“We see this clearly from consumers. Some come to me and say ‘no, the M guys don’t want this’. I say no, be careful, because we do a lot of customer studies here. M customers want, simply, the best and highest performance you can get.
“And the moment you get into a car that is one megawatt in performance and you can control every individual wheel, I can guarantee you there might be something wrong with the engine sound if they still miss this, but not in how the car behaves. It’s incredible.”
Weber’s sentiments echo those of BMW M boss Frank van Meel, who told Autocar last year that, when revealing any electric performance car, he wants customers to say: “This is crazy, I didn’t see that coming.”
“The story of the M3 is everlasting,” said van Meel. “Every time we change the story of the engine, from four-cylinder to six-cylinder to eight-cylinder to six-cylinder and a turbocharger, the story continues.
“Maybe it will go electric – but if it does, it will always be an M3. Whatever the powertrain, you should always be able to drive our cars and know they are M cars. We have stood the test of time for 50 years and will continue to do so.”
His comments suggest BMW bosses are not concerned about the appeal of its high-performance products waning as they go electric, Neither, it seems, are its customers. “We’ve just been talking to customers and the feedback is that 90-95% don’t care what direction we take on powertrain. They just want an M car. Yes, some say that if we don’t do V8s, they’re out but that’s okay: I respect that,” said van Meel.