavement over a bump while in motion in the all-wheel-drive parallel hybrid state, the brakes blip on the axle with the momentarily lifted wheel. The subsequent resumption of normal all-wheel motion after all rubber re-meets the road can be less than smooth.
In straightforward momentum and handling, the i8 takes your sports car thrills to a different level. One of the more serious bits to decide was what tires to use, since the i8 needs to be a thrilling driving machine and not an extremely suped-up Honda Insight. BMW i has elected to give journalists the wider and less tall optional set of 20-inch tires to test - 215/45 front and 235/40 rear. These Bridgestone Potenzas do a good job overall, even while promising less rolling resistance and, in theory, less lateral grip. The logic in these skinny 20s is: what one loses in width of footprint, one gains in footprint length. Added assistance comes in no small part from a micro-managing stability control that is smooth in these conditions over good pavement. Any lateral slip movement is relatively neutral and what little controlled tail wag happens gets wrangled well without killing the fun.
Weight distribution is 47 percent front and 53 percent rear, which also helps in keeping things handled even if grip limits are exceeded. Another big helper dynamically is the low stance of the i8. The central rotational point of the is just 17.8 inches from the ground, the lowest of any BMW by a good bit. I do enjoy the i8 design inside and out; the only exterior bit that might wear on the eyes after a while of looking at it being the very busy rear end fascia. It didn’t take long for it to seem like a scowling Transformer-bot staring at me. But go for the pricy Pure Impulse trim - sorry, world - and the darker exterior detailing takes some of the scowl away from the contrasting color scheme everyone was testing this day. The slick front seats look the part, but could offer just a little bit more lower back support and side support during the most assertive driving moments. The roughly 6 cubic feet of luggage space in the rear is also tight, though two gym-style weekend bags could be wiggled in to fit.
BMW i and Louis Vuitton have designed an optional carbon fiber themed custom set of luggage to look good and to fit into every nook and cranny perfectly. It was ultra sunny by the ocean and the large rear thermal glass could have been doing a better job; the hard plastic bits in back became scorching hot to the touch. How green is it? It’s always tough to say, and EPA figures were yet to come at the time of this test, but the European numbers should theoretically translate into a hybrid-mode Eco Pro figure of around 35 miles per U.S. If it’s any indicator, my i8 managed to not only dramatically upstage a Bugatti Veyron parked along legendary Highway 1 in downtown Malibu, but did the same alongside a newly delivered Tornado Orange McLaren 650S spider. Who knows how many more heads will turn once the optional carbon composite wheelset, and laser headlights come online by the end of 2014? Not to mention the i8 spider — which should arrive just as the valets of high-end hotels tire of parking the i8 coupe out front. The new age of BMW supercars has arrived, and it works quite well.
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