Seriously, The BEST Hybrid You Can Buy Today Is a 10-Year-Old BMW!

What would you say if I were to tell you that the very best, and I do mean the very best, plug-in hybrid that you could buy in America today is a nine-year-old BMW. Yep, a nine-year-old BMW. And in this video, I'm going to prove it to you. But first, let's talk about the BMW i8. I am the impossible, and yet too bold to be chained, too powerful to be tamed. I am unstoppable. Rocket, a cannon, a carbon fiber body lighter than wind, stronger than storm. I am born electric. I am sheer energy, the force of tomorrow. I am. This i8, along with the BMW i3, were BMW's electrified moonshot. They built about 20,000 of these from 2014 to about 2020, with the last three years accounting for about 3,000 of the roadsters, in other words, of the convertibles. Now, you may be wondering what makes this car so unique? Why is it the best plug-in hybrid you can buy? Well, let's start with the obvious. I mean, just look at it. Does this look like a nine-year-old car, or does it look brand new? And I can answer that question, because when we bought this car, even though it's got almost 47,000 miles on it, when I stop to get gas, people come up to me and ask me, what is this new car that you're driving? Because the design of this car is timeless. It's simple, it's elegant, it's sporty, and it's beautiful. The other thing, of course, that makes it so unique and makes it look like a supercar are that doors that don't go like this, but in fact go like that. Now, that creates a problem for people getting in and out of it, but you know what? I've been living with this car now for gosh, two, three months, and I've learned how to get in and out of this car without looking like a complete and utter clown. The other thing that makes this car so unusual and so expensive when it was new, about $150,000, is right here. It's a carbon fiber composite tub. You can see it in the doors, and you can see it in the body, and what makes that so important is that carbon fiber doesn't rust, so even after nine years, at least to my eye, this car looks like it just rolled out of the factory. The technology back then and even today is groundbreaking, so you have your charge port right there. It's a level two that allows you to charge up a relatively small battery. With a full charge, I can get about 20 miles of range, but what that battery means is that in the front, you have an electric motor that powers the front wheels, about 120 horsepower, and then if you come back here, you have a three-cylinder motor out of a mini that puts out just over 200 horsepower, so combined, the motor and the three-cylinder engine produce over 360 horsepower. Now you may be thinking to yourself, Roman, that's not a boat ton, and you'd be right, but because this vehicle is carbon fiber, it's extremely light. BMW says it'll do 0 to 60 in about three point, no, make that 4.4 seconds, but when we dragged it against our long-term Mustang GT, this is what happened. Come on, depreciated BMW. Oh, great launch of the i8, actually shifts super hard. Oh, he launched well, oh wow, that i8 is so quick off the line, that's insane. There's 85 miles an hour, and 90 miles an hour, and 100 miles an hour. Never seen something take off from this Mustang like that, this Mustang is quick. No way, that is wild. All-wheel drive, plug-in hybrid, very quick. There is one small kink in the armor of the i8, and that is perhaps storage room, so if you're thinking about getting one of these, I would highly recommend you get this coupe, because in the coupe, not only do you get the storage area behind the three-cylinder engine, which is actually pretty good, probably one roller bag's worth of storage, but you also, come on with me, and you get this, which are these tiny rear seats in the back. Now, unless you're two years old or legless, you're probably not going to sit back there, but they're a great place to store more stuff, and when we drove this car down from Anchorage, where I bought it on the Alaska Highway, we packed the back of this car with spare tires, and it just turned out to be a great road trip car. In fact, let me show you some of that. It was such a spectacular long-distance GT tour. Let the adventure begin, as soon as we get through the red light, of course. Oh, look at that, good job, Cole, we've got a bear. They said that 480 kilometers down the road, there were buffalo on the Alaskan Highway. They pointed that out in a sign as we were entering B.C., so I doubt they'll still be there, you know, 480 kilometers, but it's something we'll look forward to. I have to say that as much as I always thought that this was the wrong car, especially if you get farther north toward the U.S. border and beyond, to have for this. Down here, when you get close to Fort Nelson, is that where we're heading, Cole? Yes? Then the road just turns magnificent. I mean, this is like driving the Highlands in Scotland, or maybe, you know, through some of the best roads in the Rocky Mountains. Now, the other thing that makes it such a fabulous car is that you have supercar styling, you have Mustang GT performance, but check this out. I've been driving this around town using both the electric motor and, of course, gasoline, and I'm averaging 63.7 mpg. Now, for a car that can beat a Mustang in a quarter mile, that, my friends, is beyond phenomenal. So, let's just quickly recap. It's practical-ish, it's sexy as you know what, it gets great fuel economy, and best of all, it's small. For a long of the last year, we had a 911, the current generation, and the 911 has gotten to be very big and very wide. This car is properly sports car small. I mean, it's practically cozy in here, and this time capsule of an interior is where it got really good before it got really bad. Let me explain. Do you remember the old BMW iDrive? I certainly remember it when it first came out, and I thought to myself, oh my god, this is so hard to use, but compared to today's iDrive, my wife, by the way, just bought a BMW iX with the entire front of the dashboard all screen, this is super simple to use. In fact, it's so easy to use that let's