The secret to making electric cars fun is to make them flawed.
When the BMW M3 goes electric, it looks like the brand will take a page out of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N playbook by giving it a simulated transmission. Why? For fun and engagement, that's why.
Electric vehicles are great; they go from zero to holy heck in no time, they have zero emissions, and the technology is growing at an exponential rate. But while the tech is rapidly advancing, they're often criticized for being too boring, not engaging enough, and difficult to judge speed by since there are no gears and no noise. BMW M boss Frank van Meel previously admitted as much in an interview with CarBuzz.
Now, in an interview with Australia's Which Car, van Meel has admitted “I like the way they think,” referring to Hyundai and the Ioniq 5 N's simulated DCT. While he's not certain eight ratios are really needed in an EV, he does agree that “it's one solution because what's really clear is that if you drive on the track, and we always come from racing with M, there's no time to look at the speedometer to see how fast you are going,” reaffirming what he previously told us.
Van Meel states that the need to bring out a full-on electric M-car will have to give drivers the same experience as any car worthy of the badge. He previously told us, “We're working on that with the simple goal of being better than the current model and being a typical M3.”
We've already uncovered tech that shows how the brand will do that, like tailoring the powertrain to simulate combustion engines, but a faux transmission could help an e-M3 become even better.
He told Which Car, “You know the gear you're in and you hear and feel the engine, and from the corner of your eye you can see the shifting lights if you're approaching maximum revs. So actually, you always know I'm 'in third gear.' There’s no need to look down into the speedometer.”
He admits that in an EV with a single-speed setup, you never know where in the powerband you are to correlate your speed. “And we need a solution for that. And one of the solutions might be to simulate gears or to have another acoustic feedback or even vibrations as feedback. And those are things we're looking into.”
Van Meel has made it no secret the brand wants the next M3 to be electric, but it's not a certainty. If the technology will not deliver something that lives up to the M badge, there is a chance the next M3 and M4 might be hybrid instead.
It's great to see BMW thinking out of the box, and with a four-motor prototype capable of developing more than 1,300 horsepower as the testbed for an electric M car, there's hope it might actually be an engaging EV we've yet to see the likes of. We'll find out more in the coming years, as it's expected to arrive in 2027.
Keyword: Electric BMW M3 Will Borrow Tech From Hyundai Ioniq 5 N