Autocar confidential: Why BMW's XM isn't called the X8, Ferrari's design team harmony and more

In this week’s roundup of automotive gossip, we find out why Ferrari’s design team describe themselves as a jazz band, what Fisker thinks the main problem its Ocean EV will have over here is and more. But first, will BMW’s XM concept be called the X8 in production? Spoiler alert: no, it won’t.

Why the BMW XM won’t be called the X8

The new BMW Concept XM previews a performance SUV that will sit above the X7 and adopt a more rakish roofline, so you would think it would be called the X8 in production, right? “No. That would be wrong,” BMW M boss Frank van Meel told Autocar. “It is XM. It is X and it is M.” That’s that cleared up, then. 

Ferrari gets jazzy

Ferrari designer Flavio Manzoni said one of the company’s strongest assets is that its top brass can “share intuition” when it’s creating new cars. He described the harmonious relationship he has with the chief technology officer and commercial directors: “It’s like a jazz band. Especially Michael [Leiters], Enrico [Galliera] and I. We’re really playing together, sharing ideas and respecting the parameters of each one. And it works so well. It’s real teamwork.”