BMW announces electric M car is coming this year

An electric BMW M car is coming this year. That’s official news coming from the mouth of Markus Flasch, chairman of the board of BMW M.

There’s no official date for a reveal yet, so BMW has 11 months and some change to work with. The latest reports suggest that the car will be an M Performance version of the upcoming i4. BMW still hasn’t released a name for this vehicle, so we’re not totally clear on what it will be called yet. The M Performance gasoline-engine version of the 4 Series is the M440i. Mi4 was a British intelligence agency, and i4 M would denote a full-M model like the X4 M or X5 M. We don\'t expect a full-M electric car yet, but BMW is surely working toward it.

Power is rumored to come from a pair of electric motors that produce over 500 combined horsepower. The M440i hits 60 mph in just 4.3 seconds with 382 horsepower, so we suspect this electric car could be more in line with the full M4 in terms of acceleration (4.1 seconds).

In addition to the electric M Performance car, Flasch has teased that 2022 will be an exciting year of M to celebrate 50 years of existence. Yes, the BMW M division was founded in 1972. Flasch says to expect “a year full of surprises.” BMW M fanatics can begin frothing at the mouth now. The BMW M boss suggested special editions aplenty will be coming, so if that kind of thing appeals to you, you might want to wait for 2022. We suspect there could be far more coming than just special-edition cars, too. 

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