First Drive: BMW i8 - /CHRIS HARRIS ON CARS

the BMW i8 is according to Munich the sports car of the future it's a hybrid petrol electric 2+2 capable of zero to 60 and 4.4 seconds and is limited to 155 miles per hour it's made from carbon fibre and aluminium and it sips fuel like a nun sips vodka it makes a portion on line 1 look about as modern as a flint axe the tech behind the i8 is plain fascinating it's a clean sheet reappraisal of how to make something low fast and efficient the passenger safety cell is a single carbon structure it sits on an aluminium backbone chassis Outback is a tiny 1.5 liter 3-cylinder motor from the mini but turbocharged to insanity to give 231 horsepower and 236 foot-pounds of torque coupled to it is a small generator motor for starting and ancillaries which can also boost torque in sport mode up front as a larger electric motor giving 131 horsepower and 184 pounds foot all in that's 362 horsepower and a lot of torque the i8 weighs fourteen hundred and eighty five kilograms and on the EU combined cycle can return whiteford 135 miles per gallon emitting just 49 g/km the bodywork is as impressive as the gizzards all scoops and crazy shapes determined by the wind tunnel for a CD of just 0.26 don't take my word for it though but I think it looks absolutely Stine the cabin is conventional BMW meets Buck Rogers with two massive screens and all manner of fancy readouts the rear seats a weenie and the boot is even smaller as standard the car comes with tiny one-nine-five front tires and to15 rear sections the test car has the optional two one five fronts and two four five rears so the i8 is fantastically clever but it's any good to drive so we've seen how all the technology works but now we have to see how it paves in practice because the thing I find with these ultra complicated hybrid vehicles is that you could tell me that there are four squirrels and eight pots of yogurt by the front axle and a large Buffalo at the back but the proofs in the way it drives and increasingly the proofs in how the clever engineers have calibrated all of this to work together so that it feels like a normal okay motor be the i8 is quite surprising I haven't driven anything quite like it on the public highway first impressions okay we're on some open canyon roads now I thought we'd do it this way around we could have started cruising around in town but really we want to put it in sport mode and see what a 360 horsepower genuine electric hybrid is like to drive the answer is surprisingly fast we do all the chasing with a WRX a minute ago and out of the slower turns the i8 leaves it for dead because it has talked Phil like all of these hybrids so I plaid up a turn now in third gear put my foot down I get that instant surge of talk gearbox is really nice and fast it can be a bit lumpy on Auto downshift sometimes but it does match revs when you pull up a yourself manually like that you heard the blip off we go the noise well the little three cylinder one and a half liter inline three it makes a kind of party half a 911 noise which is quite pleasant but there's lots of augmentation going on in here so we've got fakery coming out of speakers I'm on the record of saying I can live with that and I don't mind it too much but some people will find it a bit offensive I quite like the noise one thing I find strange about the i8 is that I tried to sort of categorize cars by their sound signature I get in them and if it sounds a bit BMW M like in line six and raspy that's a BMW M car is hands a bit 911 like it's a bit like a 911 well you get into the i8 and it sounds like a bit of a 911 the noise is behind you and it's discernibly sort of three cylinder six cylinder ish it feels and sounds like a 911 what's the handling like this is quite interesting this bit in the sport mode the two one five section front tire is definitely the thing that gives up first and it's quite a cautious chassis it doesn't want you pulling massive great slides obviously I've tried on your behalf and it really doesn't want to do it on the road you could but you'd have to be a complete hooligan to make it happen the steering is very light very accurate car to place but there's not much connection but then we're getting used to that army you learn a rhythm with this car and you tend to find it you want to be one gear up than you thought you should be because of the massive torque boost of the electric motor and you you create a rhythm with the car you don't want to unsettle it too much does it feel fourteen hundred eighty five kilograms no it doesn't until you really start to throw it around and the mass builds up but the centre of gravity is so low there's an agility to the car that you really appreciate a couple of times I found myself wanting to just hoof the car you know brutally use the throttle to alter the attitude of it through the corner and I couldn't I didn't get any response from either electric motor or the internal combustion engine that were quite interesting for me because the other three vehicles are driven that I suppose have a similar hybrid capability than 918 the p1 and the laferrari admittedly expensive company I know they have that response in the p1 you can sort of trim the throttle three or four times each corner in this I don't feel I can I feel that the electric motor is responsive than perhaps I've been given to expect but let's put all this in context this is a really exciting car to drive the question I have to ask myself is would someone who has been driving for the sake of argument a Porsche 911 for the last five years and has had a 997 now a nine nine one would they still find it an appealing car to drive I think they would the balance here for me is that as an out-and-out sports car it is missing something it just doesn't feel that organic it lacks a little bit of connection and at times when you push it quite hard even on the road it doesn't respond quite the way a normal sports car would but it's so close the flipside is it brings new elements that amazing talk fill sensation as it fires out of corners just the sense of bees that was so special because cabbing the way it looks from the outside the way people respond to the car it's a bit of a folk hero people love it but I've done some canyon driving now as they say over here I've enjoyed the twisty bits learnt a lot about how the car performs there's no circuit activity on this early drive will do that at some point but really this isn't a track car I think we need to now go and use it as you really wouldn't in California that surely means going a bit slower maybe driving in an electric mode and going to buy an in-and-out burger I'll spare you the pain of watching me eat a double-double animal style I think it was I think it was double-double animals what a burger anyhow a great opportunity now to drive the car back in electric mode and try and understand what it's like when it's silent I think part of the thrill of the i8 is the science the fact that it looks so futuristic that's the fan coming on really helpfully as I say songs and we can just look at that just edged backwards now and then we'll roll out of here quietly now in much the same way I'm a great believer in the joys of muddled 2cv I think this is another great motoring experience something to be exploited and enjoyed I can enjoy this the way I can enjoy drifting ap1 I know oh crap one about that but it's all about variety this is something lovely and when you're when you're in town the silence and the serenity help they do also bring in some odd other issues that you haven't thought about for example when you don't have a noisy clunky combustion engine going away the whole time you do hear other noises so everything has to be really well tied together in the IAE v'n these early cars no squeaks and rattles that really aren't in fact it's so quiet inside that when the camera equipments bolted in all you can hear is the camera squeaking in all-electric mode we have about 37 kilometers of range which is pretty good I'm now in the sort of hybrid comfort mode so it means that when I ask for a bit more of the car the generator will come on and charge the battery and if I gasp a bit more and more of the car then it will cut in and actually give me more performance now earlier I found that I got a bit confused or and maybe I confused the vehicle itself in that I asked a bit more of the car and when the combustion engine cut in it accelerated me faster than I thought it would I then had to stop immediately and when I took my foot off the throttle to hit the brake it felt like the engine kept going a bit like an old-school turbochargers it spooled up and carried on boosting when you didn't want it to I suppose it's all down to the calibration I have to say the dashboard ahead me looks great but I don't find it the clearest to see otherwise in here I mean it's likely being dropped into the year 2035 it's just spot on just like the exterior we were all discussing over our delicious double-double animal style we was just discussing when was the last time that you saw a concept car that was as unaltered and unrest around with as this was from the from the 2009 concept and it really does look like it's just driven straight off a Motor Show stack I love that I think it's absolutely brilliant but for cruising round town for having two personalities for having the kind of bolt in e Drive mode go to the shops around town guilt free emissions free well as much as you can when you're generating electricity and then out of town dusting WRX between second gear hairpiece yeah this is a mighty mighty achievement this car and I'm enjoying it silence right now did you not enjoy this

