Electric vehicles (EV), even if they’re fast and handle great on the road, can be pretty boring and soulless without the bangs, whizzes, and pops of a regular petrol car. So BMW M has seemingly come up with a solution to make their upcoming fully electric BMW M3 EV more exciting to drive: With fake engine sounds and artificial gear shifts.
Recently, the BMW M YouTube channel posted its latest episode of the development progress for its upcoming M3 EV. Now, if you’ve watched towards the final seconds of the video, you might have noticed that there is some kind of engine sound inside the cabin, in what should’ve been a fully electric car…
BMW, of course, hasn’t directly confirmed any of the features of the first-ever M EV. But the video, along with recent comments from BMW M boss Frank van Meel, certainly does point at some sort of synthesised engine sound that corresponds to a virtualised gearing controlled through the gearshift paddles behind the steering wheel.
Speaking to Australian media recently, as reported by Drive, van Meel explained that a large part of the M driving experience is the feedback loop that tells the driver exactly how they’re driving.
“What we do need is feedback to the driver, where you are when you drive a car. There is this loop: track, car and driver. And you have to be one, you have to feel where you are, where your car is, what the speed is, the grip level. With electric cars, you need the same kind of feedback that tells you exactly where you are, how quick you are,” van Meel said.
“So you will need sound, and that sound has to be in a way that there is a resonance with you as a driver that you feel exactly how quick you are. You can feel grip through the steering, through the movement of the car.”
“But actually speed feedback today you get from sound, you get from vibration, you get from gears. And if you’re on the track you’re not able to look down to your speedometer. Because once you do that, two cars will pass you on the track. One on the left, and one on the right,” he added.
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The concept of playing artificial exhaust sounds for EVs is not a new one. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N pioneered the practice of synthetic (real) engine sounds, and also the first to introduce simulated gear shifts. Similarly, the Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R EV recently shown off at the 2025 Tokyo Auto Salon also has the roar of the legendary RB26DETT engine playing through the speakers, and simulated gearshifts via paddle shifters behind the steering wheel.
In fact, BMW has also previously worked closely with Hans Zimmer in the past to create driving sounds for their EV cars, although those are perhaps more on the spaceship end of “engine sounds”.
But will sound, vibrations and gearshifts alone be enough to make the upcoming BMW M3 EV a proper M car? Well, we don’t have to wait too much longer to find out. According to Drive, the next BMW M3 EV is rumoured to arrive sometime in 2026, and an ICE version in 2028.
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