BMW Vision M Next WON't turn in to a production hybrid i8 M supercar

BMW Vision M Next Concept

The BMW Vision M Next concept, revealed last year, was seen as a preview of a new BMW i8 M supercar. But it looks like it won’t happen.

Last year, BMW previewed what most of us thought would be a replacement for the BMW i8 – which has now gone out of production – with the BMW Vision M Next concept, a car which blended the i8 with hints of the never resurrected M1 in to an appealing hybrid concept.

It came with a four-pot petrol engine mated to a pair of electric motors to deliver almost 600bhp, with a 3.0 second to 62mph time and a top speed of 186mph.

Almost a year on from the Vision M Next concept, rumours have been running around that BMW is committed to delivering a production version – perhaps as the BMW i8 M – to continue where the i8 left off, according to Car and Driver. Which seems a bit odd.

The BMW i8 hasn’t exactly been a runaway sales success, and the idea of delivering a low volume halo hybrid supercar – even in a few years time – with all the problems going on in the car world didn’t seem to add up.

Now, it looks like we have a dose of common sense and reality on this, with the well-connected BMW Blog saying a production version of the Vision M Next has actually been binned.

According to BMW Blog’s contacts at BMW – and the German media – the production car would be just too expensive to produce, with the final nail in its coffin hammered home by the huge costs the Covid-19 pandemic is inflicting. Which makes sense.

Sadly, it means there’s no prospect of a BMW M1 revival as a 21st century hybrid supercar.