Channel: THE DRIVE

Views: 2,560,688

Rating: 4.8452859 out of 5

Keywords: BMW, BMW I8, Automobile (Industry), Driving, drive, test. electric, test, electric, hybrid, racing, race, los angeles, i3, first drive, review, /drive, concept, santa monica, chris harris, Concept Car (Automotive Class)

Id: l5I6xuhNgVg

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 30 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/NegroSamurai]

I think there really needs to be an "M8" version of the i8- a proper super car. I can easily imagine a longer, wider version of the car with a monstrous V12 or brutal turbocharged V8 (hopefully not the same from the M5 and M6).

[u/ianbouchard]

LOVE Chris Harris. Can't wait to watch this.

[u/alatteri]

I saw that exact car driving around Santa Monica just a few days ago with GoPros attached. Now I know what it was doing.

[u/messier_is_ok]

To me, this is the most exciting car in years. I can't wait to see the technology spread and become more accessible. I think it is going to be remembered as an incredibly influential engineering achievement, as we look back in hindsight a couple decades from now. Not just the drivetrain, but the aesthetics.

[u/needfourspeed]

I think BMW will sell every i8 it's able to produce because of how striking the car looks. When you're spending over $100k on a car, style begins to outweigh substance when you're making your decision. There are other car that are cheaper, faster, and more practical but I think the people buying this car will do so based on emotion rather than reason. Besides, being green is the cool thing to do now.

[u/redditeyedoc]

Lovely interior.

[u/dfndoe]

Man, I just don't like it. The lines are goofy looking, the center console is ridiculous, fake engine noise!?... 135k price tag and more than half a second slower 0-60 (4.5) than a 5 year old m3 (C&D tested 3.9 for 2010 e92 coupe with DCT) that can be had for 1/3 the price....

Even the wheels look bad.

I'll take my shitty gas mileage and wait for a REAL hybrid sports car.

edit: Downvotes? because god forbid there be a voice in the conversation that doesn't love the thing....

[u/[deleted]]

Wow look at those new rims!

[u/Iamamerican]

Chris Harris should be nominated for some type of award .. whether its the Nobel or the Time Person of the Year ... this man gives a better car review than any other person on the internet.