BMW’s head of development, Dr Herbert
Diess, explains why challenging ‘i’-car technologies will be central to an
expanding product range – and why fuel cell vehicles could become mainstream
products in certain regions.
Sports car of the future
“We also think that on the sports car side,
huge batteries – 80kWh or more – aren’t the right solution,” Diess continues.
“They are really heavy, hugely expensive and recharging will still be a
problem, even if it’s shortened.
The
G-POWER M3 GT2 R is probably the hottest road-legal BMW M3 in the world. It
combines 720 supercharged horsepower with a kerb weight of less than 1.500 kg,
all wrapped up in an awesome body kit featuring the current GT2 R design.
There’s the infrastructure to consider, and
those cars are so energy-intensive to produce that they don’t have a positive
CO2 footprint. They don’t recover the additional energy that is introduced in
the manufacturing process during their time on the road.
“So for long-range cars and sports cars, we
think there should be a battery for commuting and to get the torque on the car,
but there should still be a small combustion engine, like on the i8. In the
future, those engines could be even smaller than the three-cylinder on the i8.”
Drive
comes from a 1.5L TwinPower Turbo three-cylinder gasoline engine that has peak
power and torque outputs of 231hp and 320Nm respectively. It is complemented by
an electric motor that develops 131hp and 250Nm of torque.
“The i8 was hugely important to reposition
the BMW brand, strengthen the position of i, and also to qualify our team for
this new technology – we’ve learned a lot from it,” he explains. “When we
started the project, we looked at the figures and the drawings and had a sense of
how it would feel on the road. But we have been so positively surprised – in my
case overwhelmed – by how good the car is and that’s why I think we probably
shouldn’t go back to normal sports cars.
“It’s so promising because the advantages
are huge,” he enthuses. “The battery gives you a much lower center of gravity
than normal sports cars, so you have balance. And because the center of gravity
is so condensed in the middle of the car, it is hugely agile because you’re
always turning around the center of gravity.”
On
pure electricity, the BMW i8 can drive 35km with a restricted top speed of
120kph. The batteries can be recharged by the engine, through a wallbox outlet
in under two hours, or through a conventional plug in three hours.
He also notes that with only 170kW, the IC
engine requires only around one-third of the total cooling that is normal for a
high performance car, and the resulting benefits to the drag coefficient can be
clearly felt behind the wheel. “The performance in the region of 150-250km/h
(93-155mph) is exhilarating,” he beams. “For a sports car – which in most
companies defines and positions the brand – we think that the i8 is the right
way. I think it’s the sports car of the future.”
