BMW i8 Roadster review: a quiet achiever

I’ll never buy an electric car and I’m not interested in hybrids. They make no sense, and no difference.

BMW i8 Roadster, $348,900 Pic : BMW

When I first drove the BMW i8 coupe a few years ago, I was extremely impressed with how you could commute to and from work on silent electric drive, then blast past Porsches on a weekend trip to the countryside.

I also loved the way it had an electric motor powering the front wheels and a rear-mounted, three-cylinder Mini engine powering the back wheels, and yet, somehow, it didn’t split in half every time you pressed the accelerator. Which it would do if I’d been involved in the design process. In fact, despite the complexity, it was no harder to drive than a Nissan Juke.

Since then, however, two things have happened. I’ve grown bored and weary of the whole idea of sustainable motoring. It’s a nuisance, really, and only a government could think you can tackle conspicuous consumption by buying cars that have, in effect, two engines. Indeed, I said on TV that I will never buy an electric car, and I’m not interested in hybrids either. They make no sense, and they make no difference, ultimately, to the air you breathe.

The other thing that’s happened is that the i8, weirdly, has started to look old. The problem is that it was designed to look futuristic, and all things designed to look like they’re from the future almost immediately look like they’re from the past. Put simply, this car is about as on the money as Thunderbird 2.

On the basis that it looks curiously old-fashioned, then, and it uses a drive system I no longer find interesting, and it’s a convertible that cannot be driven by a man of my age with the roof down because it sends out a lot of messages, all of them wrong, I wasn’t really looking forward to my time in the i8 Roadster.

All the problems with the coupe reared their heads straight away. The windows do not go all the way down, so you can’t drive, Italian-style, with your elbow on the sill. And the boot is tragically small. And there’s nowhere to put anything in the cabin, not even the key.

But despite all this, and despite my reservations about the styling and drive system, this is a hugely likeable car. You know when you sit next to someone at a party and everything about them seems to be wrong, but by the time pudding comes you know you’ve made a friend for life? It’s that.

Much of the appeal comes from the fact it doesn’t feel like a normal car: the noises it makes and all of the things that flash up on the dash are odd, interesting and peculiar. It’s an accountant, but with a ponytail.

This is especially apparent when you lower the roof. Do this in any other convertible and what you can hear is the fuel exploding and gases flooding out of the tailpipe. But in the i8, using electric drive only, all you can hear is birdsong. This is a completely unique experience. Man has never been this fast this quietly in all of history. Its eco-tyres are thin and stealthy, and the electric motor is nowhere near as loud as the wood pigeons and the skylarks. And then push the gearlever to its Sport setting and all you can hear is the little turbocharged engine burping and rasping, and the exhaust occasionally spitting. And, ooh, it’s a nice car to hustle. It feels so light, so dainty, so right.

Annoyingly, though, it feels as if the suspension is made from pig iron. This makes life very bumpy on a normal road and almost intolerable in a pot-marked town.

My biggest worry about the i8 Roadster, however, is that it’s a critic’s car. Think of it as one of those incredibly difficult dishes served up by a gifted provincial chef in an almost silent restaurant. A food reviewer would sit in deep reverence, masticating gently and marvelling at the textures and the flavours and the skill that brought everything together so well.

The i8 is like that. I marvel at its brilliance and I absolutely loved driving it for the sake of just driving. But could I live with a car in which there’s only space for the occupants and nothing else, not even a phone? Could I live with the silly doors? Or the windows that don’t go down properly, or the way the charger can’t be used for charging anything? Could I live with the bumpiness? No. Not really. For going home after work, or going to the shops, I’d rather have a much less expensive BMW M3.

BMW i8 Roadster

Engine: 1.5-litre turbo-petrol three-cylinder plus electric motor (275kW/570Nm)

Average fuel 2.0 litres per 100km

Transmission: Six-speed automatic, all-wheel drive

Price: $348,900

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars