Photo: Insideevs.com
BMW has been quite adamant about the efficiency of the i8, making it one of their strong suits when it came to comparing it to other cars in its segment. Well, there aren’t any but people will compare the plug-in hybrid sportscar to all sorts of vehicles that have a similar price range.
Amongst them you could spot the Audi R8 and the Porsche 911 but only from certain points of view. The EPA finally released their ratings for the BMW and things aren’t as encouraging as one might’ve hoped for.
While the Germans claim that in the European test cycle the i8 will return 135 mpg (2.1 l/100 km while also taking up 11.9 kWh of electricity) and go on full EV mode for up to 23 miles (37 km), the Americans got different results. Drastically different we might say.
According to the EPA, the i8 will do zero miles on all-electric mode. That’s because even in EV mode, the car will still sip a little bit of fuel because of how it was designed. BMW wanted the electric motor to kick in instantly, in case you need it. That means that at all times, there a little stream of fuel going to the internal combustion engine. Actually less than 100 ml is being sipped for each 100 km. It would take around 7,000 miles to deplete the fuel tank.
So, if we’re absolutely strict about pure EV mileage, that should be zero. However, if we ignore the tiny bit of fuel consumed, we could say the i8 got a 15 mile EV range from the EPA (24 km) which is not that bad.
On gas alone, things went really bad. According to the rating, the i8 will do only 28 mpg (8.4 l/100 km) which is basically nearly 4 times less than what we’ve been expecting but still leading the pack, compared to what its rivals can do. For example, the Porsche 911 Carrera 4 with the automatic gearbox is rated at 23 mpg (10.2 l/100 km) while the automatic Audi R8 V8 is doing even worse, being rated at 17 mpg (13.8 l/100 km).
While the Germans claim that in the European test cycle the i8 will return 135 mpg (2.1 l/100 km while also taking up 11.9 kWh of electricity) and go on full EV mode for up to 23 miles (37 km), the Americans got different results. Drastically different we might say.
According to the EPA, the i8 will do zero miles on all-electric mode. That’s because even in EV mode, the car will still sip a little bit of fuel because of how it was designed. BMW wanted the electric motor to kick in instantly, in case you need it. That means that at all times, there a little stream of fuel going to the internal combustion engine. Actually less than 100 ml is being sipped for each 100 km. It would take around 7,000 miles to deplete the fuel tank.
So, if we’re absolutely strict about pure EV mileage, that should be zero. However, if we ignore the tiny bit of fuel consumed, we could say the i8 got a 15 mile EV range from the EPA (24 km) which is not that bad.
On gas alone, things went really bad. According to the rating, the i8 will do only 28 mpg (8.4 l/100 km) which is basically nearly 4 times less than what we’ve been expecting but still leading the pack, compared to what its rivals can do. For example, the Porsche 911 Carrera 4 with the automatic gearbox is rated at 23 mpg (10.2 l/100 km) while the automatic Audi R8 V8 is doing even worse, being rated at 17 mpg (13.8 l/100 km).
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