BMW i8 coupe in-depth review | Here's Why the BMW i8 Is Worth $150,000

good morning everybody welcome to the channel my name is josh and today we are reviewing the bmw i8 now in the not so distant past this was deemed to be the future and if we look at the styling i still think it's quite futuristic but for me this lingers somewhere between that's really cool and that's really hmm so i have my reservations but let's look at the styling the inside is not too dissimilar from a normal bmw but there are a few quirks that remind you that you're in something a bit special a digital dash a single central vent race like bucket seats and a button for the special doors the outside is pretty special too the first thing you'll notice are these really aggressive lines that let air flow over the car but most people don't realize you have the same lines under the car you of course have these ridiculously bright laser leds a bonnet vent to let air cool the massive engine wrap around rear leds and of course floating indicators that remind you this isn't a normal car and the lowness of the car does give it that sports car feel that you just don't get from regular cars another one of these special features is of course the butterfly doors which are extremely lightweight now i googled what butterfly was in german because i thought it'd be funny and angry schmetterling which actually sounds quite nice i bet you didn't know i was bilingual but one other thing i noticed about these doors is once you're in in order to be able to see if you're going to open the door on someone you have to look under the door as opposed to through the window let me show you imagine there's a car part there now i'm getting close there but i can't see so i have to do something like this to check if the door can open never come across that in a car before pretty strange another thing i thought was worth mentioning is how difficult it is to get in and out of this car now i received a pretty grumpy comment from someone who said i shouldn't make comments about old people getting into low down cars this was on my r8 video so as with any unwanted comment i'm going to double down on it and say this car is not for you it's actually worse than the r8 because you have this kind of big bulkhead here so getting in looks a bit like this and then it does feel like a little racecar cockpit though with this it's a great driving position very fun but on a day-to-day practicality i think it'd get boring quite quick i have been reliably informed this is the best way to get in there so you approach the car you sit backwards to it you slide in over the bulk knock your head get in as i said on a day-to-day not that practical another thing i really don't like about this car is the window my s5 used to do that in the back now the window only goes to there which is not good for cruising although you are very low down so if you were to cruise with your arm there it actually has to be quite high up in the air but i understand why manufacturers do this there's normally a bend in the door so that space there's no space for the glass to go down but i would suggest that 95 of road users would prefer a functional window than a slightly less bent door just my view don't like that another thing i found quite funny is the boot space okay so you think um i'm not getting much on there but then you think oh no the compartment's here and you still think hmm i'm not getting much in there so space and function was perhaps not a focus but lightness it appears was look how much carbon this thing is made out of when the official figures state that this car can do nearly 130 miles per gallon you might be able to let slide the boot space in the windows just a thought okay let's start up [Music] sounds a bit like a spaceship when it starts now you just pull the gear stick as if you would in a normal beamer and we begin you can hear that it's deathly silent because we're just using the motors at the moment now one of the things i did notice last night which i found quite funny you have various driving modes comfort and eco pro they're your main too now if you want to knock into sport you have to knock this gear stick left the dials change the engine kicks in now as if to remind you that you are not the key decision maker the car if it decides you driving too comfortably or too economically we'll knock this in a ghostly way back to the center you don't have to touch anything the car decides okay this is irobot style so really you are just a vessel in a robot that decides how it's going to drive something i read in the hamburg last night is the car will decide whether to be on motor or engine depending on how you're driving now i'm used to this in a start stop sense when you're stationary a lot of new cars the engine will cut out and it's kind of it feels normal because you're stationary this however will swap when you're on the move which is quite unnerving to be honest to still have power when the engine cuts out so for example you pull into a car park the engine will cut out but you still have power and you're still rolling it's quite a bizarre sensation and i've never actually been in a car that just makes that decision for you normally you have to press a few buttons but this as i've said is the key decision maker you are not if however you do make a decision you can put it in comfort or eco pro which limits it to 50 power thankfully when you knock into sport mode the engine powers in and you get fake engine noise through the speakers so many a gadget many a quirk but the most important thing is how does this thing drive now this is the first time i'm ever gonna put my foot down in an i8 so i'm don't really know what i'm expecting but let's just go for it are we ready okay that's the media wow okay that is immediate power jesus this thing wow this thing is quick this thing is quick now i knew that before i stepped in it because naught 60 takes just well 4.4 seconds and you think okay that's a quick car but you are rolling around with a 1.5 liter engine so you think is it really going to be that quick look at my words out wow now you have to remember that the 1.5 liter engine only deals with the rear wheels it's sat just behind me and only powers the rear wheels the front wheels are powered by the electric motors so in real terms you have a car that has 369 bhp and you can tell wow this thing is sharp straight off the line now you typically expect a little bit of turbo lag from an engine that small with a turbo that big but the electric motors do a great job of effectively giving you instant torque as soon as you put your foot down the turbo lag that comes isn't really noticeable because of the electric motors you're not really expecting pin you in your seat fast but this is this really is some very clever stuff is happening when you're cruising the electric motor acts as an alternator and transforms kinetic energy into electrical energy which charges the battery god this thing is cool to drive so let's do corners oh god it feels so planted now i didn't really expect that because i'm just gonna hit a bird i didn't really expect that because it has such skinny little tires i kind of thought with a lot of power you might be sliding around all over the place but no there's almost no body rollers you'd expect from something this flat instant [Music] kamikaze squirrel stop that would not have been nice killing an animal on a road test there is almost no body roll and this does feel excellent to drive i know a lot of people go on about how this isn't really a supercar and strictly speaking when this was new it was 100 000 pounds what you can get with a hundred thousand pounds roaring engine supercars compared to a 1.5 litre three cylinder engine with an electric motor but this is a very impressive car i feel this car was trying to achieve a lot of things and i i think it does that pretty tick not ugly tick great mpg tick very quick tick is trying to do a lot of things boot space no tick but one of the things he's trying to do i'm i'm pretty impressed i have to say and that engine noise i know it's fake but it's so soothing it's so tuneful even even cruising at low speeds this is a very nice place to be it's one of those cars that unlike a supercar you can just cruising especially when it's electric it's it's deadly quiet but you can just cruise around in it it doesn't want to jump forward if you don't want it to but if you wanted to put it in sport and there you go i've lost my phone there's an i3 wait for it to come past my brother so then a futuristic car that is now eight years old i remember seeing this car and thinking that's a great start it wasn't finished it wasn't fully refined but what a fantastic start i was kind of hoping for that with this the i8 facelift although there were a few face lifts the changes weren't drastic enough i thought there may be an i9 but there never was i think there is a legacy with this type of car plugging electric hybrid with a small internal combustion engine but i don't think it became the car it could have been this could have been a poster car this could have been wow look at that car look what we did in 2014 but i just feel this car is going to get consumed by the electric revolution which is a shame because after driving it i have fallen for a little bit would i fork out 60k for it i guess that's a question that i'll ask myself when i achieve 60k but bmw i8 i am a fan [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: macswhips

Views: 41,661

Keywords: BMW i8, BMW i8 coupe, BMW i8 coupe in-depth-review, Here's Why the BMW i8 Is Worth $150000, Doug Demuro BMW i8, Matt Watson BMW i8, Car Review, BMW i8 Review, BMW i8 Real Worries, BMW i8 long-term test review, How much does a BMW i8 cost?, BMW i8 | Discover, New & used BMW i8 cars for sale | AutoTrader, macswhips, Josh McCallion

Id: q3TTfWMwSh8

Length: 11min 27sec (687 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 13 2021