While a large portion of the automotive community is rather fond of the aging manual gear box.

Fact is that with a manual transmission you simply have more fun in a car, not to mention you feel a little more connected to the driving process.

Automatic transmissions, on the other hand, are much quicker and far more economical, and in today’s world, that is generally considered better.

So then it’s no surprise that more car makers are phasing out the manual and go for a nice automatic gear box. And if the manual isn’t completely removed, it becomes a secondary option, which usually means more money for the option.

BMW, while delivering performance from their vehicles, understands how important the driving feeling is for its customers, so one official stepped up to reassure some fans.

First off, they mentioned that manual transmission will not be removed neither from base models nor M variants.

As for automatic ones, the press release stated that for now, they are getting pretty much all out of them, with 9 or 10 gear variants not being an option.

Basically, adding more gears will bring slim to no benefits, while increasing production cost and weight.