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• At BMW, it’s now assumed the new M2 will be the brand's last new car with a manual gearbox.
Across the industry, the manual gearbox is on its way out; fewer and fewer new models are offered with it. And with electrification, it seems destined to disappear. At BMW, the certitude is that its days are numbered; even now, there are only a handful of M vehicles left that can be fitted with it.
Like the M2, which has just had a facelift.
However, the end is nigh. Dirk Hacker, head of M product development, confirmed as much in an interview with Top Gear. Essentially, he said that the M2 would probably be the brand's last car to offer three pedals. He added an interesting nuance, however.
“It's not just a BMW decision, it's also suppliers.” Hacker noted that interest in them is waning, and he finds it hard to see a future for the manual gearbox at BMW. Within six or seven years, roughly the life cycle of the new M2, the format will likely be gone across the lineup.
Other manufacturers are working on ways to simulate the experience of a mechanical gearbox, or simply on a manual transmission for electric models. Hacker isn't keen on the idea: “I think it could be done, but we will not do that.”
He added that dual-clutch transmissions are a thing of the past at BMW's M division, praising in passing the superior performance of supplier ZF's 8-speed torque-converter automatic transmission. His words:
“The double clutch, from BMW M's point of view these days, it's gone. It's now manual or automatic, and automatic electrified for the future . . . the automatic is better performing than the double clutch. In the M4 CSL it's faster-shifting and on the other side, we also use this automatic in the new M4 GTR race car.”
Kudos to Hacker for being transparent and clear, anyways, even if for driving enthusiasts it represents sad news.
