| It sounds plenty conventional for today's auto industry: Mercedes-Benz will downsize engines in two of its cars next year, replacing six-cylinder engines with turbocharged inline-fours. But this ain't conventional—these are diesels. This is a big move for Benz, and—at least in the E-class—we think it's going to be a home run. Some months after the heavily face-lifted E-class debuts in January, the turbo-diesel E350 BlueTec will leave this earth. In its place, Benz will sell an E250 BlueTec with 4MATIC all-wheel drive. The engine is a 2.1-liter four—the same basic unit powering the GLK250 that launches this spring—and should make 190 hp and 369 lb-ft of torque, roughly in the same ballpark as the 210 hp and 400 lb-ft of the E350 BlueTec. The diesel four is more than 100 fewer ponies down on the gasoline-drinking V-6 in the E350, but it churns up almost 100 additional lb-ft of torque. We'll only see the E250 BlueTec in AWD guise, which rams open the gates to sales success in the Northeast, where premium shoppers almost exclusively buy cars with four driven wheels. Considering the friendliness of that region and other Snow Belt zones to diesel—especially in a Benz—the E250 has a shot at being a major player. The same engine also will find a home in the M-class SUV. We're not sure yet whether it will supplant the ML350 BlueTec and its diesel six, or whether the ML250 BlueTec will be an addition to the range. As popular as the ML250 is in Europe, we do have some concerns about the engine motivating the ML at a pace suitable to American tastes—even if they're diesel-friendly ones.
The Big Picture On a larger scale, this move shows Mercedes taking its U.S. diesel strategy in a different direction than Audi. While Benz is packing diesel fours into ever-larger cars, Audi just announced that it will be offering the A6, A7, A8, and Q5 with diesel sixes. The A8 is a cruise ship, and the A7 is positioned as a more premium vehicle, but the A6 and Q5 line up directly against the E-class and GLK/ML. BMW, so far, is splitting the difference: The 5-series will get a diesel six in 2013, while the 3-series receives a four. (We won't see a diesel four in the C-class until the next generation hits the market in 2014.) All of these vehicles should see better fuel-economy numbers than their gasoline brethren, but the automakers' different approaches will bear out what kind of fuel economy/performance balance customers want.  from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com | |||
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