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The Shock Of The New
Whatever the 2014 BMW i8 might be, it is certainly not a typical electric vehicle (EV). It doesn’t look like an EV, sound like an EV or drive like an EV. Those who build it are not EV people, and those who will own it are not EV customers.
The i8 has an electric motor that powers the front wheels and a gasoline-fueled engine that powers the rear wheels, but every time you grab onto something familiar, it turns out to have unexpected consequences with unfamiliar values. Like when the BMW people describe the i8’s quickness on the road by saying (with some humor), “It goes from zero to 100 kilometers per hour in 4.4 seconds; this is around the same time James Bond needs to order a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred.”
The BMW i8 is neither shaped by soulless computers nor built entirely of carbon fiber, neither completely different nor utterly conventional. It is not all one thing or all another. Instead, the BMW i8 is familiar in what it does, yet occupies a place that is all about pure innovation -- the shock of the new.
