Vlad_Stein

I think that ricky is missing the point of the article - the goal was not to compare MB E against Lexus GS hybrid per se, but to compare diesels against hybrids, in general (and to drum up some support for the diesel, OK).

But think about it: if the advancements in cleaning diesel exhaust succeed, we will be looking at very economical and practical cars that require no battery packs weighing several hundred pounds (and that noone so far has figured out how to dispose of when they are used up).

Even if hybrids ultimately will prove to be the superior engineering choice, it is likely that they will be diesel-electric hybrids, rather than gas-electric.

Something to think about is that Toyota is heavily betting on the hybrid technology (rightly so, at this point), but what about its diesel program? Toyota is enjoying tremendous success with its hybrid technology because it has the most mature technology right now (at least among carmakers). MB is in a similar place right now, as far as disels are concerned.
I just hope Toyota doesn't miss the boat on diesels.

AudiMan

MB at similar pace? Lets not forget about Audi, they got the first turbo diesel race car in the R10.

Vlad_Stein

I said "in a similar place", not "at similar pace" .
As far as Audi (VW): I don't really see a diesel race engine being relevant to current car production market needs, as far as emissions are concerned. Remember that emissions are the biggest hurdle for the diesels to overcome in the US market, with CAARB having (one of the?) toughest emissions standards in the world. I do acknowledge that they had a diesel presence for the last ~8 years that I have been following the car scene (although, with the exception of the Toureg's recent and excellent V10, it has been a puny 1.9L producing 90hp/140lbft in the Jetta/Golf. MB's new 3.0L bluetec has 221hp/400lbft, which is plenty for an mid-size lux sedan such as the E-class.
Also, drivers of gas cars benefit from more diesel engines on the road, as diesel tends to use up the lower quality, lower octane portion of oil, leaving higher octane gas (in Spain, where ~50% of cars on the road are diesels, the lowest octane I have seen at a gas pump is 95).

vraa

iTrader: (2)

Dave did you change my thread title?
You party pooper.

Guys I saw this same thing posted on mbworld. I wanted to see the response I'd get here.

BORING!

JessePS

Everyone hates Lexus even the compatition.

EyeKutr

iTrader: (5)

i hate to say it but how exactly is the GS hybrid environmentally friendly???? Isn't the purpose of a hybrid to get significantly better gas mileage ?

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

GS450h is a technical wonder, but economy isn't impressive and 7.5cu. ft of trunk space is lame. It's for geeks who want to 'look' environmentally friendly.

carminesc

i thought the point of the hybrid gs was to provide better performance without the environmental costs associated with those gains. the car seems friendlier to the environment than either the 300/350/430. friendlier with more performance seemed to me to be the goal. diesel is making up ground, but as stated before, our crisis is with oil and technical advancements that are made to alleviate that dependence on oil should be welcome. the tech that the gs hybrid has brought us gives us much more hope that the concept cars out now since we see it in action on a daily basis. eventually they will perfect the system as to allow little or no use of gasoline/diesel at all. then the aforementioned comparo will be pointless. just my 2 cents

LexFather

The hybrid runs much cleaner from an emmisions standpoint. In Europe, they get taxed for this so that is a huge selling point there.