BMW M’s boss believes the manual transmission will be gone in 10 years

BMW M Chief Operating Officer, Frank van Meel, thinks manual transmission for BMW M cars will be gone entirely in the next decade. As reported by CarSales Australia, despite roughly 40 percent of M customers choosing the manual gearbox option back in 2025, the BMW M CEO isn’t convinced to continue the manual transmission. BMW M Chief Operating Officer, Frank van Meel, says the manual transmissions “don’t really make sense” from an engineering standpoint.

The current six-speed manual transmission limits power output to 550 Nm of torque for the BMW M2 versus the 599 Nm of torque for the 8-speed automatic transmission variant. Take the example of the more track-focused BMW M2 CS, using a six-speed manual transmission became redundant as performance figures could not match up, even with the ‘normal’ 8-speed automatic BMW M2. Hence, the latest BMW M2 CS is currently offered only with the 8-speed automatic transmission, producing 523 PS and 650 Nm of torque. In the next decade, the same logic could be applied to all BMW M cars.

Frank van Meel said, “From an engineering standpoint, the manual doesn’t really make sense because it limits you in torque output. But from an emotional standpoint and a customer standpoint, a lot of people still love manuals, so that’s why we kept them, and we intend to keep them as long as possible.”

“It’s going to be quite difficult in the future to develop completely new gearboxes because the segment in the market is quite small, and the suppliers are not so keen on doing something like that. So, we’re still happy with the manuals we have, and we plan to keep them for the next couple of years, but in the future, probably it’s going to be more difficult to keep the manuals alive, especially in the next decade.”