The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N electric car has several interesting features that add to the overall driving experience. Among them is the ability to shift gears with a synthetic eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. BMW appreciated how much car owners liked this and decided to introduce gearshift emulation and fake gear sounds for their electric vehicles in their own BMW M electric vehicle.
«I like the way they think – that’s how we think,» said BMW M CEO Frank van Miele. «You have to have feedback [in the car]. When you’re on the track, you don’t have time to look at the speedometer or the tachometer. If you’re in a race, if you take the time to look at your display, two cars will be ahead of you. So, what you want to have is a way to know what gear you’re in, a way to «feel» rpm».
«In a pure electric car with one gear, with no sound and no emotion, you don’t know if you’re going 125, 150 or whatever,” van Mil added. «For this, you need a solution. You have to find a way to connect with the driver’s brain without forcing you to look at the speedometer. So I think what [Hyundai] has done with the gear emulation and the sound – which we’re actually already working on – is the right direction to go. We need something like that in our high-speed cars».
The head of BMW M said that the company has been working on simulating gear shifting for electric vehicles for several years now, and it has some very interesting approaches to this [problem].
BMW M’s first high-performance electric vehicle will be a sedan based on the company’s Neue Klasse platform. This model is expected to be released in 2026 or 2027, and is currently being tested with four engines that can deliver more than 1341 hp, which is an extraordinary figure for a sedan. Add fake sounds and simulated gearshifts and this could be a driver-centric hypercar killer.
By the way, the new Bugatti Tourbillon hypercar has a hybrid power plant with a total capacity of 1800 hp.
Source: carscoops
Spelling error report
The following text will be sent to our editors: