[wheelguy]

The trailblazer for futuristic design and sustainable, dynamic driving pleasure - BMW i8 Coupé and BMW i8 Roadster nearing the end of their production run - first plug-in hybrid model of the BMW Group goes down in company history as the world's most successful sports car with electrified drive.

Munich. The final stretch on the way to the "Hall of Fame" of BMW sports cars: Six years after its market launch, the BMW i8 ends its product life cycle. When production of the BMW i8 Coupé (fuel consumption combined: 1.8 l/100 km; combined power consumption: 14.0 kWh/100 km; combined CO2 emissions: 42 g/km*) and the BMW i8 Roadster (combined fuel consumption: 2.0 l/100 km; combined power consumption: 14.5 kWh/100 km; combined CO2 emissions: 46 g/km) ceases, the plug-in hybrid sports cars will have long secured their place among the company's milestones. The BMW i8 started its worldwide success story as a unique symbiosis of futuristic design and pioneering technology. The BMW Group's first plug-in hybrid model paved the way for driving pleasure that was as dynamic as it was sustainable and became the epitome of the fascination of driving with electrified drive technology. It laid the foundation for the BMW Group's now broad range of plug-in hybrid models. At the same time, the BMW i8 developed into the world's most successful sports car with an electrified drive system. With more than 20 000 units sold since 2014, it achieved higher sales than all competitors in its segment combined.

The BMW Vision EfficientDynamics was already an enticing prospect for the future of individual mobility. The concept study presented at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt in 2009 represented the promise of combining hallmark BMW driving pleasure and inspiring design with pioneering sustainability. The study of a 2+2-seater sports car with gull-wing doors, a reinterpretation of the typical BMW design language, plug-in hybrid system and four-wheel drive that is entirely geared towards aesthetics and efficiency, met with an overwhelming response. With the announcement that the central features of its design and technology would be transferred to a production vehicle of the new BMW i brand and thus start into a new era of driving pleasure the BMW Group soon triggered enthusiastic reactions.

Source

[TSIVTEC]

The best review for the i8.I don't think it ever achieved it's goal of trying to compete with the 911..

https://youtu.be/ZyzUOsZpLSg

[dark.knight]

Well, it looks subdued, sleek yet high tech and modern, the current lot of designers want that cavernous, ginormous, monumentally gargantuan kidney grilles on the current lot of vehicles, so yes, it was bound to go out of production.

Their Vision iNext will be upto speed on their latest grille theme, which resembles the mouth of an angry beaver out to chew wood in style.

A non automobile company called Sony taught how to make a front end of an electric car sleek yet interesting, why are these ex Mini designers out to destroy a beautiful concept of kidney grilles and angel eyes I wonder, that too when electric cars merely need a symbolic grille and not a functional one.

[Venkatesh]

The final i8 has been assembled, It’s a roadster finished in Portimao Blue, might just be the only i8 ever painted from the factory in this shade.



https://www.motor1.com/news/428755/b...nal-car-built/