Report: BMW’s M boss says manuals are dying and horsepower is at its peak for current and future cars
AutoCar recently had a sit-down with BMW M’s chief, Frank van Meel.
And in that sit-down, van Meel expressed his outlook on the future of manual transmissions, which he says are on their way to being phased out since dual-clutch and automatic transmission technology are making them obsolete.
This outlook has been floating around the BMW M pool for quite some time, with BMW touting such technology like their SMG gearbox and dual-clutch automatics.
van Meel did provide some insight, suggesting it won’t be retired any time soon, but the future of the manual overall just looks bleak.
On the other side of things, van Meel also said that their cars’ current outputs are at their maximum capabilities, of around 600 metric horsepower, meaning the next-gen M5 is most likely going to feature no more than 600PS.
Source: AutoCar