The all bellowed and a futuristic car that comes from Germany’s finest – the BMW i8 has been on the streets for more than three years, and the great news is that it is due to be refreshed. Even better news is that besides refreshment, facelifted sports hybrid is going to come with more than a few additional features on it, at least according to the BMWblog, and most of these features are going to be taken from the i8-based Formula E safety car.
What everybody wants to know, well at least when it comes to cars like this, is the amount of power increase that is going to come with the update. Well, hold on to your hats, because combined output of the petrol-electric hybrid system will be increased by additional 15 HP which equals to the total power being rated at 372 HP. The increase in hp figure technically should reflect on the acceleration as well, and indeed it will. The ongoing model has a 0-62 MPH run rated at 4.4 seconds which means that the updated version, with its additional 15 HP, might be somewhat faster than this, at least according to some posts.
If you are worried that more power might influence the range of this vehicle, do not be alarmed, because this doesn’t have to be the case here. German company is also working on the way to increase the overall range of the i8, and if they succeed (and we do not see why they wouldn’t) this facelift will bring a double win for all. The extended range might come from the revised battery pack (most likely will come from the Formula E safety vehicle), which employs a 10.0 kWh battery in opposed to the production version which is still “stuck” with a 7.1 kWh battery.
BMWblog also stated that not everything is going to be taken from Formula E-safety car. Some of the modifications that are in the cards are for the road-legal variant, and they include things such as modified upper wishbones and mounting points, paired with updated spring and dampers. Thanks to the ongoing version being so popular (more than 10.000 sales since November 2013) the updated i8 will most likely be launched together with the i8 Spyder (which by the way is supposed to be introduced in 2018).
The updated i8 and the i8 Spyder are planned to be just a part of an electric army that will also consist of revamped i3, a fully-electric X3 and 3 Series, and an electric Mini. This is a pretty ambitious task that the company has put before itself, but it is not the first time they have done something similar, and it definitely will not be the first time they managed to pull that off.
