The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N electric car has received several interesting features that add to the overall driving experience. Among them is the ability to switch gears with a synthetic eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. BMW appreciated how this pleased car owners and decided to implement gear shift emulation and fake engine sounds in their own BMW M electric car.
“I like how they think - so do we,” said BMW M executive director Frank van Meel. “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 tachometer. If you're racing, if you find time to look at your display, two cars will pass you. So what you want is a way to know what gear you're in, a way to 'feel' the revs.”
“In a pure electric car with a single gear, no sound and no emotions, you don't know if you're going 125, 150 or whatever,” van Meel added. “For this, you need a solution. You have to establish a connection with the driver's brain, without making you look at the speedometer. So I think what [Hyundai] did with gear emulation and sound - something we're already working on - is the right direction. We need something similar in our high-performance cars.”
The head of BMW M said that the company has been working on gear shift simulation for electric cars “for several years” and has “very interesting approaches to this [issue].”
The first high-performance BMW M electric car will be a sedan based on the company's Neue Klasse platform. It is expected that this model will be released in 2026 or 2027, and currently they are testing it with four engines that can deliver over 1341 hp, which is an extraordinary figure for a sedan. Add fake sounds and gear shift imitation, and this could be a hypercar killer, driver-oriented.
By the way, the new Bugatti Tourbillon hypercar has a hybrid powertrain with a total power of 1800 hp.
Source: carscoops
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