[Tilum]

As most of you probably know, I ordered an i8 back in March. And fortunately I managed to get a decent lengthed test drive (over 2 hours) in BMW Sheffield's i8 yesterday. It included a mixture of driving including city centre, suburbs, country roads, and plenty of twisties in the Peak District.

For those that are interested, here's my write-up of the i8:-

Boarding/Alighting
People have commented about how difficult it is to get in and out of the car, but I don't find this an issue at all, just as long as the seat is right back when getting in and out of the car. So the plan is to assign my seat (and wing mirror) position etc. to my 'profile' in the iDrive system, and then assign my profile selection to one of the (eight) 1-touch user defined buttons. That way all I have to do is put the seat right back before exiting the car (making it easier to exit), then it is in the same position for when I get back in the car, then press the preset button with my profile set to it, and the seat etc will move into my user-defined driving position. I don't think anyone else (at the launch event on Friday last week) moved the seat before trying to get in and out, so some people's criticisms may be a little premature. But having said that if you are really tall then there won't be much difference between the seat in your driving position and with it being all the way back. Furthermore, people were saying how they felt they had to duck when exiting the car, so as not to bang their head against the underside of the door. However, with me being quite short it wasn't an issue LOL. But as with a Lotus Elise/Exige or a Mercedez SLS AMG, I think the more people practice getting in and out of the car, the easier it will become.
As for opening/closing the dihedral doors, it's not difficult despite having to push/pull them at an angle, due to the doors being quite light and being hydraulically assisted.

Interior
Once inside, the i8 a comfortable environment to be in. The interior looks great and is very comfy, however some of the quality of the interior is a bit of a let down TBH. But then it is a BMW and not a modern Ferrari or Maserati I guess. The driving position feels fine, and I like the way the dash and controls are angled towards the driver, giving the cabin a driver focussed feel. The cabin is quite futuristic looking, but not too 'sci-fi' as to not be classy.
The i8 has all the mod cons, which is great as I intend for this to be my daily driver. For instance, the 'Head-up' display works a treat. My only criticism being that the i8 doesn't have Blind Spot Monitoring as mentioned in a previous post. But having said that (and contrary to some reviews) I found the all round visibility of the i8 to be quite good. Yes, you can't see the front wings, front bumper, or rear bumper, but that is no different to most modern cars. Set the wing mirrors up correctly, as well as the rear-view mirror, and with the aid of the park assist cameras, there shouldn't be any problems.

The Test Drive
Unfortunately the i8 wasn't fully charged up when we set off, having only 2 miles of electric only range left. So it was a case of setting off in Sport mode to try and charge up the battery a little. However, a combination of Sheffield city centre's terrible roads and the stiffer suspension in Sport mode made for a (relatively) uncomfortable drive. So I quickly put it into Comfort (Hybrid) mode, which made a big difference to both the ride comfort as well as the throttle response (which was more moderated c/w Sport mode, hence being more suited for stop-start city traffic). It's not THE most comfortable ride I've ever had, but that seemed to be down to the skinny tyres rather than the trim level in the cabin.

Transmission & Driving Modes
As with most cars, to get the best out of it, you have to understand the way it behaves. Unlike in a Porsche or Maserati, the i8 doesn't have a Sport button. Instead you have to push the gear shifter to the left to put the car into Sport mode (whereas this action in a Maserati puts the car into Manual mode). One drawback is that there isn't a way of putting the i8 into Manual mode, other than pulling one of the steering-wheel mounted paddle gear shifters. And even then it doesn't stay in Manual mode. For instance, in Comfort mode, when the Manual mode is activated by using the paddle shifters, it very quickly reverts back to Auto mode. Although admittedly the i8 did seem to stay in Manual mode for much longer when it was activated when driving in Sport mode.

