BMW recently launched the new i8 Roadster and a refreshed version of their coupe. The i8 Roadster has been heavily anticipated for quite sometime now and my expectations were unexplainably high. However, in the aftermath of the launch my excitement has dwindled.

There is no doubt that the i8 Roadster is still one of the most beautiful cars one can buy today. The lines from the Coupe have been left relatively untouched. The new E-Copper colour for the car looks the part and it is particularly hard to find a bad angle. The rear deck has been worked elegantly to fit the new roof with some serious sculpture. The roadster form loses the two back seats for more luggage space. That should’t be a problem considering the only people who could fit in there were 3 year olds. The fabric folding roof is a slight eye sore but it will open and close in 16 seconds and you can look like a baller doing it at 50km/h. It has also been engineered in such a way to reduce any wind noise and maintain the quietness of the all electric mode. Most importantly the roadster has been able to keep the dihedral doors!

While the exterior is absolutely beautiful the interior and performance of the vehicle lets the car down completely. Inside the same futuristic seating and dashboard is kept. No complaints there, but majority of the buttons still come from the 2009 BMW 7 series. For a car which is supposed to represent the future, that doesn’t exactly cut it. This is especially the case considering BMW’s 7 series has gesture control and cool touch sensitive controls for the air-conditioning. Would it have killed them to add it?

Both the coupe and roadster variants have been given a slight performance upgrade with a outstanding 12bph increase taking its total output to a still underwhelming 374bph. It’s been four years since the original i8 was launched. BMW can’t possibly expect that to woo the market. Tesla’s SUV can do 0-100km/h in 3.2 seconds and BMW’s flagship sports car is still lagging in comparison with 4.4 seconds for the coupe and 4.6 for the roadster.

I remember spending time in the original i8 and being completely in love with it and the concept it brought to the table. The i8 was essentially providing P1 and LaFerrari technology for a fraction of the price. The old i8 was a massive achievement for BMW but I feel like this time they couldn’t really be bothered and this is just an attempt to try save some lost love for the vehicle. Maybe I’m being too harsh but I hope that the open top driving sensation is enough to forget about the lack of real innovation. At approximately R2.3 million it better be able to it is to stand a chance at competing with the likes of the Mercedes-Benz GTs and Audi R8.

Article by Dieclassylife

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