The BMW i8 has always been difficult to pigeonhole. It’s not a supercar, though it boasts some serious performance credentials with a 0-60 time of a little over four seconds. It wasn’t really designed to attract eco-friendly car buyers, though it does plug in, and is powered by an intriguing hybrid powertrain and can travel solely on electricity for short trips. And now that the final example has rolled down the assembly line in Leipzig, Germany, it’s hard to fully determine how successful the i8 has been for BMW.
As a strikingly styled rolling testament to BMW’s technology, the i8’s carbon fiber-intensive structure and upward scissor-opening doors were sufficiently appealing to attract exactly 20,500 buyers over the course of the car’s six years of production. We can’t say how much (if any) profit BMW was able to extract from the i8’s nearly $150,000 base price (or nearly $165,000 for the Roadster variant), but we do believe the automaker’s engineers when they say they have learned a lot about high-tech construction techniques and battery technologies through the i series of vehicles.
The i8 you see above is the final i8 to roll down the assembly line. According to BMW Blog, it’s the only i8 painted in that lovely shade of Portimao Blue (though owners would be free to paint theirs up to match, if they so desired). It’s one of 18 final builds that the automaker says were designed with input from the BMW i8 Club. We’re sad to see it go, but we’re looking forward to what’s next.
Related Video:
