BMW i comes before M

BMW’s flagship division is no longer M. That’s the only conclusion you could draw from the Bavarian brand’s presence at this week’s Frankfurt motor show.

The all-electric i3 city-car and hybrid i8 super-coupe dominated the car-maker’s press coverage and, on the ground, i-car displays took up much of the company’s colossal Frankfurt show pavilion.

M cars, on the other hand, were relegated to a small display at the rear corner of Hall 11. Both Rolls-Royce and MINI were allocated more room.

Yet BMW M Division head Carsten Pries poured water on motoring.com.au’s suggestion the once-spearhead in-house performance arm was now playing second fiddle to BMW’s electric car business.

At an interview at the Frankfurt show, he stated: “BMW i obviously has a different strategic focus [than M], very much targeting into the area of sustainability. [But] It’s two different operations.

“There’s no ‘fluctuation’, let’s say, from BMW M to BMW i… [There] Are no big transfers being announced… because M engineers, as you can imagine, are very loyal people,” he explained.

“It was a deliberate decision to have two strong brand pillars to support the identity of BMW from different angles -- from different perspectives,” Pries stated.

“To me, the brands, BMW M and BMW i, have different identities and at least different focuses within their identity because, more or less, obviously it’s all part of BMW.”

“I do not expect that there’s any kind of internal competition,” he politicked.

In the face of a significant number of new segment entries from arch-rivals Mercedes-Benz’s AMG operation and Audi’s quattro division, Pries defended BMW M’s line-up and track record.

“Ever since I joined, Mercedes-AMG has basically had twice the number of models, including some niche models with small volumes, but it’s not basically up to us to comment on model strategy of our competitors.

“We pursue a slightly different approach… but the M model program as such is bigger now than ever before. I mean, we’ve never had more than the two M6 derivatives, for example… And now we even have three models including the Grand Coupé... So compared with the past, a lot of new projects have been introduced, and have been received very successfully.

“We always think about additions, but they have to be sensible additions. We have a relatively small group of people -- 550 specialists -- so we always have to carefully determine what project to undertake next,” Pries stated.

The M division head says he was “absolutely excited” that BMW i was charged with building the i8 supercar, rather than his M team. He says, however, i8 is a very different type of “super sports-car” than the one his team would develop.

“Even though i8 is a sports car, it is different… It’s a new type of sports car… If we did a super sports car, the car would have other strength or focuses, for sure.”

Pries confirmed M could potentially access BMW i technology but stopped short of stating that included whole vehicle architectures – for example, the carbon-fibre centre structure of the i8.

He also talked around the subject of BMW M adding hybrid technologies to its own models.

“There’s no direct answer to that question… We do not define technologies that have to be in our cars, but we rather define characteristics.

“We define driving dynamic or performance values that an M car needs to fulfil, including certain values for acceleration, elasticity, etcetera; or even Nürburgring North Loop lap times as reference… Then once we’ve defined that for the respective segments for the respective target groups, then we look at what technology allows us to reach those overriding strategic and development targets,” he stated.

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