As BMW is a company that made its name on fun four-door cars, it should come as no surprise that its first-ever electric sedan, the BMW i4, will perform fairly well. Maybe “fairly well” is understating it a bit. According to a new report, the i4 will be pushing a healthy 530 horsepower.
CNET’s Roadshow has confirmed that one variant of the upcoming i4 will debut in 2021 with 530 HP and a range of 373 miles (as measured on the European cycle), all while hitting 60 mph from a stop in four seconds. Effectively, that positions the i4—which is expected to resemble the i Vision Dynamics concept that debuted in 2017—as something quicker than an M340i, and possibly even a viable electric M3 alternative.
Further sweetening the news is the revelation that the i4, and the other upcoming production cars on BMW’s new fifth-generation batteries, will be capable of reaching an 85 percent charge in 35 minutes. Since these batteries are graded to put out between 90 and 300 kW of power, Roadshow also speculates that the i4 will utilize two batteries—the amount it would need to hit the 390 kW of power needed to translate into 530 horses.
Since this implies a two-motor layout, the two-battery setup would also imply that the car would be all-wheel drive. That’s in keeping with all the latest M cars too, so it makes sense.
The i4 (and probably the iX3 crossover even more so) is a crucial car for BMW, a brand that’s had a lot of executive-level shakeups lately over its electrification strategy. The automaker is still committed to doing flexible architectures that can accommodate electric, hybrid and internal combustion powertrains, but it needs a stronger effort on the full EV front to be competitive with Audi, Tesla, Mercedes and just about everyone else. The i3 and i8 aren’t cutting it anymore.
Head over to Roadshow to read more.
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