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Originally Posted by EnI
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Originally Posted by aajami
This is me reading WAY too much into these paragraphs, but they scare me for the following reasons:
While they make great cars, Audi chassis aren't known to be as nimble as BMW's. Would hate to see sacrifices be made to handling in order to accommodate AWD cars.
I don't know what kind of arguments were happening over the direction of the new R8. But I do know that it's shedding weight and staying naturally-aspirated (at least the V10 model is). If Ulrich was the one pushing for that direction, then you assume Van Meel was pushing for something other than lightening the weight and keeping the engine NA, which is bad news.
Anyway, I guess time will tell. Given how far car product pipelines run, we likely won't see his influence for a number of years.
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Mind the CEOs are executive officers = business managers, not technical / R&D directors.
CEO is there to EXECUTE business & product strategy decided by BMW AG Board of Directors, a strategy which had been greenlighted by BMW AG Supervisory Board.
So, a CEO coming form a rival company does not mean products of M GmbH will change (=become more Audi-like) because of that.
Van Meel is a great CEO, and BMW AG are very proud & happy to steal him from Audi (before anyone else could do it). Van Meel will definitely lead M GmbH as well as Nitschke have.
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Regarding R8 ... Van Meel was very much in favor of e-tron version of R8, while the Audi's R&D boss & a majority of Director's Board were against it (at that time). There would be a significant differences in car architecture - depending on drivetrain being primarily ICE or (PH)EV - that's why that decision was so important.
So, therefore the new R8 is architecturally still an ICE car, and not a(n) (PH)EV - like eg. the BMW i8.
A possible e-tron version of R8 will be just a car with ICE architecture - featuring electric drivetrain ... and not being a car with EV-specific architecture.
That was the main reason van Meel left Quattro GmbH.
Also ... with BMW i program (and especially i8) now alive & kicking some of the know-how & tech can be trickled down to M cars as well. And having van Meel on board (prior to Quattro GmbH CEO he was a head of Audi's electro mobility program), a man with similar & compatible views (he is a true advocate of electro mobility), will make this strategy come to live even more effective.
So ... I would say BMW AG plans with M cars are to give M cars some "BMW i magic dust" ... Or, to give some i car a bit more of an M character.  And therefore they wanted a CEO who totally supports electro mobility solutions. |
Exactly, I'd eat my hat if one man coming from Audi could suddenly turn all M cars into understeering unbalanced tanks. It won't happen.
As for the supercar comments, Scott has already confirmed a few days ago this is in development, having someone on board who was passionate about adding electric to their top of the range car cannot be a bad thing... The P1, LaFerrari and 918 are all hybrid monsters, and as for needing AWD for power the more sensibly priced McLaren 650S manages its 650PS through the back wheels superbly for all the reviews I've read.