Mercedes Introducing First Four-Cylinder BLUETEC Model in Geneva
26 February 2007
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| The Vision C 220 BLUETEC. |
Mercedes-Benz is unveiling its BLUETEC emission-control technology in combination with a consumption-optimized four-cylinder engine at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show.
With output of 125 kW (170 hp) and a peak torque of 400 Nm (295 lb-ft), the Vision C 220 BLUETEC offers fuel consumption of 5.5 liters per hundred kilometers (43 mpg US) on the NEDC, due largely to modified diesel engine technology and an intelligent system of energy management.
The six-cylinder E320 BLUETEC which went on sale in North American in October 2006 consumes 6.7 liters/100km (35 mpg US). Following the US launch, the company will also introduce BLUETEC in other markets. The technology is currently being adapted to European market requirements and further Mercedes Benz models, the aim being to also offer BLUETEC in passenger cars for European
The four-cylinder engine in the Vision C 220 BLUETEC, like the standard-production engines, includes four valves per cylinder, third-generation common-rail direct injection, a turbocharger with a variable nozzle turbine and exhaust gas recirculation. A highly sensitive electronic engine management unit reacts precisely to an extremely wide range of operating conditions and, in so doing, optimizes the combustion processes.
The BLUETEC technology in the Vision C 220 BLUETEC still includes an oxidizing catalytic converter, which reduces emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned hydrocarbons (HC), as well as a particulate filter. A modified NOx storage catalytic converter with a substantially extended service life, including patented on-board ammonia generation, is combined with an additional SCR catalytic converter to minimize nitrogen oxides. This process of exhaust-gas aftertreatment requires no additives (such as AdBlue for urea SCR).
The Vision C 220 BLUETEC is prepared for the more stringent European emission limits imposed by Euro 6, which will apply to all new vehicles from September 1, 2015. Euro 6 stipulates NOx limits of 0.08g/km—about 30% of the current Euro 4 limits. (The US 50-state Tier 2 Bin 5 standard requires 0.07 g/mi—or 0.043 g/km). All Mercedes-Benz diesel vehicles with a particulate filter fitted as standard already undercut the particulate limits that will apply from 2011 onwards.
For the US market, Mercedes-Benz will be offering three further V6 BLUETEC models—R Class, M-Class and GL-Class—with Tier 2 Bin 5 certification for all 50 states from as early as 2008.
On the standard-production version of the new C-Class, which will also premiere at the Geneva Motor Show, Mercedes-Benz has reduced lifecycle CO2 emissions by 15% (nine tonnes) compared to the prior generation; NOx emissions by 20%; and hydrocarbons by 12% according to a study certified by the German technical inspection authorities (TÜV).
So if I understand it correctly this new 4-cylinder engine is not (yet) Tier 2 Bin 5 compliant? Or does the brand name 'BLUETEC' mean that it's always Tier 2 Bin 5 compliant?
Posted by: Jep | 26 February 2007 at 04:07 PM
Jep -
reading between the lines, it sounds as if the C220 Bluetec was certified for the European market, even though it far exceeds the requirements. Perhaps this is just a stage on the road toward T2B5, which MB has cracked with the SCR version of Bluetec but not yet with the NOx store catalyst technology preferred for the smaller displacements.
IMHO, MB marketing have actually royally messed up in that their Bluetec moniker doesn't actually refer to one technology but two entirely different ones that happen to achieve much the same outcome. This has left virtually everyone confused.
Note the expensive and complicated combination of DPF and NOx store cat presented here. The latter is positioned furthest from the engine. The engine controller has to switch from lean to slightly rich mixture on a regular basis to allow the NOx cat to regenerate. Any PM produced will be caught by the DPF, which must be kept below its light-off temperature during this period. Regeneration of the DPF should be initiated only if the NOx store cat has recently been purged, because burning off the soot produces NOx over and above that coming out of the engine. The whole thing is quite the paso doble.
Btw, HDVs equipped with SCR systems are configured for higher, more efficient combustion temperatures to sharply reduce engine-out PM at the expense of additional engine-out NOx. The savings in diesel fuel overcompensate for the higher urea consumption. Of course, unlike passenger car engines, HDV diesels are typically operated at high load so it's much easier to keep the temperatures in the exhaust system high. Then again, HDVs feature 16-18 gears and the driver or transmission have to kick down frequently.
