BMW’s i8 Roadster wins Concept Car of the Year award, debut set for 2014?

By Stephen Edelstein Published July 3, 2013

The BMW i8 Roadster (also known as Concept Spyder) hasn’t gone into production yet, but it’s already earned an award. This sexy supercar concept, which previews BMW’s long awaited plug-in hybrid halo car, won the North American Concept Car of the Year Award for for Best Production Preview Vehicle.

Some concept cars are just flights of fancy, but BMW’s decision to actually build the i8 Roadster landed it in the Production Preview category. Unlike the Oscars, the rules also allow for repeat performances: the i8 Roadster was named overall Concept Car of the Year in 2012.

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The awards are doled out by a panel automotive journalists, who also pick a best Concept Truck, Specialty Concept, and Most Significant Concept.

The i8 is part of BMW’s i sub-brand of green vehicles. The brand has been gestating since the hardtop i8 and i3 electric city car were unveiled as concepts at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show.

With the Ferrari LaFerrari, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, and Acura NSX on the way, you’d think we’d be over hybrid supercars, but when the i8 finally makes the transition from concept car to production car, it should be just as impressive as its rivals.

The plug-in hybrid powertrain, called eDrive, consists of a 223 horsepower turbocharged three-cylinder gasoline engine and a 131 hp electric motor. Combined, BMW says they will get the i8 from 0 to 100 kph (0 to 62 mph) in 4.6 seconds, while returning 94 mpg on the European cycle.

The i8 features a lithium-ion battery pack that gives it an electric-only range of 19 miles, but doesn’t upset the car’s 50:50 weight distribution.

Encasing the high tech powertrain is the equally astonishing LifeDrive architecture. It consists of a carbon fiber-reinforced plastic Life Module, which serves as a safety cage for the driver and passenger, and an aluminum Drive Module, which cradles the mechanical components.

The i8 is definitely worthy of an award, but we’ll still have to wait awhile to experience the more visceral side of its greatness.

The i8 Coupe will go on sale, at the earliest, in 2014, most likely as a 2015 model. The Roadster will follow it by at least a few months. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.

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Stephen Edelstein

Contributing Editor

Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…

Cars

Audi halts vehicle deliveries to the U.S. as it mulls impact of tariffs

2021 Audi Q5

If you’d been thinking of buying an Audi, now might be the time. The German brand, owned by the Volkswagen Group, has announced it would halt shipments to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all imported vehicles.
Audi is currently holding cars that arrived after the tariffs took effect, on April 3, in U.S. ports. But it still has around 37,000 vehicles in its U.S. inventory, which should be able to meet demand for about two months, according to Reuters.
Automakers on average hold enough cars to meet U.S. demand for about three months, according to Cox Automotive.
Audi should be particularly affected by the tariffs: The Q5, its best-selling model in the U.S., is produced in Mexico, while other models, such as the A3, A4, and A6 are produced in Germany.
Holding shipments is obviously a temporary measure to buy time for Audi and parent company Volkswagen. If tariffs stay in place, vehicle prices would likely have to go up accordingly, unless some production is shifted to the U.S. Volkswagen already has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is planning a new plant in South Carolina. That latter plant, however, isn’t expected to be operational until 2027 and is currently dedicated to building electric vehicles for VW’s Scout Motors brand.
Other global automakers have also taken drastic measures in response to Trump’s tariffs. Jaguar Land Rover on April 5 said it is pausing shipments of its its UK-made cars to the United States this month. The British sports-luxury vehicle maker noted that the U.S. market accounts for nearly a quarter of its global sales, led by the likes of Range Rover Sports, Defenders, and Jaguar F-PACE.
And on April 3, Nissan, the biggest Japanese vehicle exporter to the United States, announced it will stop taking new U.S. orders for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs, the QX50 and QX55.

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Waymo faces questions about its use of onboard cameras for AI training, ads targeting

Two people exit a Waymo taxi.

In an iconic scene from the 2002 sci-fi film Minority Report, on-the-run Agent John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, struggles to walk through a mall as he’s targeted by a multitude of personalized ads from the likes of Lexus, Guinness and American Express, everytime hidden detectors identify his eyes.
It was clearly meant as a warning about a not-so-desirable dystopian future.
Yet, 23 years later that future is at least partlially here in the online world and threatens to spread to other areas of daily life which are increasingly ‘connected’, such as the inside of cars. And the new testing grounds, according to online security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, might very well be automated-driving vehicles, such as Waymo’s robotaxis.
On X, Wong unveiled an unreleased version of Waymo’s privacy policy that suggests the California-based company is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including interior cameras, to train generative AI models and to offer targetted ads.
“Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests,” the Waymo’s unreleased privacy statement reads. “You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it’s necessary to the functioning of the service.”
Asked for comments about the unreleased app update, Waymo told The Verge that it contained “placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose”.
Waymo’s AI-models “are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads,” spokesperson Julia Ilina said.
Waymo’s robotaxis, which are operating on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, do contain onboard cameras that monitor riders. But Ilina says these are mainly used to train AI models for safety, finding lost items, check that in-car rules are followed, and to improve the service.
The new feature is still under development and offers riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection, Ilina says.
But as we all get used to ads targeting based on everything that’s somehow connected to the web, it seems a once-distant vision of the future may be just around the corner.

Cars

Waymo’s driverless cars are about to begin an overseas adventure

Waymo Jaguar I-Pace

Waymo’s autonomous cars are about to appear on streets outside of the U.S. for the first time.

The company on Wednesday announced on social media that its autonomous cars will be driving onto the streets of Tokyo, Japan, “soon,” with some reports suggesting the rollout will begin as early as next week.