It may seem half a world away, but Europe’s stringent Euro 7 emissions laws threaten enthusiast cars on our side of the pond, too, regardless of what the U.S. does. If a company like BMW is able to certify its engines for sale in its home market, it’s far likelier it will continue offering them around the globe. Thankfully, that’s exactly what the M brand has achieved, according to CEO Frank van Meel.
The chief executive of BMW’s performance arm told Autocar that its engineers have made “very interesting” tweaks to ensure that its trademark straight-six and V8 engines will persist through the new constraints. They’ll need to for a good while, as Euro 7 mandates that new engines stay compliant for 10 years or 124,000 miles. Though Van Meel didn’t precisely outline these changes, he did offer some context as to the challenges BMW and others have been facing: It all comes down to cooling.
“Normally, if you are in high-performance situations, you cool using the fuel,” Van Meel told the publication. “With EU7, that’s impossible, so you need to find different ways of avoiding temperature buildup. The combustion process has to be improved in regards to heat build-up and also the cooling, and those are the challenges. Of course you can [reduce] performance to avoid this temperature increase, but you don’t want to—that’s where we started.”
As Van Meel sees it, these engines are core to BMW’s high-performance internal-combustion offerings. “The six-cylinder inline engine is our legacy, and the V8 has got a long history in racing, so we intend to keep going,” he said. In other words, don’t count on BMW lopping off cylinders to meet regulations, as its local rival infamously did. “I couldn’t imagine putting a four-cylinder in an M5,” Van Meel said.
Naturally, electrification has assuredly helped the automaker cover some of the difference, and we’ve already seen that play out in the new, 5,500-pound M5. But it’s comforting to know that as BMW introduces its first fully battery-powered M car with the “Heart of Joy” ECU, traditional performance isn’t going anywhere.
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Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.
