BMW "i" Sub-Brand launches Monday

BMW MegaCity - Launches on Monday

BMW are to launch their MegaCity sub-brand on Monday 21st February, which will produce cars designed for urban living. Will it be BMW i-Setta?

If you want to be taken seriously as a 21st century company with cutting-edge products, you have to have an “i”.

An “i” is the key to success in an on-line world where friendship means counting your friends in the thousands, but not actually knowing any of them. A world where appending “i” to anything makes it relevant – even if it’s not.

Which explains why BMW are entering this world with their i-Project MegaCity Sub-Brand, a brand that will see a range of ‘Eco’ cars to enhance ‘City Living’ being sold under a trendy “i” brand, so as not to dilute the BMW brand identity. A range of MegaCity cars that will be predominantly electric, but will get a range extender option.

And although we think it’s probably going to be two years before any of the i-Project, MegaCity urban geek-mobiles hit the market, BMW are going to launch their sub-brand on Monday, an “i” range designed round the transport needs of Generation Y.

First “i” MegaCity car to hit the streets will be a two-door, four seater about the same size as the current A-Class. Next up – in 2015 – will be a very small, two seater ‘Urban Commuter Vehicle’, which will be joined later by a stretched version of the first MegaCity car (MCV).

So far there is no confirmation of the brand identity BMW will use for their sub-brand. We predicted back in 2009 that the MegaCity “‘i” Project would end up coming to market as i-Setta, a play on the Isetta brand that made bubble cars and spawned the BMW we know today.

But we’ve been known to be wrong.