In October 2015 BMW CEO Harald Krueger confirmed for German magazine Die Zeit that BMW is working on a new electric car which will sit above the i3. Rumors around a future BMW i5 – Krueger has not confirmed the name – have been going around for a while now, but BMW has always refrained from officially acknowledging those plans.
“The new BMW i model will be larger than the BMW i3, that’s all I will say for now,” Krueger said. “We want to expand our e-mobility offering to accelerate the transition towards electric vehicles. Today, many buyers still decide against buying an electric car; demand is still low overall.”
http://www.bmwblog.com/2015/10/28/bmw-i5-crossover-rendered/ has some renderings
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/11/09/bmw-i5-concept-images-leaked-we-think/ has some different renderings.
The latter is reported as having a rear drive electric motor and a front drive two-cylinder turbocharged engine - all the components of an i3 (plus added turbocharger) but perhaps with the 2019 Samsung SDI battery pack (250Whrs/kg rather than 95Whrs/kg as in the current i3) giving 50kWHrs or 165-190 miles range and the turbo-petrol 2-cylinder developing maybe 40kW/60HP as a range-extender. Should be a very interesting car!