Acceleration
The accelerator in the i8, unlike in the Panamera S E-Hybrid, feels like that of a normal car. The accelerator in the Porsche had two stages to its response - partly pressed it would use the electric motor (when in Hybrid mode), but push a bit harder and the engine would fire up. It's the same in the i8, however they differ in the feel throughout the pedal's travel. You could feel a 'sticking' point (change of resistance) between the 2 phases of the accelerator pedal's travel in the Panamera, whereas the i8's had a nice, smooth feel throughout the entire range.
The Porsche's approach has it's pros and cons - the positive being that it encourages the driver to stay in the low throttle range where only the electric motor would be used, as the engine would only fire up if a distinct increase in pressure was applied to the accelerator pedal in order to push it past the 'sticking' point. But whilst this helps to ensure economical (electric only) driving in Hybrid mode, the downside is that the Porsche had a non-linear feel to the throttle, which felt unpleasant if you wanted to push the car harder. So a thumbs up to BMW for that.
The i8 appeared to have a Drive-by-Wire throttle response. So after pulling out after some time sat stationary at the side of the road to allow for a gap between myself and the traffic ahead, when I nailed the accelerator to the floor (in Sport Auto mode) I was somewhat underwhelmed. Furthermore, it seems as though, unlike the GT/GC, when putting the car into Sport mode (when in Auto), it doesn't immediately downshift to give you the higher revs and thus the instant torque and power. But after putting the car in Manual (+Sport) mode the car suddenly came alive - the throttle and steering becoming so much more responsive, the acceleration actually being quite impressive - quickly taking the mph into high figures, and eating up the road ahead.

Brakes
Another plus was something that I didn't even notice until the thought randomly popped in my head on the way back... the feel of the brakes. Lots of cars with regenerative braking have been criticised for the unnatural, non-linear feel through the brake pedal when braking. But the i8's brakes felt just like any other BMW's brakes, i.e. 'clamping point' [of the pads on the discs] being high up in the pedal's travel, with heavy braking being applied with the pedal only pressed halfway down. The fact that I didn't detect a difference is testament to BMW, so another thumbs up for that.
In terms of braking performance, although the i8 has very small brake discs and tiny pads/callipers for a 'sports car', the brakes felt remarkably competent. Which is no doubt due to the i8 weighing (comparatively) very little, and having such a low centre of gravity (CoG). So another plus point for the i8.
According to the dealer who came out with me on the test drive I pushed the car a lot harder than anyone else had over the weekend, but TBH it wasn't balls out due to too much traffic on the beautiful roads in the Peak District. So I am unable to comment on how well they fare over a period of intense driving. But having said that, the i8 was never meant for the track. So based on how I pushed the car, the brakes seem more than up to the job for the average person's spirited drive through the countryside.

Handling
As for handling, the light, but accurate steering makes car effortless to drive around town. So tight bends in multi-storey car parks or sharp left/right turns at junctions shouldn't be a problem. And despite the car being so wide (it's wider then the Maserati GranTurismo/GranCabrio and BMW's new X5!) you never feel like you're driving a ridiculously wide car. (Although I must admit I didn't have to park it any small parking spaces, where the width may well cause a problem!)
And as for more spirited drives, the very low CoG and low kerbweight pay dividends. For a hybrid, that can be driven as an everyday car, it does an impressive job as a sports car. As others have said in press reviews, it does understeer when pushed hard. And although this could probably be eradicated if some fatter tyres were put on it, most people driving the i8 will not push the car hard enough for it to be too much of a problem. So in that sense BMW have done a great job of making a car that is weighed down with a load of batteries, into a sports GT.

Economy
I'd love to give you the mpg for the test drive, but rather frustratingly the dealer forgot to give this to me before the car was taken out by someone else. You can set the main display to show you the mpg for that trip, but the dealer had set the default display to the total mpg. But to put it into perspective, the dealer said that he took the car out during the week, with a mixture of driving and got 70mpg (UK) out of it! Furthermore, despite setting off with only a 2 mile electric range, and probably driving well over 50 miles, the petrol range only came down by about 25 miles, thanks to the help of regenerative braking and the battery being charged up in Sport mode.

Miscellaneous
Two things to add.
1) One concern was that the dihedral doors would need significant room to open and thus alight the car. This could prove to be a nightmare when getting out the car in a public car park, with a car parked next to you. But due to the way the door sweeps upwards, it didn't require as much room as I had thought it might. So hopefully that is one concern put at ease.
2) Although the i8 does show you what gear you're in when you're in Manual mode, it appears as a pair of small digits (e.g. "S3" for 3rd gear in Sport mode) in the bottom right hand corner of the instrument panel. Why on Earth BMW didn't choose to make it considerably larger and have it in the centre of the instrument panel (like on the GT/GC) is beyond me. As when pushing the car hard on the twisties, the last thing I want to do is to have to look down through the steering wheel to try and find where it displays what gear the car is in. It could even appear in the Head-Up display, which would be even better as it would mean you don't even have to look down at all! Large opportunity missed IMHO. Although I guess the more I drive the car, the more I will get to know what gear the car is in depending on the sound of the engine etc.

