Affordable Dream Car: Why Did The BMW i8 Depreciate So Badly, and is it Worth Buying One Now?

Hello, everyone. Today, another vehicle that I've been trying to get on the channel for a good few years now, the BMW i8. It's perhaps a very timely review, because the i8 is now officially discontinued. I couldn't believe it, but when I did some research, I realized that this car actually came out in 2014 and was previewed by BMW as a concept car a couple of years earlier. It's perhaps because the car is still so outlandish and close to that original concept that it still looks absolutely box fresh. It's also a car that you would think over time had grown in appeal. The idea of an all-wheel drive hybrid powertrain now seems a lot more acceptable than it did six years ago. And yet, for one reason or another, the i8 just never really seemed to find favor with the British public. I recall seeing many of these up for sale at only a few months old, and already with 40,000, 50,000, 60,000 pounds knocked off their very hefty list prices. New for one of these, you could spend around about 110 grand. And at the end of the car's production run with the Roadster, I think they were being spec'd at over 130. These days, the classifieds are a bit of a strange state of affairs, because all of the prices seem to have been somewhat compressed. I knew that these cars dropped down to about 50,000 pounds within the first year or two of them coming out, and I thought they might have kept falling. But in fact, they haven't. As it happens, this example at just over 40,000 pounds from Steel City Sports and Prestige is probably one of the cheapest out there. It's a 2015 car with 25,500 miles on the clock. I have actually driven an i8 once before, very briefly at Millbrook, and this is the first time that I've had a go in one on the public roads. It is a curious car. BMW seem to have this general allergy when it comes to sports cars. They just never really ever want to quite commit. Why they bothered putting back seats in this, I really do not know. And on paper, it's reasonably difficult to actually make a case for the i8. It's 360-odd horsepower, with a little bit more for the facelift cars, combined with a fairly hefty 400-plus pound-foot of torque. But at that price, you could have easily bought an M4 and had more than enough money left over to pay a very, very hefty fuel bill. In fact, you could have pretty much bought a V12 7 Series for the same money. Driving it, though, those numbers don't really seem to tell the full story. This thing, at legal speeds, is seriously quick. It's got really impressive punch from essentially nothing. At 2,500 to 3,000 RPM, this car has got all the go in it you would ever need on the public roads. It doesn't sound the greatest. It's very noisy, just not very nice. It's also reasonably firm, especially in sport mode, as I am now. But you can tell that this chassis, which is a carbon core, is utterly fantastic. Interestingly, it's not anywhere near as sexy as the carbon fiber that you would find on something like a McLaren, or even the VW XL1, if you remember those. They were a similar amount of money at the time, if not perhaps even more. But they had a very, very different mission in life, trying to be the ultimate eco wagon. The i8's eco credentials are somewhat questionable, if we're talking purely in terms of miles per gallon here. You see, officially, these cars will get very, very good figures, but then they were skewed by the fact that most were tested under the old testing cycle. In the real world, I'm told that if you're being very, very saintly in your driving, and you're on the motorway in full hybrid eco mode, 50 to 60 miles per gallon is very achievable. However, if you wanna drive it like an M4, it's pretty much gonna drink like one, too. And that's kind of a shame. It wasn't that that drew its current owner to it, however. He chose it because having previously had an R8, and then downgrading to an A45, he found himself with a little bit of budget again that he wanted to use to buy something reasonably special. Unfortunately, there weren't really many supercars in his budget that weren't already an R8. And so he decided to go for one of these on looks alone. And I have to say, it's certainly an attention-grabbing car. That exterior, although it does look a little bit like it's pooping a 911 out the back, is a fantastic thing. The selection of color on this car isn't to my taste, actually being a wrap, a shade called Hexus Gray, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Audi's Nardo. The interior for me is really one of the more disappointing parts of the i8, because once you've got in these amazing big swoopy doors and drop yourself into this low cabin, it feels rather like a normal BMW. You have normal BMW gear lever. You have normal BMW buttons. You have a normal BMW steering wheel, which is slightly differently trimmed. And up front, you have BMW's attempt at virtual cockpit, which looks sort of laughably old hat. In fact, it sits in this