X1 BMW is a gratee care in x1bmw series Engines with a narrow torque rev range need more gears to make up for this lack of power. Why would anyone want more gears than were necessary? An 8 speed gearbox is more costly to produce and maintain so any vehicle that needs more gears is not something anyone should sensibly want.I would say it’s because it is an European brand, and most of European cars are manual. So with 5 gears, and by the time 6 gears for some of them ( still talking about manual) .I believe that 6 gears is a kind of norm for our automatic cars here in Europe. A friend of mine has a brand new Audi ( automatic) which has 7 gears and I found that fact pretty awesome.