BMW Vision M NEXT confirmed for production
Out with the i3 and i8 and in with a stand-alone BMW M performance coupeThe bad news is there won’t be a direct successor for either the electrified BMW i3 hatch or i8 coupe. The good news is that the BMW Vision M NEXT is headed to production in around three years.
BMW’s director of development yesterday confirmed that the sleek Vision M NEXT, which seems to owe more of its heritage to Lamborghini than to the original M1, would be built.
Klaus Frölich said yesterday that the Vision M NEXT had to perform like an M car, but its scalability made it financially more viable than people might first think.
It combines the carbon-fibre tub of the current i8 sports hybrid with the strongest electric motor and the strongest four-cylinder turbo-petrol motor BMW has in its toolkit.
It also combines that with an updated version of its eight-speed automatic transmission, fitted in the rear, to create its performance.
But the trick was pulling the weight down, which effectively mandated that the Vision M NEXT would be a plug-in hybrid rather than a pure electric car.
“Any M car has to perform like an M car,” said Frölich.
“If you do a pure electric sports car you need such a big battery that it would be a 2.1 or 2.2-tonne sports car to get to 600hp.
“And these 2.1-2.2 tonne cars don’t behave well on the Nürburgring. Being fast is not only about longitudinal acceleration. That part is easy.”
The target maximum weight for the Vision M NEXT was 1700kg, with Frölich insisting the concept car is well beneath that figure.
The concept car runs, but the actual quoted performance figures of a 300km/h top speed and a 0-100km/h time of three seconds are based on calculations at the moment.
It will also serve a major role in bringing customers’ minds across to accepting electric boosting in M cars for added performance, not necessarily for green credentials of any kind.
“M in principal is heading towards electrification. The M4 is always the icon and so is the M5, so it [electrification] is a conversion to make a more sporty car,” the engineer admitted.
“The M cars in the 2020s will get powertrains with electric support mainly for driving performance reasons.
“From 2022 onwards they will have hundreds of Newton/metres to give you V8 torque within two milliseconds.”
He also refused to rule out a pure EV in M’s future, mainly because of the development timeline of battery-cell chemistry, though admitted it was at least 10 years away.
“From 2030 onwards when the energy density is high enough we could do it. It’s not a priority because M is about performance, not technology.”
That role of technology leader within BMW has more recently fallen to the i sub-brand, which will be without an obvious halo car as the i3 and i8 age out.
“The i3 and the i8 were solitary cars with solitary concepts. The first battery pack in the i3 was only 22kWh.
“It was a very specific concept technology and now it’s becoming mainstream and BMW i will always make special cars.
“The pure i cars were one-offs, now cars like the i4 are on the structure of the 4 Series.
“The i’s pinnacle cars must have to tell a story and the tricky thing with i is that it stands for innovative.
“M is fast and furious and fun and that always works, but there is no direct successor for the i3 and no direct successor for the i8.”
Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