Posted by: Rafael Seidl | 26 February 2007 at 04:51 PM
Hats off to the engineers who did the R&D on this.
It is very encouraging that legislators can set high standards for clean air and talented engineers can respond.
In Europe, the Mercedes 220D engine has been a legend for nearly 40 years, being sold in large numbers and extremely durable.
In the UK, cars provided by companies to their employees have recently been taxed in proportion to their CO2 output. Commuting on a London double-decker bus, I have noticed a surprising proportion of shiny Mercedes E-class and C-class luxury saloons with 220 CDI badges on their trunk lids.
The modern diesel engines have so much more power than before & huge torque, so now even a four cylinder diesel provides quite adequate performance even for a spacious E-class. That gives luxury car buyers the option of choosing a four cylinder diesel with expensive optional extras for the same price as a six or eight cylinder petrol with less options. If you are commuting on highways limited to 70 mph (or less in traffic) and crawling through city traffic jams, many commuters will choose comfort over performance.
The reference to lifecycle CO2 output is interesting - it's worth remembering that making a new automobile requires a huge energy input. The average age of cars going to the crusher in the UK is now just 7 years. A Mercedes diesel with a 20 year plus service life will equate to 1/3 of the construction energy of 3 gasoline cars with a 7 year service life each.
The downside of the modern diesel engine is that the selling price is a lot more than a gasoline engine with the same power (but less torque).
I would love to see Mercedes market a 50-state version of the C220 & E220 in the USA. The E220 diesel should be marketed as representing the Mercedes core brand values.
The C220 & E220 bluetec are also the ideal base vehicles for a saloon version of Mercedes plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) technology which has reached the pre-prduction phase in the Sprinter van.
Italy charges sales tax on new cars in proportion to fuel economy as well as adding a lot of tax to diesel fuel and even more to gasoline (as a luxury item).
This policy is applied in spite of the fact that it makes Italy one of the most expensive states in which to buy & fuel a Ferrari.
Italy has already exceeded the new EU CO2 target of 130 g/km and has already reached 120 g/km. (The California LEV target is higher.)
If this policy were applied in all states, it would greatly reduce the sticker price gap between a PHEV & a non-hybrid.
Just imagine the sticker-price shock on a large gasoline SUV: base price $60k plus air pollution tax $40k = sticker price $100k.
This could be enhanced by exempting the cost of a hybrid drive from sales tax and by classifying the cost of leasing a high tech battery a tax-deductable R&D item.
The same principle could be applied to trucks by making the sales tax percentage proportional to the CO2/km per ton of cargo.
Raising Tax on the sale of luxury goods is highly progressive tax policy, and will replace decreasing revenue from fuel tax as the percentage of alternative fuels rises.
Remember that tax on fuel is highly regressive tax policy because low income households pay a much higher proportion of their disposable income than high income households.
I look forward to seeing E220 bluetec badges on the trunk lids of shiny Mercedes in London & Los Angeles.
I hope I live to see E220 PHEV badges as I commute on some of Ken Livingstone's new PHEV London buses.
Posted by: Polly | 26 February 2007 at 05:19 PM
Apparently were not worthy...or something. How can MB succeed in getting a 3.2L six to pass 50 state NOx, but not a 2.2L four? Nobody wants or needs a 40+mpg vehicle on this continent? Or our industry and gummint refuse to allow their sale here? Im not sure where things are more rotten...Detroit or Washington (or Ann Arbor or Sacramento)
Posted by: fred | 27 February 2007 at 12:42 AM
Polly:
Amount of energy used to construct modern passenger vehicle is quite small.
According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers:
“The UK auto industry has halved its energy use, waste and CO2 emissions from vehicle manufacturing from 2001 to 2005.
Average energy use per vehicle dropped from 6.2 to 3.2 MWh, with a corresponding drop in CO2 per vehicle from 1.3 tonnes to 0.6 tones. Waste to landfill per vehicle dropped 78% from 66.4 kg to 14.5 kg, while water use almost halved from 6.2 m3 to 3.2 m3.”
