Mercedes To Sell 50-State Diesel. Finally.
In recent years, Jeep, Mercedes and Volkswagen have all offered U.S. customers diesel-powered products. However, they have not done so in California or any of the other 15 states that have adopted The Golden State's air pollution regs (Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington). Today, Mercedes has announced that they'll equip the ML, R, and GL-Series with a 50-state-compliant Bluetec V6 diesel engine. (The oil-burning E-Class awaits the '09 model year model changeover). The 3.0-liter V6 diesel uses urea injection to eliminate NOx emissions and particulate filters to "almost eliminate" soot. The powerplant makes 210 horses and a whopping 398 lb ft of torque. In the ML and R, it should deliver 18 mpg city and 24 highway (an improvement of 3 city/4 highway over the V6 ML350) In the plenty porky GL, expect about 17/23 mpg. Now, finally, we'll get to see if there's a market for "clean diesels" in the U.S.– at the top end of the market.
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brettc and thalter, I could have no said it better....
@Phil: You raise a good question. There are two answers to it: 1. Without colorful, judgmental, and exciting language we'd just be consumer reports (blech). 2. It's an impressive amount of torque in relation to the engine size, which is 3.0 liters, and the relatively unimpressive 210 horsepower output. BMW's very impressive turbocharged 3.0 liter I6 makes 300 lb ft of torque, for example.
Diesel is about 7-10% more expensive than gasoline in Europe, the difference varies between countries. For all you diesel lovers, Basically the most economical diesel car in sale today in Europe, VW Polo Bluemotion 2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=O4y02l2AW3o 70MPG vs 47.5MPG, real world mpg numbers are 50% bigger than in factory specs. Bluemotion 2 Polo is a tiny very light car with small 1.4TDI engine, 80hp, 144 lb/ft.