Photo: CarPix
Winter has hit in Europe, and while for most motorists this means hey have to spends lots of money to keep their cars on the road, it’s actually cause for celebration for the thousands of auto engineers who are developing the next generations of automobiles that will hit our road in a couple of years.
This is already the second session of winter testing for BMW’s new i8 hybrid sportscar. It was first unveiled at last year’s Frankfurt Motor Show as a concept and has since been on the road testing.
The i8 seems so controversial that some even speculated the idea had been scrapped. However, BMW denied this and is clearly going ahead with development work. But is the world really ready for such a car? Well, all the big Japanese names are working with hybrid tech right now, from the next Evo to the mighty NSX.
Yesterday when we showed you that new i3 Coupe in motion, we voiced our concern that the range of the car isn’t good enough right now. This shows that BMW arrived a little late to the game and is slow to develop battery tech.
But what they do have plenty of experience with is turbocharging. the i8 will have a TwinPower three-cylinder engine developing 220 horsepower from just 1.5-liters of displacement. It will be joined by at least one more electric motor moving the front wheels with its 130 horsepower output.
The i8 seems so controversial that some even speculated the idea had been scrapped. However, BMW denied this and is clearly going ahead with development work. But is the world really ready for such a car? Well, all the big Japanese names are working with hybrid tech right now, from the next Evo to the mighty NSX.
Yesterday when we showed you that new i3 Coupe in motion, we voiced our concern that the range of the car isn’t good enough right now. This shows that BMW arrived a little late to the game and is slow to develop battery tech.
But what they do have plenty of experience with is turbocharging. the i8 will have a TwinPower three-cylinder engine developing 220 horsepower from just 1.5-liters of displacement. It will be joined by at least one more electric motor moving the front wheels with its 130 horsepower output.
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