say I want to save the battery for when I get into the city, I click settings, I click auto eDrive, and there it is, hold state of charge until I'm ready to use the gas engine instead of the electric battery. So, super easy to use iDrive, but there's more. There's this almost, dare I say, a perfect mix of technology screens, right, two screens and buttons. Remember when you wanted to go and listen to your favorite radio station, you would just pre-program it as number one in the presets. Well, my favorite radio station is number one in the presets, and every time I want to go there, I just click number one. Remember when if you wanted to control the fan speed, you would just click a real button, and it would move the fan speed up and down, and then if you wanted to change the temperature, you would just move the little rotary knob around, or you could unsync it so you could do them individually. Remember all that? Well, this car still has it. You remember the old easy to operate BMW transmission lever when you wanted to put it in a drive, pull it back, reverse, push it forward, and then this car, if you ever want all of the beans, just flick it to your left, it turns into sport mode, which is, of course, the more aggressive one, and you've got all of the beans that this car can offer. Plus, I know this is revolutionary, but it has a round steering wheel. Look at that. It's round with paddle shifters that actually change a traditional six-speed torque converter automatic gearbox. It doesn't get any simpler to use than that, and it doesn't get any better, because if you want to even get funkier, you actually have a heads-up display, and the best part of all of this old school slash new school technology is that we bought this car for $49,000. That's a hell of a lot of car that won't rust for not a heck of a lot of money. Now, the rub against the i8 has always been that it writes a check it can't cash. In other words, it looks like a supercar or a hypercar that should have a big old 12-cylinder in the back, but you know what? From a technology point of view, this car is a supercar. I just got done reviewing the McLaren Artura, and the Artura basically does what this car does, but it took them nine years to get there. So, let's take it for a drive, and let me kind of show off how technologically advanced this is for its day. So, put it in drive, relatively simple, and then if I want to go into e-drive, all I have to do is push this button right there, and now I'm in all electric mode, and I can drive this around town all day long without using an ounce of gasoline. In fact, this car has the bigger fuel tank, which I think is 12 gallons as opposed to 10 gallons, and I've put on over 400 miles since I brought it back from Alaska, and I have yet to use a half a tank of gas because I just go home, I plug it in, and actually because the battery is so small, I don't even bother. I think it's around 17 kilowatt hours. If I got that wrong, correct me in the comments below, but I don't even bother to actually fill up the gas tank very often because for around town, this is all I need. So, let me kind of show you the acceleration. I know we showed you on the drag strip, but I'll put it in sport mode. I'm not going to do launch control, which it has, but now I've engaged the three-cylinder as well as the electric motor, and I'm just going to floor it, and that, what you're hearing, is completely fake, but man, that thing gets up and goes, and that's probably because it's all-wheel drive, and that traditional six-speed gets filled in with the electric motor, and when you have a full battery, you have access to that speed and that acceleration on a regular basis, and the great thing is when you're driving around in sport mode with the motor, it actually charges up the battery, so, you know, potentially if you wanted to go on all the gas, you would never have to plug it in, or if you could go, let's say, just 20 miles in town, you'd never have to actually fill it up with gas. So, how does it drive? Well, it's an all-wheel drive car, so it's very neutral in terms of handling. It does have relatively skinny tires, so people are like, well, you got to have 23s for a sports car, and there's, you know, something beautiful about a car that is perfectly balanced based on the tires that it has. So, going around a corner, completely neutral, the pedal feel, even though it's regen, is naturally mixed, so it never feels like it's just catching because all of a sudden the electric motor is rejetting power to the battery. Perfect sight line, so I'm seeing the road ahead of me instead of the hood. I guess the only criticism I have of this car is that once you're in it, you don't want to get out of it. It's such a comfortable and such a fun place to be. In fact, this is one of those cars where when I get home after a full day of work, I come up with excuses to go up to Sam's Club in Longmont just so I can drive the car. Yeah, it's one of those cars. So, have I convinced you yet? And look, I got out without looking too clown-like that this is the best plug-in hybrid car that you can buy in America today. If not, let me give you a couple more facts. For about $49,000 or a little less, you can get a Toyota RAV4 Prime, maybe a Prius Prime. I'm just trying to think of all the plug-in hybrids that are on the market. Oh, how about a BYD Shark that we just reviewed? That's about the same amount of money. But I mean, look at this. Just look at it. This is sex on wheels. This is timeless design. This is un-rustable performance. This is the best of all worlds. You can drive it around to the grocery store to get bananas, or you can take it in the mountains or up to Alaska on the Alaska Highway and have it be the best grand touring car you've ever driven and still get between 30 and 60 MPGs. Come on, guys. Okay, now you may be thinking, Roman, you're trying way too hard. You just bought an old car. You want the values to go up. Hey, I don't have to do that. The car will do it all on its own. Well, thanks for watching. Love to read your comments below. I'll see you guys next time. Remember, altifol.com. Ciao.