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Here's something to ponder. This is the how the NHTSA defines CAFE:
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) is the sales weighted average fuel economy, expressed in miles per gallon (mpg), of a manufacturer's fleet of passenger cars or light trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 8,500 lbs. or less, manufactured for sale in the United States, for any given model year. Fuel economy is defined as the average mileage traveled by an automobile per gallon of gasoline (or equivalent amount of other fuel) consumed as measured in accordance with the testing and evaluation protocol set forth by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
So, knowing that the last model year of the E60 M5 (surely BMW's biggest CAFE offender since trucks have much less strict regulations) is 2010, perhaps BMW's motivation was gaining CAFE points (i.e saving money). Recall that BMW routinely pays CAFE fines (quite by design - it is built into the business case) since their fleet never meets CAFE regulations. By pushing the M3 into 2011 MY as soon as possible, they may get a win since the M5 will not exist for MY2011 (though the M6 will). The point being that if BMW needed motivation to call the M3 a 2011 (rather than leaving it a 2010, similar to how the E46 story went) then this could have provided at least some.
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