Automatics Are Getting Good Enough To Kill Off DCTs, Says BMW M Boss

At this point, we’re pretty used to the concept that - certainly for higher powered cars at least - the future of the manual gearbox is looking a little dicey. However, according to Peter Quintus - BMW M’s vice president of sales and marketing - the days of the dual-clutch gearbox may be numbered too.

Speaking to Drive.com.au, Quintus said: “It’s more a question of how long has the DCT got to go.”

DCT ‘boxes were nothing short of revolutionary when they broke into the mainstream, providing near immediate shifts that were a world apart from traditional, lazy auto slush-boxes many were used to. The trouble is, torque converter automatics have gotten a lot quicker and a lot smarter in recent years.

“The DCT once had two advantages: it was light and its shift speeds were higher,” Quintus explained, adding: “Now, a lot of that shift-time advantage has disappeared as automatics get better and smarter.”

On the subject of manuals, Quintus reckons 450bhp is about the limit of what they can reliably take. And while quite a few American cars manage much more than that with a stick shifter, he noted that “We looked at US gearboxes. We found they were heavy and the shift quality was awful”. Ouch.

Source: Drive via Jalopnik