BMW's New Slushbox: Eight is Enough
Rumors of BMW's Lexus-rivaling eight-speed automatic transmission surfaced over a year ago. Since then, the electronic grapevines have been quiet, leading some to suspect the octo-cog-swapper was merely vaporware. But rest assured, it's the real deal; it's in testing now. The blokes over at AutoExpress [UK] snagged some serious seat time in BMW's upcoming X6. The German automaker's crossover coupe thingamajig does, in fact, feature an eight gear slushbox. It's not totally clear why BMW is developing both this eight-speed auto AND a 7-speed dual clutch gearbox (soon to be slotted into the new M3), especially when the DSG transmission has "wave of the future" written all over it. Still, we'll never complain about more choice in transmissions. Or gears. But it's strange to think of downshifting into seventh.
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jkross22: we're up to 27 speeds on mountain bikes and 30 on touring bikes. i like lots of gears because my legs have a narrow power band. i can't see modern cars needing a whole bunch of gears with the engines we've got today. V8s and 4-speeds would be fine. if you have a 6 liter V8, you can get a pretty flat 350ish ftlb torque plateau. if you made 2 liter V8s, would you get a 120ish ftlb *flat* torque curve? are small engines always peaky, or is that just a function of 4-cyl engines?
Why? What happened to CVT's?
Justin, The only BMWs owned are out of warranty. All those still under warranty are of the long-term rent variety.