How hard is it to be the boss of BMW M in 2025, and what's happening with the M3 EV?

The cheapest full-fat BMW M car, the M2, costs £68,795 in the UK. A CS version with some ceramic brakes is the wrong side of £90k. And even BMW’s most affordable semi-M performance car, the (not very brilliant) M135 hot hatch will set you back almost £45,000. Which is a lot.

So when TopGear.com had a chance last week to catch up with CEO of the M Division, Frank van Meel, we began by asking him if – in a world of high parts prices, squeezed profit margins and EV targets – it’s getting harder to sign off lower-priced M cars?

“Well, it's a challenge for the next generation to keep that up, to get a very potent small affordable car. It's not getting easier.” he admitted. “But we try to keep that up because that's who we are, and we want to have this entry in the future to the world of high performance.”

With the likes of Ford, Renault and soon AMG abandoning the world of the hot hatch, could the M Division sneak in with more hot hatches to swallow up market share? Van Meel was lukewarm on the idea – but gave a detailed reason why.

“It's getting more difficult actually. We are diversifying drivetrains because we want to have the perfect offer for everyone. We are going to offer more cars in the future with different drivetrains, so we have to decide what's more important: to offer combustion and electric [power] or to offer a different kind of car?”

Frank explains that every nation’s bespoke requirements are what makes future car development such a conundrum.

“The world is changing so fast and every country is different. If you look at Europe, Europe is divided into north, south, east, west – in the Nordic countries, I think it's 90 per cent electric already, whereas in the Eastern countries it's ‘give me more V8s’.

“In the UK you have a strict CO2 policy. In France you get punished for CO2: for an M2 this year you pay €70,000 over three years in CO2 tax. Next year it's going to be €80,000, and then the year afterwards €90,000… then there's a weight tax. So you need to have a broad portfolio. And that's currently our biggest effort: so that if a country changes CO2 regulations, you might skip from one bookend to the other one.

“It's a very big Sudoku puzzle with a lot of numbers. We try to have the right answers in place.”

Who’d be a car boss eh? When van Meel speaks of ‘diversifying drivetrains’ he means different powertrain solutions for similar cars. That’s why there are now electric M Performance cars (like the iX M70 and i4 M50), plug-in hybrid M cars (the M5 and XM) plus pure combustion heroes such as the M2, M3 and M8. And that’s just for starters.

The M Division is currently finessing its most controversial project ever: the twin manifestations of the next BMW M3. One will have a turbocharged straight-six petrol engine. The other will be fully electric. One iconic name, two powertrain options, a bajillion Euros of BMW investment and a big choice for the M faithful.

So, how’s development coming along? Do the M3 EV and M3 ICE teams talk to each other or are they sworn to secrecy? Do they sabotage each other’s homework?

“We are a very small company, so we cannot do two different silos. We're too small for that,” he said. “So we have development groups like Chassis Engineering, Vehicle Dynamics: the same people do both cars. Of course, there is a little split on the Drivetrain [teams] but the guy who's responsible for the electrification is also involved in the EU7 combustion engine.” Must be a busy bloke.

Frank says the collaborative process has helped each car raise its game to try to better the other, and he promises the EV won’t be the poor relation. “I think the funny thing is that if you also look at the suppliers, for instance at the Nürburgring, you can hear a little bit of what they like and don't like. They all want to drive the electric one because they say, ‘this is insane!’ He later notes the EV will certainly be faster.

We left Frank with a final question: how can you run a mainstream car company’s high-performance skunkworks, hit every target, keep the shareholders happy and not upset the enthusiasts? Is his job getting harder - impossible, even?

“It's not actually,” he said with optimism. “For me, it's like in racing, the BOP [balance of performance] changes all the time.

“When you're used to that, you just have to think ahead. What would you do if someone punishes you with more weight in the car, or with less power, or different aerodynamics?

“The same goes for regulation. What happens if the world changes in one direction? What would be your technological answer? So I quite like it, because I think that is the biggest challenge for every CEO right now: to figure out how you can prepare for a very uncertain situation, and answer every possible change in demand.

“But if you wait until it changes, you're too late, because it takes you four years at least to get the products.”