BMW’s i8 Roadster is an insane piece of engineering and it is stunning to behold. But is it the ‘halo’ car that brand needs right nowIJ Yes
Most car brands, particularly those who make regular sedate cars for a living, have some sort of a “halo”; a car that is more about what the engineers in the brand can do if left alone, often without budget constraints as well as give an idea of where the brand is headed. So Nissan has the GT-R and Ford has the Ford GT, Mercedes has the AMG GT, lexus has the lF-A and Audi, the R8. Usually, the “halo” car is the most bonkers car the brand produces with numbers that read from a child’s fantasy dream. But the brand that invented the “halo” car, a brand that somehow saw the need to advertise that it was not boring Bavarians, was BMW, when in 1978 they came out with the M1.
The M1 is and remains a manic car, BMW’s first mid-engined sports car. A car that started BMW down the road of developing “M” performance cars such as the M3 and M5. The 453 that were built are so rare that buying one in decent condition in the market would cost you a lot. Auction house Sotheby’s has one listed for between $800,000 to 1 million, which is a lot of money for a 40-year old car. But the M1 did not start a whole series of mid-engined sports cars for BMW. They saw that the M performance range was an extremely profitable legacy of the M1.
In 2008, I was very fortunate to have been invited to attend the Concorso d’Eleganza at the Villa d’Este on the shores of lake Como in the foothills of the Italian Alps north of Milan. In addition to seeing some utterly spectacular cars over there, including over ten M1s, I witnessed the unveiling of BMW’s M1 Hommage. Designed by legendary Italian designer Giorgio Giugiaro, this was what it said on the title, a “homage” to the original M1 updated with modern aerodynamics. Many of the other auto journalists attending the event thought BMW was on the verge of launching an exciting new top-end car with crazy aerodynamics coupled to a mad engine. This was a year after Mercedes-Benz had showcased the SlS that harked back to the classic 300Sl and two years after Audi produced the first production surprisingly successful R8. So many assumed this would at best have a V10 or something with 500-plus horsepower.
But BMW’s executives, sitting at their four-cylinder shaped headquarters in Munich, had seen the future. A future, they said would be electric and in 2009 BMW’s “Vision Efficient Dynamics” car, a vehicle that had developed out of the M1 Hommage, and shared similar styling details, came out. This was an obvious indicator that the German brand was developing this car for future production. Now, while it retained the mid-engined concept, it had a three-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine.
Thankfully, by the time the i8 concept came along in 2011, BMW’s crazy plan of a turbodiesel had been replaced with a petrol engine. Not that it was any larger, it was just a three-cylinder, 1.5 litre turbocharged petrol engine that in the concept car produced 220 horsepower delivered to the rear wheels and mated to an electric motor on the front axle that drove the front wheels rated at 129 horsepower. That gave the i8 a combined power output of 349 horsepower, which on the face of it, is really nothing special. Because, at the same time, BMW was also launching the F10 version of its M5 sedan, which had a mere 553 horsepower.
But BMW’s top honchos had realised one thing, the world was moving in a different direction. The M5, even if driven conservatively, would give a fuel economy of around six kilometres per litre, the i8 in its concept avatar, delivered over 30 kilometres to the litre in normal settings. It got better for the i8 when in 2012, BMW showcased the “Spyder;” but things then took some time. BMW spent a lot of time developing the petrol engine and fine-tuning the electric motors for the i8. The BMW TwinPower 1.5 litre turbocharged petrol produces 230 horsepower. That is one of the highest power outputs per litre available commercially today and is pound-for-pound, the most powerful BMW engine out there. Coupled with the 131hp electric power, the i8 that was launched delivered 362 horsepower and a 0-100 time of 4.8 seconds. It was not blistering but it looked the part and with a fuel economy in normal driving conditions of over 50 km per litre, it became the most economical car to have been launched in India when it came out in 2015 for a mere Rs 2.3 crore. And by the end of 2017, globally over 14,000 i8s had been sold making it the best-selling plug-in hybrid sportscar out there.
The thing with cars like the i8 is that after they get launched, someone has the smart idea of chopping the roof off. The problem is that when you chop the roof off, the additional strengthening and structural stiffness required for the body make the convertible or roadster versions a bit less fun to drive. But BMW has actually done all that and made some changes to the Roadster as well that actually make it more powerful. They have increased the battery size and output from the battery by 12 horsepower, boosting the total system output to 374 horsepower. This allows the car to cruise faster in all electric mode, you can now drive at 105 km per hour on the battery alone and if you push the eDrive button, which discharges the battery very fast, you can hit 120 km per hour on the battery alone.
Yet 374 horsepower, that gets the i8 Roadster from 0-100, when both power sources are in full-power mode in 4.8 seconds, is nothing compared to the 600 horsepower that the latest BMW M5 has. Then again, believe me on one thing — As brutally good as the M5 is, it does not have the head-turning appeal of the i8 Roadster, complete with its stunning scissor doors, which have carbon-fibre inners to keep weight down. Heck, even the wheels are lighter by a kilogram. This is no slouch of a car and it will turn heads. Other than the roof, the roadster also loses the impractical back seats which become a storage area.
Personally, the i8 Roadster was a pleasure to drive around Mallorca and I played with all the modes. In Sport mode, where the petrol engine stays on all the time, for most performance. With all four wheels being driven, the i8 turns around the roads of the Tramutana Mountains of Mallorca incredibly sharply. It might be down on power to other German rivals, but the way the car deploys the power is remarkable.
As I drove through the town of Pollencia, on the northern part of the island, I was on ‘eDrive’ mode within the town where I was limited to between 60-80 km per hour. The car silently whizzes through the town, not a speck of carbon coming from its tailpipes. And on the main north-south highway, I shifted the car to “normal” mode, where the two motors constantly switch duties for maximum efficiency. During the highway drive of around 50 kilometres, the car spent less than a litre of fuel. And despite my heavy right foot through the mountains, although I did switch in and out of modes, the car delivered over 25 kilometres to a litre.
The BMW i8 Roadster is proof that hybrids do not have to be sedate and even big-powerful ones do not need a big petrol engine. It is also a demonstration that the Indian government’s crazy policy towards hybrid cars, penalising them on tax, is a stupid piece of policy. Can you imagine if something like the i8 Roadster can deliver such stunning fuel economy, what a normal small car could doIJ
Globally crude prices are rising and India’s move to electric cars has been a bit of a non-starter, and even if we do make that switch to electric it will take another decade whereas hybrids already exist across price ranges. This BMW i8 showcases the sort of stuff that might come in the next BMW 3-series and MINI. And not just BMW, carmakers like Toyota, Nissan and Honda have great hybrid technologies that should be encouraged. Particularly at this time of Rs 80/litre petrol.