BMW Would Rather Phase Out Its Manuals Than Borrow a U.S. Gearbox

To industry watchers, the manual transmission’s future seems as rosy as that of the Steve Miller Band, circa 1983.

Automakers on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific have pried the stick shift out of an ever-increasing number of vehicles, and some manufacturers have chosen to drop the technology altogether. With market share reaching never-before-seen lows, the three-pedal lifestyle seems headed towards an unavoidable (and imminent) grave.

Blame technology. Blame laziness. Blame yourself.

Over in Munich, the sentiment seems quite similar. BMW has long occupied the ranks of true driver’s cars, but its leaders make no bones about the brand’s eventual abandonment of the row-your-own transmission, even in relatively stick-happy Europe. Lately, even dual-clutch transmissions appear to be in Bimmer’s bad books. And as for an American solution to its manual transmission problem, well, forget that.

Speaking to Australia’s Drive, Peter Quintus, vice-president of sales and marketing for BMW’s M division, envisions a looming world of automatic transmissions. The advent of new technology has made conventional torque converter autos so efficient and quick, he claims, the industry won’t need anything else. BMW will likely follow.

“The DCT once had two advantages: it was light and its shift speeds were higher,” he said. “Now, a lot of that shift-time advantage has disappeared as automatics get better and smarter.”

Quintus has previously stated that the manual transmission probably will probably disappear from the brand in six or seven years. While the option once used to offer the most cogs, nine-and ten-speed automatics have proliferated, erasing the efficiency edge. There’s undeniable sportiness in a stick, but rising horsepower and torque figures have rendered many high-output drivetrains a no-go zone for manuals.

An output of 450 hp and 450 lb-ft is about the limit of what a manual tranny can handle without impacting long-term durability, Quintus said. That’s bad news for M aficionados. When asked why BMW doesn’t simply source a stick from its brawny Detroit competitors, Quintus was blunt.

“We looked at US gearboxes. We found they were heavy and the shift quality was awful,” he said. “I’m not even sure the next generation of M3 and M4 models from BMW will have the option of a manual gearbox.”

Last month, we told you that fewer than 1 percent of non-M 3 Series BMWs in U.S. inventories are manual-shift cars, with the take rate rising to 2 percent when M-badged models are included. Purists will scream, holler, pound their fists and drink themselves into a foggy oblivion, but the epitaph has already been written by the consumer.

[Image: BMW Group]