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/09/uk_automakers_c.html#more
0.6 ton of CO2 is equivalent to combustion of about 280 liters of diesel. Even doubling of this amount, it is still only about 5000 miles of driving.
Posted by: Andrey | 27 February 2007 at 02:05 AM
Fred:
The people interested in economy vehicles in US are buying spacious 30/40 mpg Civic with 5 speed AT and 140 hp 1.8l, front wheel drive, and MRSP of 16K.
There are very few idiots here who will buy two ton rear wheel drive luxury tank with spirited 170 hp stinker for double the price, double the insurance premium, half resale value, inferior reliability, and repair bill for even minor problem comparable with the price of 4 year old Corolla.
Posted by: Andrey | 27 February 2007 at 02:53 AM
does UK still produce cars?
even i can half my emission,
giving up the production of cars :))
Posted by: funny | 27 February 2007 at 04:41 AM
Polly -
on the continent, about 50% of used cars enjoy a second lease on life after they are exported to places like Egypt. Unfortunately, the a/c refrigerant is rarely removed prior to export and those countries have no system for ensuring it doesn't escape into the atmosphere once the vehicle really does need to be scrapped.
There's no reason why used right-hand drive cars couldn't be exported from the UK to India or Indonesia.
http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/driving%20on%20the%20left.htm
Andrey -
I don't think MB is aiming their products at the average Corolla customer. Plus, no-one is forcing you to buy a clean diesel if you don't want one.
Posted by: Rafael Seidl | 27 February 2007 at 06:02 AM
Rafael, Mercedes is prestigious car here. What prestige has 170 hp engine, when bread-and-butter family sedans like Camry and Accord have 250 hp?
Posted by: Andrey | 27 February 2007 at 09:26 AM
First off, that isn't a fair comparison. Toyota tends to make bare bones vehicles, while Mercedes is a luxury brand. I wouldn't pay a $10k premium on a Merc because it has all sort of crap I don't care for or need, a fair diesel to gas comparison would be between a diesel and gas Aygo or something similar. If you insist on comparing the two... That diesel will probably accelerate as well, if not better than, the high end Camry or Accord in most situations because it's peak torque of ~300ft-lb is farther down in the power band, unlike the ~250ft-lb peak at ~5k rpm in the 2GR-FE. Not to mention the EPA corrects mileage for caloric content, so the diesel Benz will have no trouble getting Xmpg or more, while the V6 Camry would probably have trouble breaking 30mpg in the hands of most drivers.
Posted by: yesplease | 27 February 2007 at 11:25 AM
yesplease, what is the 1/4 mile time for the "Aygo" with it's 300ft-lb diesel motor? The Camry is clocking in at around the low 14's with it's V-6 (I think about 14.3?).
Posted by: Patrick | 27 February 2007 at 12:48 PM
Andrey -
precisely. That's why MB is introducing the 3.2L V6 in the E-Class in the US.
For reference, a C220CDI will do 0-60mph in 8.4 secs, so it's not a sports car nor is it advertised as such. The point of a turbodiesel is that you get a lot of low-end torque so in normal operation your engine will run quietly and smoothly at well under 2000 RPM.
Posted by: Rafael Seidl | 27 February 2007 at 12:59 PM
Rafael:
90% of cars sold in US/Canada have AT and pretty powerful engines. Nobody here really cares about low-end torque. Torque converter in AT allows engine to run with substantial slip on full throttle, and multiplies torque so effectively, that even frickin Chevy Cobalt spins wheels on rabbit start. And difference in fuel consumption between MT and AT, on condition the engine is powerful, is very small. Different markets, different cars, different priorities.
Posted by: Andrey | 27 February 2007 at 01:54 PM
Patrick, the 300ft-lbs was in reference to the Merc I4 diesel. If you want a decent, commercialized comparison, top gear had a feature comparing the petrol Lupo to the diesel Lupo (google should help). Naturally, the diesel had better mileage, but didn't perform nearly as well on the track, but, as was mentioned before, from say, 55-75kph, or 70-95kph (can't remember the specific range), the diesel was faster. Now, I don't get to a stop light and run a quarter mile at wot. Most people can't do that in modern cars w/o breaking local laws, so flat out acceleration isn't very useful for a daily driver. But, good acceleration from 30-55mph or 55-70mph would definitely help for every day driving such as merging on the highway, and this is where diesels excel because they make lots of torque low in the power band. They make usable low end power, as opposed to more high end power which by virtue of the gearing in most cars, isn't very useful.
