The Munich automaker will change the traditional designation of the gasoline versions of its models. The letter i should remain reserved for purely electric cars.
We got used to the “little” in the name of many cars. In the case of BMW, the roots of this designation go back to roughly the 70s of the last century, when instead of carburetors, mechanical, then electronically controlled injection, or injection (from which the just mentioned “i” is derived) began to gain ground.
However, BMW intends to partially get rid of this letter in the coming years. It uses it both in gasoline variants (for example, 330i, 520i and xDrive40i) and in its BMW i electric cars. The information was confirmed by Bernd Köber, vice president of the BMW brand and product management. The change will already be reflected in the upcoming generation of the X3 SUV, which should be presented in the coming months. The sports version will no longer be called the M40i, but only the M50, as we know it from dynamically tuned electric cars.
I myself have a 1979 BMW 323i parked in my garage and I also had a 318is E36 in the past, so I also have a bit of a personal relationship with this designation. On the other hand, I understand that the “trick” in the current era, when all cars have had injection for decades, actually loses its meaning in a way.
In addition, at least in Europe, BMW is widely switching to a plug-in hybrid drive with the letter e at the end, which will very likely have more and more say in the coming years. Sales of classic electric cars are not growing as dynamically as expected. The new generation of plug-ins with a significantly longer range could thus help automakers meet increasingly strict emission limits.
For diesels, whose future is apparently not as bleak as it seemed until recently, there will be no change yet. Therefore, the letter d will obviously remain with them until the end, which apparently will not be framed by the year 2035, when the sale of internal combustion engines in Europe should de facto end.
