Is BMW's electric past 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.
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'.
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.
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.
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