BMW's First Formula E Race Car Makes World Debut

BMW's first Formula E race car made its world debut in a testing session at the BMW and MINI Driving Academy site in Maisach, near Munich. BMW works driver Tom Blomqvist of Great Britain was behind the wheel of the first fully-electric racing car in the history of the BMW Group. The iFE.18 as it's called, will officially take it to the track at the Formula E test in Calafat, Spain which will be held between April 17 to April 19, 2018.

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BMW Motorsport Director, Jens Marquardt said, "The BMW iFE.18 is a milestone for our company. After months of excellent collaboration between the engineers from production and racing development, we can all now see the result in action. This Formula E project has seen the most remarkable technology transfer between production and motorsport in the history of BMW. Everyone involved has breathed life into the 'TechLab for BMW i' motto from the word go. I can hardly wait to see the car racing for the first time in the BMW i Motorsport colors when Season 5 gets going."

(The new BMW drivetrain is the heart of the BMW iFE.18)

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The new BMW drivetrain is the heart of the BMW iFE.18. The future common chassis for Formula E was first presented in early March at the International Motor Show in Geneva and we'd already told you all about it. Some impressive comparison figures provide the most compelling evidence of the performance increases that the new system generates for Formula E, compared to the production engine in the BMW i3. The race machine is 50 percent lighter, 66 percent more compact and produces 100 percent more performance. It even reaches revs 400 percent higher than its production counterpart. We'll know how well it performs when the car gets on the track with the rest of its contenders.