[x5love]

I've been trying to make sense of it since the debut of the i8 and the i3, but no matter how hard I try, I can't.

This is the first time in my life I've seen BMW go to such great lengths to market a subset of vehicles, lengths I believe will dilute the BMW brand itself, and irreparably harm their debut of an efficiency line of vehicles.

I will start with the simplest of examples: why a gorgeously designed, $140,000 car that looks like a freakin batmobile needs blue accents to signify efficiency like the blue ring around the Toyota logo of a Prius is beyond me.

M cars have ducts and grills and spoilers which all point to some functional use. Are they all necessary? Of course not, but they at least imply a functional use in the design that's born from the soul of the car itself.

Bright blue lines and bright blue stitching. All I can do is shake my head in shame.

Tesla's wild success is mostly due to the fact that nothing about the car touts it's electronicness. It's a beautiful, luxury car that's comfortable, well designed, an equipped with all the features that buyers in the market want. Perhaps the only main element of the car that touts it's efficient standpoint is the huge screen in the dash--a testament to how technologically motivated and modern the car is from the inside out.

The i8 on the other hand--blue accents on the grill (which by the looks of it, I'm not sure if it functions as much of a grill), the door, the rear, the stitching, the dash... the car is screaming "look at me, I'm efficient!" a move that seems cliche, unoriginal, cheap, gimmicky, and not at all BMW.

I haven't even gotten started on the i3. The car bears more in resemblance to a Prius and Leaf than it does any car BMW has previously made. From the company that brought you the Isetta and the new age of Mini, you'd think they'd know how to design a small, mega city car that didn't fall back on... for lack of a better term, ugliness.

The inverted kink of the rear window, the inescapability of two town and blue accents. There were many elements of the i3 concept that worked due to the car's simplicity that met lines, rubber and plastic on the production line and ended up looking, well, cheap, uninspired, and like the product of a sub-premiere auto manufacturer trying to make a car that made the statement: efficiency!

Why did BMW choose the leaf route? the prius route? Why not the Tesla route, and create gorgeous cars that screamed beauty, elegance, and power fueled by technology?

I don't mean to be another poster that's making a rant, much like those on apple forums who bemoaned the arrival of iOS7. It's not merely the look that bothers me here, not just the design, it's the philosophy behind it, and the integrity of the brand behind this philosophy (to which I have been a loyal admirer since my pre teen year).

Time will tell, and bets are I'll be proven wrong by the sales numbers of these machines. But what seems to be uninspiring performance figures, coupled, with mediocre design (gorgeous design trumped by ridiculous blue accents that are found in nearly every trim combination for the i8)... it seems like a recipe put together by a man pretending to be the chef who's cooking I've admired my entire life.

It's a shame.