big old pub, which could accommodate a screen easily an inch wider either side. I don't really know quite what they were thinking with that one. However, there is certainly plenty of good news. Other than the fact that it goes really very well, it also steers brilliantly. In fact, it's one of the most interesting BMWs to drive of the last decade, and I think far more exciting than any M3 or M4 they've brought out for quite some time. Even in comfort mode, the ride is still reasonably firm, but the reward is an absolutely magic turn-in. There is a flaw though, and it's a pretty big one. In their somewhat confused quest to deliver the ultimate fun eco car, BMW gave this amazing chassis the weirdest narrow front tires with eco credentials that they could find. What this means is that you find yourself on a beautiful twisty country road, you start enjoying that playful powertrain, and then you chuck it into a tight little bend, and it doesn't like it at all. That would be rather disconcerting if I didn't already know about that handling trait, especially when you're on a road such as this with beautiful views out and unusually nice weather for this time of year as well. The last time I drove one of these, I had a Lotus Evora 400. The Lotus was a bit up on power, being 400 versus about 360. Down on torque, being about 300 versus around 420, and also down on weight, being about 1,400 versus just over 1,500 for this. However, at normal speeds, the i8 feels vastly quicker. I mean, it's just unreal. Official numbers would say that they're pretty neck and neck, but the truth is you really had to wring the Evora's neck to get the best out of it, quite surprising for a supercharged car, whereas the i8 gives up the goods very readily. Now, having driven these on a test track, I can also tell you that, like many hybrid and turbo units, once you start getting into the higher speeds, sort of 100 mile an hour plus, the engine and powertrain will start to give up, and that's where something like, say, the Evora or even an M3 or an M4 would really show its power advantage. But on the road, this has everything that you need. So why did the i8 fail so spectacularly? It's got exotic looks outside, if not inside. It's relatively frugal if you want it to be, and it's from a manufacturer that has in the UK a very desirable badge and a good reputation for reliability, regardless of whether that's actually well-founded or not. It's simple, really. It was far too much money. Even when it came out, a hundred-odd thousand pounds would get you into an R8, which I think was probably a safer and more exciting bet for most people, having more power, being a quote-unquote proper supercar. Storage space in this is very restricted, too. The boot is okay, but only if you're used to an Elise. So if you want to use this for daily duty, well, I hope your commute doesn't involve a golf club. Although on the move, the six-speed dual-clutch gearbox, the hybrid powertrain, and the brakes all work together harmoniously, in town, they do not. Pulling away from a junction or onto a roundabout with the car in comfort mode is a heart-stopping experience. You put your foot down, and for two seconds, the car does absolutely nothing. If you're used to the stabbed rat pickup of most full EVs, it's a real shocker. And I don't know quite how BMW got it so wrong. The only other car I remember being this bad is the old Mercedes A45. For me, the only other big failing was BMW's attempt to compromise the car by stuffing in those useless back seats. Surely with the engine a bit further forward, you'd have even better handling, especially with decent front tires on it, a more usable boot, and they'd have created a proper hybrid sports car and not the near-miss that the i8 wound up being. The people that it found favour with were company car buyers. Because of the way that tax here in the UK works, these were extremely affordable. I know many of them sold on very, very attractive lease deals. Unfortunately, it also meant that about three years into the car's production run, all of those lease deals ended, the cars all came back to dealers, and then the market was flooded. And that pushed the prices down even further and meant that nobody really had a good reason to buy a new one. But I think people have realised that this was indeed a very special car, and BMW, from what I hear, are unlikely to make another. There's an i4 that's rumoured to be coming out soon, but the i8 is always, for me, gonna be the interesting project that probably should have worked a little bit better than it actually did. However, if you've got 50 grand to spend and you want something that is both fun to drive and reasonable to run as a daily driver, should you want to, and it is very different, the i8 is certainly worth a look. Do what AC Schnitzer did. Stick some better front tyres on, some generally stickier rubber, and you've got yourself a damn good car. Thanks for watching. Please like, subscribe, comment below, and I'll see you for the next one. Bye-bye.