Awesome new 94MPG BMW hybrid supercar only $135,000

[WarpSpeed]

This is awesome and incredibly reasonably priced as supercars go, cars like this should be available under tax discounts not the other way as it exceeds all green requirements of the Thai government except the Hp but seriously it gets it from a 3 cylinder 1.5 , it only has a turbo charged 1.5 litre, 3 cylinder engine that puts out a wopping 248 Hp!!

BMW’s i8, your 94 mpg, $136,000 supercar, arrives

By Brett Berk | Motoramic – 13 hours ago

Either we are finally living in the future the automakers have been promising us for all these years, or we are undergoing a paradigm leap in the way that outlandish automotive concept cars are able to forecast our plausible reality. Whatever the cause in this chicken/egg tautology, the production version of the BMW i8 plug-in hybrid just revealed here at the Frankfurt Auto Show looks hauntingly similar to the hypothetical versions that the Bavarians have been unveiling on show stands, and in the impossibly-punctuated film Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, for the past few years — fanciful materials, bent Aalto-esque flanges, scissor-hinged doors, and 94 mpg efficiency figure intact.

http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/bmw-i8-94-mpg-135-000-supercar-arrives-121435451.html

Edited September 11, 2013 by WarpSpeed

[IMHO]

As a hybrid under 3000cc, it will get a reduction in excise tax to just 10%.

But unless they assemble it in Thailand from at least 40% domestic parts, it will have 80% import duty applied to it first...

[Kilgore Trout]

Is that all? Cheap as chips. I'll just grab a little out of the piggy bank...

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[trucking]

Is that all? Cheap as chips. I'll just grab a little out of the piggy bank...

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Yes.....and they will be doing special exchange deals giving top dollar on Honda Waves and Dreams.

[BSJ]

I am sold on the car. The deposit cheque is in the mail.

[Skint]

Ill be looking at this at the weekend amongst others, seems a reasonable price, looks nice quick enough for the Autobahn. 349 bhp not too bad.

[Richie23]

Is that all? Blimey, best I bite their hand off and get one. Oh and one for the missus whilst Im at it. I 'get it' but $135k is a large chunk of change..

[WarpSpeed]

Christ so much sarcasm! Not too many economists here is there? Yes that's all, it's a 93 MPG super car, priced a non-hybird Porsche in Thailand lately?How long do you figure it will take to make it as economical as even say an A8 with that sort of fuel economy? If you take the cost of a nice sports car and then factor in the fuel cost savings of this car it won't be long before you're saving money on the cost of this car and actually banking money too..

Edited September 11, 2013 by WarpSpeed

[beano2274]

It is a concept car and not for sale, seen it live in Munich in BMW Welt near my apartment.

[Skint]

Its going into production, the new Honda NSX is a nice looking car concept though but that will also likely be in production soon.

[IMHO]

I do have to say the power they've extracted out of that 1.5L gasoline engine is still pretty impressive - but 150HP/L is still 20% shy of the AMG A45's very impressive 180HP/L - but still a good jump over the Ford 1.0L Ecoboost's 125HP/L. Either way, I think the Ecoboost's run of engine-of-the-year awards is over

Back to the rest of the car though, I have to say the styling of both the BMW i-Series is just a little too "Tron" for me - when you're looking at car that's going to cost around 8-10M Baht, you are allowed to let personal tastes drive your purchasing decisions

It is a concept car and not for sale, seen it live in Munich in BMW Welt near my apartment.

BMW unveiled the production version at the Frankfurt motor show a few days back, and they say it goes on sale mid 2014 - what Warpseed is showing/linking to is the actual final version, not a concept car.

Edited September 11, 2013 by IMHO

[VocalNeal]

So where does the savings ( edit 93 mpg) come from? 228hp is 228hp unless BMW has changed the laws of thermodynamics it still has to burn 248 hp's worth of fuel? OK it is probably lightweight and uses batteries in town but driving at 120-140 on the Chonburi motorway also still uses 140kph worth of fuel and if the batteries are used for half the journey they still have to be recharged at some point so if continuing on the say Klaeng or Trat the engine will need to use up more energy to replace that lost. Prius, I think, currently has the lowest drag factor of cars in Thailand so should use the least fuel at a constant 140 but it loses out in the up and down speed changes usually encountered during the journey as it has to accelerate the batteries back up to speed.

OT I don't often drive automatics but I did yesterday. There is huge potential there for harnessing the speed reduction required when lifting off the gas and the car simply "free-wheels" if that could be extracted into some form of KERS etc. This would give a conventional automatic the feel of a manual on overrun as it recovers energy for use later. I am sure the Ford and VW paddle shift units are like a manual and actually slow down when the foot is lifted making it easier to match the speed of the car in-front.

Edited September 12, 2013 by VocalNeal

[IMHO]

So where does the savings ( edit 93 mpg) come from? 228hp is 228hp unless BMW has changed the laws of thermodynamics it still has to burn 248 hp's worth of fuel? OK it is probably lightweight and uses batteries in town but driving at 120-140 on the Chonburi motorway also still uses 140kph worth of fuel and if the batteries are used for half the journey they still have to be recharged at some point so if continuing on the say Klaeng or Trat the engine will need to use up more energy to replace that lost. Prius, I think, currently has the lowest drag factor of cars in Thailand so should use the least fuel at a constant 140 but it loses out in the up and down speed changes usually encountered during the journey as it has to accelerate the batteries back up to speed.

