Listen to the BMW i8 Accelerate to 130 km/h

While both motors are already available on different cars (the electric unit on the i3 and the conventional one on the 2014 MINI Cooper) they haven’t been heard on the i8 just yet.

Since the car will have near supercar performances the exhaust sound is one big question mark. By now we already knew that the car will be featuring the Active Sound system used on other cars as well (including the M5 and even diesel models like the X5 M50d or M550d) but the actual sound was still a mystery up until now.

That’s because the guys from Bimmerpost somehow managed to get a video of the car accelerating to 130 km/h (80 mph) filmed on-board. Apart from the amazing sound, we also got to see how the digital gauges will look like. Color us impressed.

Not only the car sounds absolutely incredible but the display is also impressive, showing only the most important info and keeping everything in a bright red theme. Now, according to the video description, things are even better. Apparently, when this clip was recorded, the Active Sound was turned off which means this is how the 3-cylinder engine sounds like without any synthetic add-ons.

Now comes the bad news. If you ask us, the sound is perfect this way but, BMW will include the ASD (Active Sound Design) in the final product and you won’t be able to turn it off. That means you’ll get synthetic sound all the time that will be modulated depending on the driving mode you select.

It might sound good but we don’t think it’s necessary, judging by the way the i8 sounds like in the video below. Furthermore, one speaker will be included in the left-side exhaust pipe to make a better sound outside, similar to the system used by Audi. The other pipe will be actually used for its intended purposes.

You’ll also be unable to turn this speaker off, being actually stuck with it at all times. Of course, it will be tuned depending on the driving mode you choose, in Sport mode going all out.