2014 BMW i8 drive review by AutoWeek

Here’s an excerpt of the 2014 BMW i8 drive review by AutoWeek:

Those who have always wished that swoopy show cars could just be built as they are should be careful what they wish for. A concept car, not unlike a booth model at a car show, just has to look good. You don’t have to live with her (or him). If you did, you’d notice a few flaws that you were too smitten to notice earlier. The doors don’t open far enough up to be out of the way and let you get in and easily. You could, conceivably, crack your noggin every time you tried to get in your beautiful car. Getting in is easier than a Group C car, for sure, but still takes more articulation on the part of the getter-inner than most sports cars. With the big wing door opened up, you lean your upper torso back while simultaneously oozing your inside foot into the footwell. Then lower your kiester onto the high, wide carbon fiber sill and slide it across into the seat. Finally, bring the remaining leg inside and reach way up and close the door. Once inside, the seats aren’t particularly comfortable but you get used to them after a while. We never did find an adjustment that we felt was really right. There’s a big four-color screen above the dash controlled by a single knob on the center console. Yes, it’ll drive you nuts unless you’ve mastered it from other BMWs. If you have, you’ll like the pretty colors on this one. Visibility at first seems limited by a low, concept-car roof, but once under way this isn’t a problem so don’t be put off by that when you’re sitting in the dealer showroom.

Start the car with the push of a button, pull the shifter back and you’re off. Around town it’s nearly silent as it starts off in all-electric mode. Torque is fine for stop-and-go slogging between traffic lights. No one will know you’re there, at least not from the sound. The sight of the i8 draws cellphone cameras aplenty. Everyone smiles and waves. Kids chase the car down the street. Dogs bark approvingly. Birds drop from the sky, chirping the whole way down and pointing with one wing. It’s a beautiful thing.

Out on mountain roads it really comes alive. Knock the shifter to the left and you get sport mode, which quickens the steering and the throttle response, stiffens the dampers, sets regen in the brakes to max and even increases the engine sound. Pull the left paddle shifter back a couple times and have at it. While the steering is very light around town, it has more weight at speed. When the three-cylinder gas engine kicks in it does so very smoothly, so much so that you wouldn’t notice it if it weren’t for the somewhat raspy sound it makes at low revs. BMW engineers say they amplified specific, “pleasing” frequencies of that sound and broadcast it through the car’s audio system. While it was less pleasing at low revs, at higher rpms it makes the 1.5-liter three sound like a racing V16.

The car corners exceptionally well, with almost no perceptible roll, like a new 911, but from a seemingly lower seating position. Steering at speed on twisty roads is immediate and precise, much more so than you may be used to unless you drive a Ferrari or Porsche every day. You keep expecting some lag or roll somewhere in the system but it’s not in the steering or chassis. Several times it felt like there was an odd delay when we power it out of corners, as if the computer is deciding which and how much of the engine and motor to use. The delay is a bit disconcerting, especially since this is such a great car, sportscarwise, in every other regard. Once it chooses, though, you’re off. At the handling limit we could detect a small amount of understeer but it wasn’t enough to intrude on your canyon-carving fun. We’d also have liked the throttle and brakes to be smoother and more linear in their progression. As it is, they are a little touchy at the top of travel, something we never got fully comfortable with in a long day’s drive over great roads.