Mercedes-Benz working on making AMG greener

If you're from Germany, I can understand your pride. If you're from anywhere else, you're a flatout jackass.

I have BMW in my name because the BMW 8 series is the most beautiful looking car of all time. I can assure you it has nothing to do with reliability, because the 8 series is a maintenance nightmare, for the most part.

"This is why the Germans are smart people"
Why, because they've decided to reduce CO2 emissions?

"America can't even build cars"
Our top 3 have a QC/QA that is superior to most, despite the sales decline and lack of fanfair.

TP is funny...

"The European Commission wants to cut down the average CO2 fleet emissions of all new cars to 120 grams per kilometer in 2012."

and there you have it...government policy is getting an entire industry to change in a positive way. it's why we're getting all these great new diesels (bluetec and otherwise) and hybrids from the european car makers.

enthusiastx11,

Actually, these policies will only serve to bankrupt sports car makers like Porsche who cannot possibly meet those targets, as they have no small cars to offset their most polluting models.

This is just left-wing socialist government being unreasonably heavy-handed to an Auto industry which is making huge strides to become cleaner, unlike other, more damaging industries.

The car industry is becoming the scape-goat for this 'Green' agenda because they have done a poor job of representing themselves on their behalf, and will continue to suffer financially (some may disappear) as these policies are idealistic and unfair.

I'm no fanboy, but...

Audi TT-S is revealed. It leans more towards a sports car than a tourer, with a lightweight engine, a slick gearbox and a healthy 270hp to give it sub-5 sec 0-60 times. It is bashed for not having more power, although the more knowledgeable among us know that it doesn't make a difference with DSG and low weight.

BMW announces that they're going to start putting smaller engines in 'M' cars.

Merc is working on making AMG greener.

Hmm.

True, BMW has been leading the trimming weight off cars trend.Their cars are constantly lighter than the comp.. They have been using carbon fiber on parts of their cars, and also use smaller engines compared to the competition, while delivering performance that equals the competition or surpasses it. BMW also has had CSL versions of there cars since the early 70's. Also on the E90 3 series they use magnesium crankcases to trim weight and thats on a mass production car. I have also heard for a few years now that BMW will start using carbon fiber reinforced plastic chassis, which will really cut the pounds off. As far as the luxury car market goes BMW has been leading the trend.

The lightness in the CSL's is hardly to make them more ecomomical.

Audi had the all aluminium back in 1994, despite the AWD drivetrain it's still lighter then it's RWD 7 series and S-Class counterpart even today.

I know the CSL doesn't have economy in mind, but it just proves that BMW has been cutting weight off there cars for over 30 years.
Also you could argue that the aluminum frame on the Audi wasn't to make the car more economical.I'm sure it did make it a little more economical, but that probably was not Audi's intentions. They just didn't want there car to weight almost 800 lbs more than the comp. which it would have if it used steel.
The point I was trying to make on the previous post is that BMW have been trimming weight off there cars for years, and they have been leading the pack amongst the luxury car makers in this area. Just wanted to state that b/c I know there are a few individuals who would like people to think otherwise. I'm just stating the facts.

what a total waste of R&D resources. How many AMG cars does MB sell in a year? What kind of impact is this going to have?

Maybe they spend the R&D money on clean diesels or hybrid diesel/electrics or cutting weight across the entire lineup.

I agree with you ZBL -- AMG customers want optimum power not green. Too bad we did not get the sulphur out of our diesel fuel sooner. Several future diesels will not arrive in North America in time for me. I love diesel's torque for mountain driving.

Its a term called "corporate responsibility"

And impoving the fuel economy and emissions of low volume performance cars is more responsible than improving the fuel ecomony and emissions of high volume vehicles?

Well they have just announced stop start systems for the A and B class, there's a new 2.1 diesel which is a lot greener, stop-start will probably appear across the range. Next E class for sure. And since the EU ruling is an average, it still makes sense to introduce these new systems, and where better than on the most expensive models so the costs are absorbed more easily before the economies of scale set in?