BMW i8 to receive gasoline engine, not a turbo diesel

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According to Autocar’s report, the upcoming 2014 BMW i8 will receive a gasoline engine instead of the 3-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine that the current prototype is using. The UK magazine quotes Research & Development chief Dr. Klaus Draeger who said that “as we want to sell it all over the world, Diesel is only really relevant to Europe.” This is an interesting new information about the BMW i8.

Dr. Draeger did not say which gasoline engine will be used with electric motors, but it will most be one of the new four-cylinder turbo engines or a new three-cylinder engine that will be developed with BMW Motorrad.

Previous reports all lead to a diesel engine since it is the smallest engine available for a BMW vehicle at the moment. Dr. Philip Koehn, BMW Vice President Total Vehicle Architecture and Vehicle Concepts said: “The car became very efficient, the power required to maintain 155 mph is only 120 kilowatts, and we chose the smallest engine we could find in the whole company which would precisely deliver 120 kilowatts. The engine is a prototype and has never been used in a car. I believe it’s called “Engine 1″.

The BMW i8 will be built under the Project i umbrella and assembled at the Leipzig plant in Germany. Ian Robertson said that the price for BMW i8 would be “less than £150,000 (USD240,000).”

Source: BMW Blog