Posted by: yesplease | 27 February 2007 at 03:14 PM
"There are very few idiots here who will buy two ton rear wheel drive luxury tank with spirited 170 hp stinker for double the price"
WTF are you talking about?
A Civic weighs 2807 lbs
A 4 cyl C class weighs 3200 lbs.
Posted by: Jigga | 27 February 2007 at 05:11 PM
Jep, BLUETEC does not automatically mean Tier 2 Bin 5. As Rafael points out, the label applies to a variety of systems meeting different standards.
[And let's keep the heat on the responses down to a minimum, OK? I pulled the last four or so. ]
Posted by: Mike | 27 February 2007 at 06:27 PM
Mercedes can do better than 43mpg. My 2002 VW Bug gets averages close to 50mpg and on biodiesel it runs clean.
My next car will get 60+ mpg and the only diesel vehicle in the works at the moment for the
US market is the VW Polo.
Posted by: Randy | 27 February 2007 at 08:27 PM
Your 2002 bug weights 500lb less than the Mercedes and 90hp. Hardly a fair comparison. You think Mercedes can do better? Go buy an A class or a Smart. Stop comparing completely dissimilar vehicles.
Posted by: air | 28 February 2007 at 03:25 AM
Air, Thank you for the feedback. For clarification, I wasn't making a direct comparison here. Mercedes has the technology to shave off 500 pounds off of this sedan if they wanted to. The main import of my comment was to encourage Mercedes or any car builder to make a safe, efficient, affordable, and higher MPG than the norm vehicle that runs on anything other than gas. Biodiesel is a transitional fuel until we find something better and gas is passe' because it pollutes. More importantly America can learn from Europe a begin creating car-free cities. It was only back in 1977 when Paris shut down it's core to a million cars because of pollution.
Posted by: Randy | 28 February 2007 at 07:02 PM
If "gas is passe'", then why can we buy it on every street corner?
Posted by: Joff Pentz | 28 February 2007 at 11:22 PM
BLUETEC is an initiative which was launched jointly by M-B and VW/Audi last year.
Audi has a Q7 (SUV) 3.0 TDI BLUETEC.
Posted by: Physics Professor | 02 March 2007 at 11:14 PM
I think if the new Mercedes-Benz 2.2-liter turbodiesel with the full BlueTec emissions control could fit into the engine bay of the B-Series hatchback, don't be surprised that M-B offers a "B220CDI" model specifically for the USA market. I'd buy one in no time flat! :-) I wouldn't be surprised that M-B offers the C220CDI in the USA market by 2009.
By the way, I've heard that they're now working on a system where the urea is injected into the exhaust stream in a fine powder form. That could make it possible to tremendously expand the time between refilling the urea tank compared to using liquid urea, something that the EPA and CARB definitely likes.
Posted by: Raymond | 17 March 2007 at 09:58 AM
Andrey, you wrote:
The people interested in economy vehicles in US are buying spacious 30/40 mpg Civic with 5 speed AT and 140 hp 1.8l, front wheel drive, and MRSP of 16K.
But within two years, we could see a Honda Civic sedan with the US legal version of the i-CTDi engine getting around 46 mpg on the freeway in real world driving! :-D The i-CTDi engine does fit in the engine bay of the current Civic, so such a pairing could happen when the current model has its mid-model change (MMC) in the 2009 model year.
Posted by: Raymond | 17 March 2007 at 10:02 AM
I would be happy to see a RWD Mercedes 4-cylinder diesel sedan in North America (I might even buy one just for driving around town) but I want it with a limited slip differential and not some complex AWD system. Curently, the Audi A6 offers better value than the C-Class so, to stay competitive, Mercedes has to do something spectacular like a more luxurious interior and limited slip differential as standard equipment on its RWD cars. Limited slip differential works wonders for those of us who have to drive in the winter.
Posted by: Enn Norak | 15 April 2007 at 05:39 PM