BMW is Bayerische Motoren Werke. That translates into Bavarian Motor Works. I can't think of another car company with the word "motor" in its name that deserves to have it other than Honda Motor Company. General Motors? What "motor" does the General think is worthy of their name? They still market lots of pushrod engines which is ancient technology. Ford Motor Company? They are a little more modern than the General, but not much.
Honda has taken the approach that says they make all kinds of different modern "motors", from lawn mowers and generators to cars. They're looking into starting a division that does aircraft engines. So they take the broad brush approach of making high-technology motors for all applications. Note I have said "high technology", not highest technology.
I should say that I don't think the word "motor" really applies to any of these companies. As far as I'm concerned they all make "engines", not motors. A motor is powered by electricity. An engine is powered by gasoline (or diesel). I think that this is a pretty standard definition, but certainly not one that corporations adhere to. Anyway, to get back onto the subject here, Bavarian Motor Works.
BMW has very consistently manufactured engines for their cars that have the highest technology available today. Their V-8 engines do not have throttle plates anymore, instead relying on variable valve timing for more efficiency. By eliminating the throttle plates, pumping efficiency losses are reduced at lower engine speeds. Nobody else does that. That technology is coupled with variable intake manifold length to maximize power. BMW is now spreading this technology into their six- and four-cylinder engines, getting more power and efficiency from the same displacement engines. Yes, this technology costs more to produce, and BMWs do cost more to buy, but with BMW you do get more for your money.
This isn't the only engine that shows BMW's engineering staff's work on their "motors". There are two more that aren't available here yet, or won't be available at all here.
First, there is the new diesel, for European production only. It first appears in the 535d. Unfortunately this is another mis-badged BMW as it is really a 3.0-liter inline 6-cylinder engine, like the 530d it replaces. This one is a twin sequential turbo engine that develops 268 horsepower at 4400 rpm and a monumental 413 lb-ft of torque at 2000 rpm.
This doesn't reveal the sporting characteristics of this engine. At 1250 rpm (just off idle), it's already pumping out 369 lb-ft of torque, matching the old diesel's maximum torque output. Also there is 241 horsepower available as high as 4800 rpm. That's a lot of rpm for a diesel engine.
This engine develops so much torque that the current manual gearbox can't cope. That means that the only transmission is the great ZF 6-speed. A British driver reports that "across this unrivalled span, throttle feels responsive -- forget turbo lag -- and the performance is swift, the automatic's brain downshifting below 1500 rpm to ensure the car's always in the most suitable gear. On German autobahns, it quickly runs to an indicated 160 mph." A pretty fast diesel indeed!
This makes the diesel's output -- a staggering 90 horsepower/liter of displacement -- the highest of any current production diesel. In the 535d, BMW reclaims the title of the world's fastest accelerating diesel production car from the Audi A8 4.0TDi. That figure is 6.5 seconds to 60 mph. That's pretty fast -- in fact those numbers are close to those of the 545i. The big difference is that unlike the gas mileage of a 545i, the 535d is rated at 35.3 miles per gallon in England. Now, that's what I call impressive!
Next, I'll take a look at BMW's cost-is-no-object engine for the upcoming M5. This will be a V-10, probably only for PR reasons. BMW builds a successful (well, not so this year) Formula 1 V-10 engine, and this engine is supposed to be in the shadow of that engine. Nothing is common between the two engines other then the number of cylinders and that they are arrayed at a 90-degree angle.
From "just" five liters, this engine gets 500 horsepower, so it gets to the elusive 100 horsepower per liter of displacement. Its maximum engine speed is 8250 rpm, very impressive for a "big" street engine. For reference, the Formula 1 engine does 19,000 rpm! Torque is the same as the old five liter V-8 at 383 lb-ft. It uses a very oversquare bore/stroke ratio of 92 mm bore to 75.2 mm stroke, thus enabling that very high maximum engine speed.
It does get an aluminum-silicon die-cast engine block done in the same foundry that does the Formula 1 engines. It has an extra aluminum bedplate to increase engine stiffness.
The V-10, code named S65, also features double Vanos variable valve timing (like other high-tech BMW engines), a complex four oil-pump lubricating system that is capable of resisting 1.3g of lateral acceleration, 10 individual, electrically controlled throttle valves, each with their own intake trumpet, and three 32-bit computer processors, capable of 200 million calculations per second for the ECU. Oh, and the water pump is electric, as is the power steering pump.
This engine will get a special Getrag-developed double-clutch seven speed computer controlled (SMG) manual transmission that can shift gears in 65 milliseconds. This is a special transmission that can't be shifted manually because of the gear locations in the transmission -- if it were, first and second would be at opposite ends of the shift pattern.
BMW has done some computer projection of performance of the M5. Note that the production car will have the normal 155 mph limit imposed by agreement with the German government:
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1st
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45 mph at 8250 rpm
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2nd
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68 mph at 8250 rpm
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3rd
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101 mph at 8250 rpm
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4th
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131 mph at 8250 rpm
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5th
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158 mph at 8250 rpm
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6th
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171 mph at 7750 rpm
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7th
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205 mph at 7750 rpm
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That's really impressive considering there aren't any turbochargers or superchargers involved. This clearly will be the sports sedan of this era.
As an additional note, I'll ask all of you out there to raise your hand if you've heard of the Paris-to-Dakar Rally. Hmmm. Only a couple of hands. Okay, it is a rally that used to be run from Paris to Dakar just after Christmas every year. The route starts in Paris, then south to Morocco, and then much farther south, via a circuitous route through the Sahara to Dakar. It is a very grueling rally run by special cars, highly modified support trucks, and motorcycles. BMW has run motorcycles successfully in the past.
In 2004, Sven Quandt entered his own BMW X5. Yes, he is part of the Quandt family that controls 46.6 of BMW's stock, but unlike his half-brother, sister and step-mother, Sven doesn't own shares. His business interests include the family's Varta battery company, and now he's director of Mitsubishi's rally team. But I digress...
For this years Paris-to-Dakar, he thought an X5 powered by the new diesel engine described above would be just the right vehicle. The vehicle was modified for rallying and the engine was fitted with a restrictor that limits output to 270 horsepower, per rally rules. During testing, they found that the engine would exceed 400 horsepower, but how much more isn't certain because that's where the dyno broke. Now there is some consideration of having that engine make up a M3d. I doubt that we will ever see that one in the U.S.
Oh yes, the results. Sven's X5, driven by a new star, Luc Alphand (a former downhill ski champion) took first for diesels and placed fourth outright. That's an impressive feat for a first-time BMW automotive entry and the first rally use of BMW's new diesel engine!
