When it comes to BMW M, Frank van Meel is the ‘THE GUY’. We managed to get an interview with him and discuss all things M – this is part III (Part 1 here, Part II here. Part IV here)
Let’s open with a corker – what is his reaction to those that say the new M5 is too heavy?
“These remarks are probably from people that haven’t driven it”, came van Meel’s immediate response, “so I say – drive the car.” And he’s not wrong.
However, he continues. “But actually it was probably our own doing, because we launched the car with no driving event, and we also communicated the numbers, (including the weight). When we look at our competitors right now that are working on plug in hybrids, they never communicate the numbers about weight because everyone learned from that experience – you have to drive the car first and then look at the numbers.”
He says that they were confident about what they were doing, and they already knew how well it drove, so they were surprised by the weight discussions. “So my reaction if someone says about the weight I ask, have you already driven the car?”
van Meel says that there are also sufficient EV-only gains with a plug-in hybrid, up to almost 70 km in the wltp, and they wanted to keep the V8 engine, so they looked at the suspension setup, the centre of gravity, the fuel consumption, ‘we looked at a lot of things to make the car competitive again, or to make it even a winning car’.
“We broadened the track so that’s why this is the first M5 with a wide body, because not only does it look good, but we needed the wider track to get more grip on the front axle. For the first time, we added a rear active steering to get the agility in the car at lower speeds, but also the stability at very high speeds because we can go over 300 km per hour and of course, also there’s x-Drive combination with the active control dampers.
“We put the batteries, not in the trunk, but we put them under the floor so that it has a very low centre of gravity, and the suspension, you need to make it really quick so you don’t actually feel the weight because the rolling behavior is very low.”
van Meel says that the M5 PHEV took 5 years to develop and we wondered what else did he learn that we’re going to see in other M cars?
“What we learned is what you can do if you have an electric drivetrain in the car. Because even though it’s just a plug-in hybrid, we do have almost 200 horsepower and 450 Nm coming out of that electric motor so for us, it’s really good to control the old drivetrain in combination with a V8.”
“And it also helped that we have the same combination in our race cars. Because with the combination of electrics and combustion you can have perfect engine control. The electric motor has almost no time delay in controlling so it can be much more precise. And it also helps to have a combustion engine, in very dynamic situations – so there are a lot of things we learned and in regards to drivetrain.”
But his learning didn’t stop there, van Meel adds that they learnt a lot about coping with a lot of weight because for them, the M5 was also the first time that they made a better PHEV model Sedan. “Of course, we knew about it in the X5M and X6M and XM vehicles, how to handle that [the weight], but also we learned a lot about the centre of gravity control, and what you can do to make a car quicker even though it gets heavier.”
On that matter of quicker, the new PHEV M5 is marginally slower than the previous model?
“That’s right,” sighs van Meel a little. “That’s the only number where it is slower. But actually that’s the other funny thing. 0 to 200 is quicker and also in the long slalom it is much quicker, but actually everyone still refers to the 10th of a second that it’s slower 0 to 100. But actually, if you do accelerate, you have the feeling it’s quicker because of the instantaneous response from the electric motor.”
Oh yes you do!!
Part IV here
