BMW Diesel

Mercedes-Benz C Class Diesel Coming To U.S. in 2012

Mercedes-Benz's U.S. divisionis expanding its clean diesel BlueTec lineup to include its C-Class for the 2013 model year, so it will be arriving in showrooms in 2012.

Ernst Lieb, CEO of Mercedes-Benz North America, also said the German automaker intends to bring a diesel version of the GLK-Class crossover. The German carmaker this year has already announced the addition of a diesel S Class.

Clean diesel sales are mounting among German automakers, which sell more of the vehicles in Europe, are pushing the vehicles in the U.S. Diesel accounted in 2010 for 53 percent of Audi A3 deliveries and more than 43 percent of Audi Q7 registrations. The A3 TDI diesel won the 2010 Green Car of The Year Award.

Tags: audi, bluetec, bluetec-diesel, bmw diesel, diesel, mercedes c class, TDI

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Mercedes-Benz Launches 4-Cylinder S Class

by David Kiley (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos

Are you ready for a four-cylinder Mercedes Benz S Class?

It seems unthinkable. The same number of cylinders in the big Mercedes that is in a Volkswagen Golf?

The German automaker is rolling out an S-class sedan called the S250 CDI, which has a four-cylinder diesel engine. Mercedes developed the car for Europe, which counts diesels about 40%-50% of new car sales, but so far does not plan to sell it in the U.S.

But that could change in future. Mercedes, BMW and Audi, as well as Volkswagen, have all brought diesels to the U.S.

The German car companies have long been champions of diesel for the U.S. But American consumers have stubbornly long memories of terrible defect-ridden diesels from General Motors in the late 1970s and 80s. The legacy of those cars is that politicians and regulators remain hostile or indifferent to diesel cars in terms of lowering taxes on diesel fuel at the pumps, as Europe did, and ease CO2 standards for diesels.

Tags: Audi Diesel, BMW Diesel, Diesel, Jetta TDI, Mercedes Benz, Mercedes Benz S Class, Mercedes S250 CDI

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Review: 2009 BMW 335d, Performance and Fuel Economy

by Sam Abuelsamid (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos

2009 BMW 335d - click above for a high res image gallery

Over the last two years BMW has started making a major push for its new EfficientDynamics technology in Europe and more recently in North America. The premise is that the company that has long promoted itself as the "Ultimate Driving Machine" can retain all the qualities that made it so ultimate while drastically cutting fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In Europe, BMW offers a suite of technologies like automatic start-stop for engines, brake energy regeneration and smaller four cylinder engines. The most important near term technology however is diesel engines.

Late in 2008, BMW launched its first two new clean diesel vehicles here in the United States, the X5 xDrive35d SUV and the 335d sedan. We recently had a chance to spend a week with the 335d to determine if it truly can provide the driving experience that customers expect of a BMW with better fuel efficiency. Read on to find out if the automaker succeeded.

Gallery: Review: 2009 BMW 335d