BMW Dune Taxi looks like it’s ready to race in Extreme E

We know its name but not its objective. BMW Center East uploaded a five-minute movie filmed all around Liwa, Abu Dhabi, showcasing a battery-electrical rig referred to as the “Dune Taxi.” The tagline is “When xDrive fulfills BMW M,” an odd perform when xDrive first hooked up with M on the X5 M and X6 M crossovers 13 yrs ago, cementing their dalliance on the sedan facet in 2017 with the xDrive-only M5. The Dune Taxi receives a good deal of AWD costars from M department, though, which include the X6 M Competition, an iX M60 generating some weirdly ICE-flavored noises, and the Notion XM, none of which points out what we are meant to expect from all of this.

Top rated Gear discussed that desert’s Vacant Quarter exactly where shooting requires position just isn’t significantly from the commence of future year’s Dakar Rally. Nevertheless, the Dune Taxi appears to be just like the Odyssey 21 spec electric buggy applied in Serious E, but with a BMW grille and a couple of vents on the rear fenders. Both of those Audi and BMW have been fixtures in the Components E one-seater sequence until very last yr. Audi remaining to contend in the Dakar Rally with its collection-hybrid RS Q E-Tron in early 2022, not long ago up-to-date to the RS Q E-Tron S2. Centered on the Dune Taxi’s form, what seems to be the deficiency of a spare wheel, and the word “Cosowrth” in the heart stack, we suspect BMW is headed to the other international electric off-street racing occasion. In truth, the Cosworth connection seems to deliver the evidence of Extreme E involvement. The engineering and motorsports organization states in a write-up on its Facebook web site that the Odyssey 21 is “outfitted with our electronics remedies from control to show.” A photo of that display screen on Fb matches a transient glimpse of the show in the Dune Taxi.

Other supporting proof will come in electrical power scores of 536 horsepower and 738 pound-toes of torque, a tad much less than the Odyssey 21’s official 550 hp but a skosh far more than its 679 lb-ft. The Dune Taxi entire body is built from the exact normal fiber-bolstered polymer (NFRP) with cutouts for gullwing doorways and a trim roof scoop. The suspension can run as a result of 15.7 inches of wheel vacation, a 50 percent-inch much more than uncovered on the Odyssey 21. And the Tal Moreeb sand dune that the Dune Taxi climbs for its rallying finale ascends at an incline of 130%, the similar skyward angle the Extraordinary E collection suggests the Odyssey 21 is designed to max out on. 

Not forgetting the other stars in the vid, Lebanese rally ace Abdo Feghali is at the wheel of the Dune Taxi, his fellow Crimson Bull Driftbrothers are co-conspirators in the other BMW motor vehicles, and American actress Madelyn Cline performs navigator, apparently aiming to get the wildest taxi ride from a bus end to the magic formula garage where by an XM is kept.    

Back again to racing, there are two races still left in this year’s Excessive E Collection, the Copper X-Prix in Antofagasta, Chile on September 24 and 25 and the Electricity X-Prix in Punta del Este, Uruguay November 26 and 27. It can be achievable we’ll see the Dune Taxi make a cameo in South The us then, or it could get a point out during the debut of the XM SUV on September 27.