OT I don't often drive automatics but I did yesterday. There is huge potential there for harnessing the speed reduction required when lifting off the gas and the car simply "free-wheels" if that could be extracted into some form of KERS etc. This would give a conventional automatic the feel of a manual on overrun as it recovers energy for use later. I am sure the Ford and VW paddle shift units are like a manual and actually slow down when the foot is lifted making it easier to match the speed of the car in-front.

There's still a long way to go when it comes to efficiency on gasoline engines.. While the best commonrail diesels are now converting up to 90% of the energy stored in the fuel into HP, even the best direct-inject, 600 valve, 100 spark plug gasoline engine is only just touching on about 70% efficient.

There's still room left for the propeller heads to make more HP from each drop

[VocalNeal]

Not sure where you get your numbers from but 18-20% of fuel converted into usable power is considered good maybe 26% on a really efficient set up. F1 maybe as high as 34% but nowhere near 70%. Diesels maybe 30-35% but nowhere near 90%.

There might be a litle bit left somewhere but... Ok 3 cylinders is a start, offset bores like Honda motorbikes, et all.

Strangely I noted from a TV show the other day that petrol/gasoline air mix explodes, whereas a diesel air mix burns. Subtle but explains the different characteristics.

[jmccarty]

Check out the new 3 Series active hybrid already for sale in Thailand. Nowhere near the MPG or the look, but a very good car for that same sort of money and 340hp combined 3 litre twin scroll turbo and electric motor. It's assembled in Malaysia and meets the requirements for very low tax import duty.

http://www.bmw.co.th/th/en/newvehicles/3series/sedan_active_hybrid/2011/showroom/technical_data/index.html

[IMHO]

Not sure where you get your numbers from but 18-20% of fuel converted into usable power is considered good maybe 26% on a really efficient set up. F1 maybe as high as 34% but nowhere near 70%. Diesels maybe 30-35% but nowhere near 90%.

There might be a litle bit left somewhere but... Ok 3 cylinders is a start, offset bores like Honda motorbikes, et all.

Strangely I noted from a TV show the other day that petrol/gasoline air mix explodes, whereas a diesel air mix burns. Subtle but explains the different characteristics.

Sounds like you're talking about theoretical absolute limits of thermal efficiency. I'm talking about how much of that has been actually attained in production engines.

Still plenty to go for gasoline

[WarpSpeed]

So where does the savings ( edit 93 mpg) come from? 228hp is 228hp unless BMW has changed the laws of thermodynamics it still has to burn 248 hp's worth of fuel? OK it is probably lightweight and uses batteries in town but driving at 120-140 on the Chonburi motorway also still uses 140kph worth of fuel and if the batteries are used for half the journey they still have to be recharged at some point so if continuing on the say Klaeng or Trat the engine will need to use up more energy to replace that lost. Prius, I think, currently has the lowest drag factor of cars in Thailand so should use the least fuel at a constant 140 but it loses out in the up and down speed changes usually encountered during the journey as it has to accelerate the batteries back up to speed.

OT I don't often drive automatics but I did yesterday. There is huge potential there for harnessing the speed reduction required when lifting off the gas and the car simply "free-wheels" if that could be extracted into some form of KERS etc. This would give a conventional automatic the feel of a manual on overrun as it recovers energy for use later. I am sure the Ford and VW paddle shift units are like a manual and actually slow down when the foot is lifted making it easier to match the speed of the car in-front.

Sorry for not participating in my own thread, I was away for awhile glad to see IMHO took over to keep up the discussion but to answer your question, of course the 248 Hp is not the economical part of the product, you're only using that power occasionally for maximum performance needs (hopefully, though that'd be a problem for me ) and of course at those times economy is somewhat inhibited ..

Edited September 14, 2013 by WarpSpeed

[WarpSpeed]

Not sure where you get your numbers from but 18-20% of fuel converted into usable power is considered good maybe 26% on a really efficient set up. F1 maybe as high as 34% but nowhere near 70%. Diesels maybe 30-35% but nowhere near 90%.

There might be a litle bit left somewhere but... Ok 3 cylinders is a start, offset bores like Honda motorbikes, et all.

Strangely I noted from a TV show the other day that petrol/gasoline air mix explodes, whereas a diesel air mix burns. Subtle but explains the different characteristics.

Sounds like you're talking about theoretical absolute limits of thermal efficiency. I'm talking about how much of that has been actually attained in production engines.

Still plenty to go for gasoline

Seems so, every time someone proclaims the maximum performance achieved shortly thereafter there is a "new" threshold achieved.. Some of that is also coming from better fuels here in the states they've begun to offer nitrogen enhanced petrol for better performance and cleaning properties.. This science also still has a lot of performance left to be discovered, enhanced and applied.

Edited September 14, 2013 by WarpSpeed

[impulse]

Intriguing, but if I could afford that car here in Thailand, I doubt I'd be worried about fuel economy.

Reminds me of the Smart car. Smaller, lighter, less comfortable, less capacity and uglier than cars half its price (many of which get better mileage, too)

Good looking car, and kudos for the fuel economy, but how about "total cost of ownership" economy?