Gadgetory

this is the single most outrageous thing to come out of Munich in a very long time powered by precise combination of electricity and fossil fuel this insane machine brushes up against $150,000 this is the future of BMW this is the i8 you it's just like it's like the car is like from the future right like it doesn't feel like a BMW it doesn't feel like anything else I've ever been in or around it just like feels like from another dimension it's like he was telling it in from another dimension and now I'm driving it if you weren't told that it was a hybrid you could conceivably believe that you were just driving like a nice sports car if it just feels like really rock solid everything feels like it's constructed immaculately everywhere you looking and around the i8 there are bits and pieces of technology that are going to find their way into the company's entire lineup over the coming years one way or another take the cars frame for instance it's made of something called carbon fiber reinforced plastic CFRP and it's significantly lighter than the metals found in a typical car you can see bits and pieces of CFRP when you open the eye it's exotic scissor doors and trunk it's a dark woven material that you don't really see on many other cars one notable exception is the I is little sibling the i3 in fact in many ways the i8 is rolling ad for the far more attainable i3 which starts at about 41 grand then there's the drivetrain the i8 is a gas-electric hybrid that's powered by an electric motor in front a three cylinder engine in the back you can run it on electric power alone all the way up to 75 miles an hour if you like but when you pair them together you get a total 357 horsepower that's not really up to supercar standards but then again this isn't about making the fastest exotic on the block that was they just throw a v10 or 12 in there and call it a day one thing that sets the i8 apart from your average supercar is that it has an electric motor driving the front two wheels and then the relatively well not relatively very small three cylinder turbocharged engine in the back driving the rear wheels and so you end up with an all-wheel drive system and you can set it into electric-only mode and you can also set it into a power mode that keeps both the electric and the the gas engine turned on at all times for maximum power it definitely feels a little different from your average car but it's surprisingly poised and for lack of a better word normal I think that you could get into this car having driven pretty much any sports car or GT and feel right at home at this and in this and not feel like you're missing anything right now of course since we have this parking lot to ourselves we're operating in sport mode which is the the highest performance mode that the car has so let's have some fun okay by it is by no means the fastest car you can buy but it's not slow I'm definitely going to pick when this is over BMW claims zero to 60 in 4.2 seconds which puts in the upper echelon of sports cars that's particularly impressive when you consider the tiny 3 cylinder twin-turbo engine spooling up just a few feet behind you to make sure that the i8 sound lives up to its image engine sounds are piped into the cabin I can't really tell what's real and what's fake but I do know that the car sounds great throaty powerful like there's a v8 or v10 there are a lot of beautiful cars in the world but this one's different I won't even really call it beautiful at least not in the traditional sense its technological it just looks like it's full of patents and gadgets and doodads and I think everyone on the road agrees driving the i8 is a social experience you can't stop for food or gas or really much of anything without people stopping by to check it out something about those scissor doors I think which don't really serve any function look you look awesome the insane taillights low aggressive stance and the tricolor paint scheme don't hurt either it's been possible to do anything without attracting attention we had not one but few state troopers stop their patrol units fast about it one got in the car it's basically a feat of gymnastics to climb in and out that's partly because the i8 is still low to the ground but it's also because there's a wide tall sill at the bottom and an open door at the top you kind of have to get one leg in sit on the sill scooch over and pull the other leg in if you want to drop into your fancy ride without looking like a fool on the way out you have to remember to reverse the process otherwise you'll end up with a hand on the pavement as you flop out of the car fortunately once you're inside you don't really ever want to get out it's a comfortable cozy futuristic environment doesn't necessarily look as fancy as you might expect on a car that's expensive but it's not bad at night light pipes all around the console and doors can be configured to glow blue orange or white gets a lot to the Future car feel directly ahead of the driver of full LCD takes the place of a traditional instrument cluster this is becoming pretty commonplace nowadays and a colour heads-up display up in the windshield means that you never really need to look down behind you there are technically rear seats but don't take them too seriously there's no real chance of a full grown adult ever sitting back here you could stash a child or two in a pinch bottom line I was really sad to give back the i8 after three days on the road it feels poised and balanced and with a low center of gravity as a good sports car should it feels really solid and it feels like a tour meaning that you could take it on a road trip and not want to kill yourself after a few hours either through engine noise or vibration or this harsh road feel it's comfortable but still sporting I can't get enough of the engine noise and I still can't tell what's real and what's fake but I don't care because it just sounds dope and and I've you know I've heard the car go by as a bystander and and it sounds good from the outside too so yeah as you say it's music to my ears it just it sounds great with a gun to my head I'm not sure it's the first car would buy with $150,000 to spend but it's still incredible display of a lot of cutting-edge car tech in one place if the i8 is a little peek into the future of driving company in