Arms race will kill the manual

BMW M cars might soon be offered with autos only if its cars continue to get more powerful, warns the German car-maker’s M boss, Frank van Meel.

Currently, manual gearboxes are only offered on the M3, and forthcoming M2, but in the future, due to more powerful engines, even junior M models will only be offered with dual-clutch transmissions because of the challenges powerful engines place on the driver.

Speaking to British mag Autocar, Van Meel said: “From a technical standpoint, the future doesn’t look bright for manual gearboxes. The DCT and auto ’boxes are faster and they have better fuel consumption.

"It’s difficult to say we’ll stick to the manual, but we still have a big fan community for manuals and we are not going to take away something the customer wants to have.”

Van Meel also warned that BMW M engineers, internally, had set a power cap for all its engines of around 450kW. Any more horsepower or torque is too much for its current range of dual clutch and automatic transmissions.

With a strict power cap in place expect to see more of the lightweight composites developed on BMW i cars like the i3 and i8 supercar to filter down to the next generation M models.