Conclusion
The i8 exceeded my expectations in some areas, but fell short in others. However overall it does what I expect of it, and fits the brief of what I want from my daily driver rather nicely.

Hope I haven't bored you all too much! I'll post some pics in a new post.

T

[drlonline]

Tilum, thanks for the great post. Very interesting to hear from someone who is buying the car, and also to hear some points covered that other reviews have overlooked.

BTW, what was the color combination you drove and what were your impressions of how it looked?

[ddk632]

Was looking forward to your thoughts, @Tilum. Thanks for sharing. To echo @drlonline above, this is the first "review" I think I've seen from someone who is actually going to own the i8.

Did you get to play with iDrive settings at all? I am wondering if there may be a way to configure the HUD to display different info when in sport mode. Most likely not though, as that is more of an M feature as far as I am aware.

Also most BMW gearshift levers, when you push if left to Sport mode, then allow forward and backward movement to shift gears manually as an alternative to using the paddles. I wonder if that is not the case with the i8, though I don't see why they'd do that.

As for going out of manual back to auto mode even in sport mode, I can see with the focus on sustainability why that might be the case. In my X6M, manual is fully manual (it will not switch gears at all unless you come to a stop without downshifting). In sport mode, my car will not up shift as long as I hold down the accelerator. It sounds like the i8 manual mode is more like the sport mode in the X6M. Which again, makes sense somewhat, as "its an i8, not an M8." Still would be nice to have full manual.

But most importantly, did you have fun driving it?

[Tilum]

@ddk632 Hi David, we had a little play with the iDrive settings, including the HUD, SatNav, Profiles, Camera-Assist, etc. The HUD can be configured to display different things, but I forget which ones they were. We had all the HUD options ticked, except messages/infotainment. It displayed the current speed, the road's speed limit, and Sat-Nav directions. Just wish it would include what gear the car is in!
The i8 also has the up/down-shift capability via the gear shifter when in Sport mode (as an alternative to the paddles), but I just used the paddles TBH.

Unfortunately I've had lots of personal issues recently so my head wasn't in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate the drive. But I tried not to allow it to influence my review in any way. If I'd been in a better state, then I'm sure I would thoroughly have enjoyed it LOL.

I should be getting the car for a weekend (in maybe a month or two) to test drive it on roads that I know, so I that should help to give me a better perspective of the car's abilities.

@drlonline, the car I dove was Protonic Blue with 'Carpo Light, Ivory White' interior. Here's a link to pics taken by SCD Photographer Matt Parker on Launch Night (Friday 19th July):- http://www.supercardriver.com/featur...ld-i8-preview/
However, when I drove to the Derby dealership today, their demo car is in my spec - same exterior colour, same wheels, same interior,... So here's a few pics of it (no pics of the Carpo Dark, Amido Black interior yet as the car was locked):-

[BMWSKI]

Excellent review, thank you. I'm taking one out on Monday and I can't wait! When are you expecting delivery?

[Tilum]

Originally Posted by BMWSKI

Excellent review, thank you. I'm taking one out on Monday and I can't wait! When are you expecting delivery?

Scheduled for early February, but I'd be mad to take delivery of it then due to the reg. So I'll just have to be patient and wait the extra couple of weeks or so and take it on the 1st March on a '15 reg.

Let us know what you think to it. Have you ordered one yet; if so when's delivery?

T

[BMWSKI]

Originally Posted by Tilum

Scheduled for early February, but I'd be mad to take delivery of it then due to the reg. So I'll just have to be patient and wait the extra couple of weeks or so and take it on the 1st March on a '15 reg.

Let us know what you think to it. Have you ordered one yet; if so when's delivery?

T

No no, I'm not buying one. Just got a good relationship with my dealer so he's letting me take one out.
From what I've seen and read about them so far you're a very lucky man

[Tilum]

Originally Posted by BMWSKI

No no, I'm not buying one. Just got a good relationship with my dealer so he's letting me take one out.
From what I've seen and read about them so far you're a very lucky man

Cheers fella.
Ah, it pays to have good connections LOL. Hope you enjoy the drive.

T