BMW's vice-president of sales and marketing for the M division, Peter Quintus believes that manual and dual-clutch transmissions will be going the way of the dodo bird performance vehicles.
According to Drive, Qunitus has been banging the drum on the demise of manual transmissions for a bit. The reason isn't due to emissions but comes down them not being able to handle engines with loads of torque - saying 600Nm of torque (about 442 lb-ft). When asked about using a manual transmission from the U.S. that is able to handle all of this torque, Qunitus said the company found them to be "heavy and the shift quality was awful."
The admission of Dual-clutch transmissions not long for this world is bit surprising as more manufacturers are beginning to install them into their performance vehicles as they would deliver fast shifts. That is changing with automatics as new technologies help them shift as fast as DCTs.
"We are now seeing automatic transmissions with nine and even 10 speeds, so there's a lot of technology in modern automatics," said Quintus.
"The DCT once had two advantages: it was light and its shift speeds were higher. Now, a lot of that shift-time advantage has disappeared as automatics get better and smarter."
Source: Drive
Recommended Comments
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.