## 28 And now, "La Beheme" !
*(pronounced "La Bay Hem", a joke between a french song of Charles Aznavour and the nickname of the BMW cars).*
I also had to rent another car, because nothing is simple with this cat. But during the holidays, the choice is very tiny and I had only one choice : A BMW 116i, a compact luxury sedan from the german brand. A 120 HP petrol car with the same room than the Citroen C4 of last week. Just 10 cm shorter in height, a 7 speed automatic transmission and supposed to have a 6l/100 km consumption. Ha ha... Same trunk size, same place in the inside with much better quality and a GPS. And all that costs 35000€ , 7000€ more than the awful C4. But that was the entry level also for BMW, with a strange ergonomic on two screens and 3 drive modes : Sport, Comfort and Eco. I did a half in comfort and the other half in Eco. The tiny 1,5l Turbo modular 3-cylinder engine does the job with the 1450kg of the car.
This time, I'm not in the past but just in this present of the cars transformed in smartphones or computers. I didn't have time to explore all that mess between physical buttons and touch screen. I was concentrated to drive this car around Paris in a quite crowded week day. It's quite smooth, except for the Start and Stop, as bad as the Citroen's one, compared to my old hybrid car. It's vibrating a lot during the restart. But no wind noises, no whistling, much torque to cruise silently. The driver before me did approximately 10l/100km ! Only in city ? Or he (that's certainly a man...) wanted to test if it's a real BMW engine. Sorry, but that F70 type is not a propulsion car and has no inline 6 cylinder engine. It's more "normal" and could be a Renault, Mercedes, Audi, VW or Peugeot. I did much better with or without eco-mode with only 7,1 l/100km (33 mpg). That's very good for this gen4 1-Series but very bad for a compact car, today. I could have done that 20 years ago with the same eco-driving mode with a n
on-apsirated engine for the same weight/power ratio.
The seats are more firm than mine or the Citroen but suspensions are good. The steering wheel is without leather and that's very good for me. The automatic 7 speed Steptronic is a modern gearbox but I don't like the engine surges and revs. When some people are criticizing the Prius pseudo CVT gearbox, they are acting in bad faith because I had a much more bad feeling with this one, especially in Eco-mode. The engine seems to sleep a lot compared to my real hybrid powertrain. For what I did, the car is quite fun to drive, despite it's not like an ancient BMW. But I'm not in the customer target either. This car is perhaps modern inside but it's an old technology, only adapted of the last pollution standards. In 10 years, maybe less, this type of cars will be in the past. But I like the hatchback body, and had also a good feeling with the steering wheel, with the big 225/55 R17 wheels. Too big for such a "small engine".
The fuel consumption is pretty good for that power of 90KW and that weight. This car is far too heavy to be interesting and coherent with the climate change. This time, I thing that there's a lot of weight in soundproofing. That's where the Electric Vehicles have some advantages because you have "only" to avoid the little whistle of the rotor of the electric engine, the wind noise and the road noise. Our cities are so noisy with all the cars today... and scooter, motorbikes. A revolution is underway. For many people, the noise of the engine is a pleasure but we have forgotten how it was criticized in the days of horse-drawn carriages, just a little more than one century ago. The technology is going faster and faster and this car, the 1-Serie from BMW is in her fourth generation, only 20 years and they changed the propulsion, the gearbox, the engine (hybrid available)...and the next one will be certainly with EV. The 1st generation was at 1250 kg when a Renault Megane was at 1200kg. But with less power, the R
enault 19 of 1996 was at less than 1000kg. 30 years and 45% more weight! They are all guilty but some luxury brand more than the others (Renault Megane of 2021 was at 1250kg). 90HP were largely enough before when now it's more than 120HP and often 140HP for a "compact" EV car (often a f....g SUV)!
I have seen recently that BMW is very happy with EV cars, compared to many other brands. If the first i3 was not a strong success (despite good engineering...), their cars have good consumption results for their size. The only problem for me is always the same : too heavy (without battery weight). A compact car of 1,45T, a sedan of 1,6T is an anachronism for me. For example, there was those buttons between the two front seats with nothing useull compared to the touch screen. A lot of electronics and plastic, less room for people. The design of the dashboard is also too complex, the exact contrary of the first i3. And I looked recently at the Honda E: advance, another failure in EV cars with a beautiful interior full of screens, even for rear-view mirrors. Too much screens kill the screen and if you have driven a Tesla, you know that's the full-screen interface is not a good choice.
To be continued?
2Dɛ
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