BMW's ActiveHybrid 5 will make its public debut at the Tokyo motor show on November 30 - and we are assured that it will be released in South Africa in the second quarter of 2012.
As we detailed in our technical breakdown of the Blue Propeller Brand's elegant 'mild hybrid' in September, the dual-power Five boasts the marque's classic 225kW/400Nm turbocharged straight six and a silky-smooth, eight-speed Steptronic transmission, with a 40kW/210Nm elelctric motor sandwiched between them.
However, you can't just add the numbers together because the combustion engine produces all its voomah at high revs and the electric motor does better at low revs - in fact, any brushless electric motor produces its maximum torque at zero revs, just before it starts moving.
Nevertherless, BMW quotes a combined output of 250kW and 450Nm, good enough for 0-100 in less than six seconds, while averaging a frugal 6.4 litres per 100km.
We at IOL Motoring are looking forward to driving it in South Africa's (very) real-world conditions and finding out whether at last somebody has built a hybrid with real cojones.