Suddenly, after seeing the BMW Neue Klasse M Concept, I’m pretty stoked for the new M3. There’s going to be a quad-motor electric version, which is neat, but there’s also a gas-powered one in the works. And whereas the M5 is a heavy-hitting (and just plain heavy) plug-in hybrid, BMW M CEO Frank Van Meel told Piston Heads that the M3 won’t be. He explained that his crew is instead focusing on the “perfect combustion principle.”
Here’s the full quote:
“Our motorsport-derived-tech M Ignite Euro 7 S58 comes out this year [with the current-gen M3 and M4 first], so I can say that it will survive to go into our future M cars. It won’t be hybrid, as we’re sticking with the perfect combustion principle. Here [with the Neue Klasse M3] we will go to the extremes, not the in-between.”
That’s a whole lot of alphanumeric mumbo jumbo, so allow me to translate. “M Ignite” is BMW’s patented pre-chamber ignition system, designed to reduce fuel consumption at high revs. It’s meant to help the manufacturer’s twin-turbo, 3.0-liter inline-six—codenamed S58—meet Euro 7 emissions standards. BMW went through a lot of work to keep this gas-burner around, essentially designing a secondary ignition system so that it has two spark plugs per cylinder, along with higher compression and new variable turbine geometry turbos.
It’s specifically because the new S58 has been so thoroughly reworked that BMW believes it to be a fine solution for the next-gen M3. While some people consider hybrids to be the best of both worlds, others lament them as total compromises. You could make an argument for either being the case, I presume, but BMW isn’t about to make someone who wants electric or gas settle for a combination of the two.
How much power the next-gen gas M3 will make is unclear. For what it’s worth, BMW hasn’t mentioned any additional output for the M Ignite-equipped S58, saying only that it lowers fuel consumption “without any loss of power.” That could mean 473 hp and 406 lb-ft of torque, like the current base M3 makes, or up to 523 hp and 479 lb-ft of torque, numbers currently touted by the M3 Competition xDrive.
And as for the battery-powered version, well, Van Meel says it’ll be a hoot. “With the electric M3, we move to the next level of vehicle dynamics,” he explained to Piston Heads. “The technology provided to us by Neue Klasse means we can have the range, power, and torque split to create something quite extreme. We actually started development with the vehicle dynamics as our main target, so the EV won’t just be the quicker car in a straight line; it’ll be faster around a track too.”
Shoppers have a choice to make, then: A pure, gas-only driver’s car or a mind-melting EV that was developed without compromise. Either way, with looks like that, I’m not sure you can pick the wrong one.
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