Last week while bringing one of my dogs back from the Vet, I spotted a car that piqued my curiosity. I was running along Peachtree Industrial out in Gwinnett County. A 4-lane road with a grass median, running mostly through industrial parks. Lots of stop lights.
The lights gave me the opportunity to get up alongside the car, both while traveling and at rest. I noticed that it was very quiet for what appeared to be a high performance sports car. A BMW, no less, with no audible exhaust note. It remained in the left lane of traffic while I stayed in the right and I paced it for 6 or 7 miles until it turned off at an industrial park in Duluth.
I did manage to see an exhaust tucked neatly underneath, but still didn't hear the engine roar as you'd expect of an exotic sports car.
Today, I had the opportunity to do some searching to identify the car and this is what I found. It's a BMW i8. This is the view that grabbed my curiosity.
.jpg)
I didn't know it had scissor doors until I started searching for images.
.jpg)
The car is made of carbon fiber and glass, assuming that's fiberglass. It's a mid-engine design and that engine is a 3-cylinder 1.5 liter gasoline engine. Imagine, an engine that is no larger than 3 bottles of Dasanti Drinking Water.
.jpg)
But that's the backup engine. The main power plant is up front. Yes, that's right. It has two power plants.
.jpg)
Yeah, shake your head and take a closer look. It's an electric motor. That's the main power plant. The gasoline engine is used as a backup source when battery power gets low. I believe I read that it also recharges the batteries for the electric motor.
Now don't go out and try to grab one to do a 3800SC or LS5 swap. The base model starts at $135,500. Coincidentally, when I found the image of the back of the car, I found many more showing the same license plate. It was the same license plate as that which was on the car I saw.
.jpg)
