BMW M3 and M4 to drop use of carbon-fibre drive-shafts

One of the most distinctive features of the current BMW M3 and M4s are their carbon-fibre drive-shafts. However, that’s going to change as BMW has now announced that these cars will soon shift to steel drive-shafts to cope with stringent emissions! If you’re scratching your heads, let’s break this down for you.

BMW will start fitting particulate filters to the exhaust system of its future vehicles to stay compliant, which inadvertently takes up more space. However, the current carbon-fibre drive-shafts already take up a lot of space under the car, and this limits any extra space from being liberated for the particulate filter to be added. This is why the ‘M-specific high-performance’ steel driveshaft can be used in its place, since it is smaller.

Although BMW claims the superlative performance and handling qualities of these cars won't change, we believe that keen drivers may notice a slight difference. Mainly because steel will add some weight, and the engine could turn out to be slightly less eager to rev. There is a strong possibility that BMW could compensate for this by letting go of some weight elsewhere, but we’ll just have to wait and see.