Interview with Frank van Meel – BMW M Part II – (Part I here. Part III here. Part IV here)
For those that don’t know. Franciscus van Meel, the current CEO of BMW M GmbH, has led the German automotive company to remarkable success, recently celebrating their 13th consecutive year of record-breaking sales with 206,582 vehicles sold worldwide. Under his leadership, the company has seen impressive growth across various models, including a 64% increase in BMW M2 sales and strong performance from their electric vehicles like the BMW i4 M50 and the electrified BMW XM.
Van Meel brings extensive automotive expertise to his role, with over a decade at BMW M and previous experience at both Rolls-Royce and Audi AG, where he held significant positions including Head of Strategy Electromobility. His strong technical background is supported by his Engineering degree (Dipl.-Ing. in Fahrzeugtechnik) from the Technische Universität Berlin, making him well-equipped to lead BMW M’s transition into the electric vehicle era.
This time we asked what he thought was more important, when it came to electrification versus ICE. The outright ultimate performance you can get from electric drivetrain or the noise, feel and nature of a petrol?
“For the M brand it’s all about passion, it’s all about emotion, and it’s about motorsports,” begins van Meel. “And we always say it’s independent from the drivetrain. And actually if you look at the sound of engines, we were never the loudest ones”.
He added that sound not only has an emotional factor, it’s also very important to know actually how fast you are and that is something with electric cars. He questions that if you drive in one gear from 0 to 250 km per hour, how do you know how quick you are without having to look down to your speedometer? ‘And if you do that in racing, 2 cars will pass you by’.
“It’s a matter of feedback, driver, car and road, so that you know where you exactly are and how quick you are. But to come back to the original question, the cars themselves are going to make it really difficult for customers to choose.”
He says he always likes to compare it to manuals. From an engineering standpoint, you can always say an automated drivetrain is quicker and uses less fuel than the manual gear shift, but actually there is a big community for manuals.
“So we kept the manual, at least they’re still available in the M2 and M3 and M4 vehicles, and in the US we have more than every second customer that still takes a manual in an M2. So we do listen to our customers”.
However he add, on the other hand they do not avoid going into new technologies where they think it’s going to be quicker, and it’s going to be new or the next level of driving experience.
“So in the future, we’re really looking forward to bringing that Internal competition within M to the market. An electric car probably will be quick or surely quicker, and also in regards to vehicle dynamics can do things that you cannot do with a combustion engine, whereas the combustion and driven cars still have that feeling from them. So maybe in the future, you might have to buy 2 cars!”
So will the combustion engine continue?
“We will control the combustion engine, actually, with the V8 and inline-6 engine, we think we’re top-notch with those engines, so we don’t want to just give them up. We are currently working on the new EU. 7 legislation to make them capable, also to survive the next round of emission standards”.
So does that mean it’s about keeping the existing engines compliant rather than developing new ones? We wondered.
“The difference between those 2 answers is not so big,” he replied. “because if you make them comply with new legislation, you are going to change a lot of things in the engines. So are they completely new, I wouldn’t say so because you can keep the housing and bearings and so on, but in regards to ignition, and so on, there are things you have to adapt or even make new.”
How long does he think manual transmissions or diesels will last in M?
“The diesels already have gone out, but to the other drivetrains, and also the rear wheel drive, we are planning to keep them for quite a long while with M. As for rear wheel drive. The 2 wheels in the rear are fixed, because that is the basis for every M car – but it depends on the market demands.”
Are you still investigating Alternative fuels for M cars, and keeping the combustion engine?
“Yes, of course, we’re always looking at alternative fuels or e-fuels, especially since we use them in racing as well. And our 6 cylinder in-line engine, the S58 is used in our race cars in GT, 4 and GT 3. All of these races were actually using sustainable fuel”.
He adds that it’s more about the compatibility with the materials you use in the injection system, ‘for us, it’s just a question of time’.
So will BMW ‘M’ be still focused fairly heavily on combustion?
“We’re focusing on old drivetrains with the same intensity as EV. For us, we do see a lot of potential in electrification, if it’s done right. But it has to be in combination with the right electronic architecture. We need one central control logic for everything, for the 4 electric motors, with regards to stability and acceleration, but also it will be added to dynamic control”.
Van Meel says that he’s not too sure if it’s purely mechanical so for them, the split (EV/ICE) is a big opportunity, especially since they have the chance to come at it from a white sheet of paper – with a new car architecture, with a new electronic architecture, and a new software controlled architecture – ‘and only if you have all of those, you can make a real convincing performance electric car’ he believes.
“But at the same time since we are very successful in the combustion area, it’s good to offer an alternative that is even quicker and say, ‘the choice is up to you’. Or if you cannot decide you probably might have to buy both”.
“On the other hand you should not avoid going forward. I think you should always try and innovate, but you should know what you’re doing and you should not bet on one car because there is no silver bullet technology”.
Part III here
