“Excuse me, Miss. Excuse me!”
The New York City police officer down on Ludlow Street was tapping my window with the insistence of the law.
“Oh boy,” I thought. “Here we go again.” I had been idling for way too long, talking on the phone in what definitely could not be considered a parking spot—could not even really be considered a loading spot, if I were honest.
I reluctantly rolled down the window.
“Yes, officer?” I asked.
“This is THE BEST looking car I have EVER seen,” he told me, smiling. “The best. Wow.”
I should have known. There had been the couple in a Tesla who smugly pointed out to me that their car is “completely electric” but mine “looked better.” There was the thirtysomething who stared at it longingly as he took 15 minutes to load his wife and toddler into an Audi station wagon at a nearby parking garage. And the dozen or so gawkers who hung their heads like dogs out the windows of taxis and trucks and town cars as they snapped cellphone photos.
This is how it feels to drive a BMW i8.
Dispatches From The Front 