What can you say about a car that is quick as an M3 and returns 75 MPG. It’s a killer idea, almost crazy, and yet we’ll see production BMW i8s in the very near future. And BMW will pull this sustainable magic off without resorting to unobtainium metallurgy, perpetual motion schemes, or unicorn droppings.

BMW has taken the idea of a plug-in hybrid and turned it up to ’11′. And it’s done within the boundaries of the ‘i’ sub-brand, sustainable EfficientDynamics. It is truly a sibling of the i3.

The i8′s layout of chassis and passenger cell is a bit different than the i3′s, however. The i8 uses a smaller battery pack and it goes into a central tunnel – again kept as low as possible. The tunnel splits the driver and passenger side of the car. It looks like a central backbone design with sub-frames fore and aft for motors and suspension.



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