BMW i8 | The Brave Pill

BMW's electric past is better looking than its electric future

Newness doesn't last long these days. It's only eight years since the BMW i8 was launched at the crest of a wave of green-tinted corporate confidence, and just two years since it retired with much less fanfare. Yet the pioneering plug-in sportscar already seems a fair bit older than that, both in terms of the modest levels of electrical assistance in its powertrain, but also because the BMW of today is a much less daring company than the one that created it. And a less good looking one, too.

This 2015 i8 is our newest ever Pill and, according to Enzo the hamster, also the first to feature a three-cylinder engine. Neither quality is likely to trigger the lust for peril of automotive adventurers. But the other side of the BMW's high-tech powertrain definitely gives pause for thought. Because while a 231hp 1.5-litre triple turns the car's rear wheels, the fronts are powered by a 131hp electric motor through a two-speed gearbox, supplied with electro-juice by a 7.1kWh battery pack. All of which has far more potential for £££ if things go wrong.

While a hybrid might not be intrinsically more mechanically adventurous than a pure combustion model, the very newness of cars like the i8 means we are still only part of the way through the voyage of discovery into how well they will age. Further up the supercar tree there are reportedly several McLaren P1 owners who have already had to swallow the scary costs of replacement battery packs. UK-sold i8s came with an eight-year battery warranty when new, one this car should still be under the tail-end of, but, as the leggiest example in the classifieds (with 74,000 miles showing), our Pill has presumably already been through a huge number of charge and discharge cycles.

The i8 was a radical car produced by what was still a moderately radical company. Other premium carmakers were adopting an "after you" strategy to electrification at the turn of the last decade. Audi commissioned the R8 e-tron project, then cancelled it, before bringing it back to build a limited run of 'technology demonstrators'. Mercedes tried slightly harder with the SLS Electric Drive, which could actually be purchased by civilians, albeit with a ludicrous seven-figure price tag which meant only a handful actually were. But BMW had the stones to rush into this brave new world, commissioning two new electric models, both using innovative carbon fibre structures. The i3 was a funky hatchback designed for cities, the i8 a flagship PHEV sports car.

The original i8 concept shown at the 2009 Frankfurt motor show featured a three-cylinder diesel engine at the back, but BMW made the sensible decision to switch the production version to a cleaner petrol triple. Yet despite its space age looks the i8 wasn't actually very electric; the modest capacity of its battery pack meant it could only manage a claimed 23 miles in its EV range, although the low weight allowed by the carbon fibre structure and modestly proportioned battery pack meant it weighted an impressively svelte 1,535kg. Which is almost exactly a tonne less than the chonktabulous BMW iX.

While the i8 was fast and handled well, it never felt like a proper rival for sharp end sports cars in terms of either performance or raw dynamic focus. Electric torque and all-wheel drive meant it launched hard and found good traction, but - in common with most EVs - acceleration started to wane as speed rose, even with the twin-speed front axle doing its thing, and with top speed limited to 155mph. The two ends of the powertrain also seemed to sometimes struggle to gel with each other under intense use, with the combustion engine's six-speed torque converter always feeling more laggardly than a performance model deserved. I never liked the odd, digitally augmented soundtrack that tried to butch up the noise made by the three-pot either, although some reckoned it suited the car's futuristic character.

Providing you could fit family and lifestyle commitments into it, it was well suited to everyday life, too. The i8's upward opening butterfly doors looked great, and - although very clearly a BMW - the cabin beyond them was better finished and more comfortable than a genuine junior supercar. Space was respectable for two occupants, although the nominal 2+2 accommodation in the rear was only really enhanced luggage room. And it was an impressively refined high-speed cruiser, a proper executive express. All-out economy was unlikely to be a major concern for those able to afford the six-figure asking price, but the i8 was genuinely frugal - even without plugging it in it could easily be persuaded to get north of 40mpg, and regular use of the charging port could make local use entirely engine-free.

But like many high-fashion sports cars, i8 production was heavily biased towards the early years of its long life. Anticipation had seen the creation of a waiting list before it was launched, but once these determined-to-be early adopters had their cars, interest waned quickly. BMW produced 10,000 cars, half of the total production, in the first two years; even the arrival of a roadster version in 2018 - into what is normally an open-topped bit of the market - couldn't rally much more interest.

Our Pill is an early example from 2015, one that would have had a basic list price of £99,845 - although with the government's then plug-in grant generously knocking £5,000 off that. According to the advert this car was optioned with the Harmon/Kardon sound system, bigger wheels and both the 360-degree camera system and a head-up display, so was likely still close to six figures as bought. It's now being offered for £40,980, and although it seems certain that depreciation isn't done with it yet, it does look like stonking value for such an exotic performance machine.

The advert says the car has a full BMW service history, although an image of the onboard display for this suggests there was a gap between the last one in June 2021 at 63,000 miles and the one before, in October 2018, at 35,000 miles. The MOT history suggests that previous owners have enjoyed the performance - with a couple of fails and multiple advisories for worn tyres - and also reveals it once wore one of those non-standard number plates. For shame. The plates now seem appropriately legal, but the rear one seems to have been put on slightly squint.

You don't need much imagination to envisage a future where the i8 is regarded as one of BMW's more significant cars, and certainly one of the best-looking examples before the company entered its vast grille era. The unknown is how well it will deal with the eventual obsolescence of its battery pack, or the borkage of one of its other high-tech systems. Will it be possible to buy spares when new cars have moved onto much smarter solid state battery packs? Or will it end up with a hydrogen-powered V8 retrofitted to the back?

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