One Owner 2007 Mercedes R320 3.0l Cdi Turbo Diesel Nav 4wd 4matic Suv 07 Awd 4x4 on 2040-cars

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Daimler cutting Mercedes and Smart prices by 18% in Switzerland

Automakers including Daimler and PSA are now offering substantial discounts in Switzerland to make it more affordable for Swiss customers to buy their cars, according to the latest from Bloomberg. The move, instituted by two of Europe's largest automakers, comes in response to the surprise decision last week by the Swiss National Bank to suddenly abandon its longstanding policy of capping trading of the Swiss Franc to 1.20 francs per euro. The policy has sent the value of the franc soaring, making imports into Switzerland less expensive while increasing the value of its exports. The discounts being offered by the automakers could therefore be viewed more as price adjustments to better match the changing currency value rather than an actual incentive. But whichever way you look at it, a new Mercedes or Smart will now cost Swiss buyers 18 percent less than the list price, while Peugeot and Citroen dealers in the Confoederatio Helvetica are chopping 1,000 francs ($1,144) off the price of a new passenger car or 1,500 francs ($1,716) for a new commercial vehicle. Conversely, high-end Swiss watchmakers like Rolex and Patek Philippe are looking at increasing their prices to keep up with the currency fluctuation, particularly in Japan, where the yen has dropped 17 percent against the franc in the past few days. News Source: BloombergImage Credit: Sandro Campardo/Keystone/AP Mercedes-Benz smart Car Buying Citroen Peugeot switzerland

2015 Monaco F1 Grand Prix race recap [spoilers]

Lewis Hamilton came to Monaco with a new three-year deal with Mercedes-AMG Petronas and a vow to not let anything, including any "mistakes" by teammate Nico Rosberg, stand in the way of his best qualifying effort. Mercedes reportedly made it rain with a 100-million-pound deal, and Hamilton made it rain right back with his first pole position at Monaco. Rosberg did make a mistake but this time it was behind Hamilton, which meant he stuffed-up the qualifying attempts of rival drivers like Sebastian Vettel. So Rosberg starts second, 0.342 behind Hamilton but 0.449 ahead of Vettel in the Ferrari. Daniel Ricciardo thinks he should have been third, but a communication error with his engineers left him in the wrong engine setting for his final hot lap, so by the very first corner he'd lost the time he would have needed to get higher than fourth on the grid. The second Infiniti Red Bull Racing of Daniil Kvyat slots in behind him, ahead of the second Ferrari of Kimi "Not A Very Happy Day" Raikkonen, who just can't get it going lately. Sergio Perez did for the Sahara Force India what the car can't do on its own, which is grab a top-ten qualifying spot. Toro Rosso rookie Carlos Sainz had qualified eighth but missed a call to the weigh bridge, so he's been slapped into the pit lane. Pastor Maldonado in the Lotus inherits his eighth place, ahead of rookie Max Verstappen in the second Toro Rosso, and Jenson Button in the McLaren. Button only got up there because of two penalties: for Sainz, and Romain Grosjean who had qualified 11th but took a penalty for a gearbox change. Want to know how hard it is to do better on race day than in qualifying at Monaco? Even the never-say-die Fernando Alonso said, "Monte Carlo is a train of cars on Sunday, the race finishes on Saturday afternoon." Well obviously, he didn't take Max Verstappen's seek-and-destroy tactics into account. The young Dutchman had made passing look like a real option in Monaco, getting past Maldonado at St. Devote on Lap 7 after a bit of argy-bargy on Lap 6, then taking advantage of blue flags to slink past teammate Carlos Sainz and Williams driver Valtteri Bottas while hiding in Sebastian Vettel's slipstream. He tried the same move on Romain Grosjean on Lap 65, but Grosjean locked him out. Verstappen lined up the Lotus driver over the following laps, then looked like he slipped to the inside at St.

2014 Mercedes B-Class ED battery much bigger than previously stated

There was something unexpected hiding in the new configurator for the 2014 Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive: a $600 "Temporary range extender." Since we've never heard of such a thing, we had to click through for more. The official explanation runs like this: A suite of options to further increase your driving range includes added insulation of the doors and roof for to increase climate-control efficiency, along with an electrically heated windshield and a range-extending charge function. By pressing a button on the console prior to charging, the maximum charge level for battery will increased for the next charge cycle. The higher-capacity charge can provide up to 17 additional miles of range. The passive features that increase range should be standard in all models, we think. But we were more curious about the battery charge situation. How do you increase a maximum? And is it a good idea to do so? The configurator includes this disclaimer, after all: Range extender should only be used on a limited basis, and could shorten battery life if used excessively. How much is excessive? We investigate below. The B-Class ED has, according to the specs, a 28-kWh battery. First, let's understand what this "temporary range extender" is all about. The B-Class ED has, according to the specs, a 28-kWh battery. But Terry Wei, from the Mercedes-Benz USA product and technology communications department, confirmed to AutoblogGreen that the B-Class ED is actually hiding a 36-kWh battery, but the automaker is calling it a 28-kWh battery because that's how much energy capacity is used in day-to-day use. Most automakers publicly claim the actual capacity and then admit they use a percentage of it. The Chevy Volt, for example, has a 16.5-kWh battery pack, but a "full charge" only fills up around 65 percent of that. In the B-Class ED, the 28 kWh of useable energy provides an EPA-certified 87 miles of range. But, since there are eight kWh of reserve, the temporary range extender (we think of it as a software update accessed by a button) can access some of that and offer the aforementioned 17 miles. Now that we know what we're dealing with, this reminds us of an evolved version of the "remote wireless charging" feature that was touted in the Reva EV. Wei said that the reason the feature is optional is because Mercedes doesn't think most people will need it. Eighty-seven miles is plenty for your average EV driver, but when you want to have 100+ in the tank, you can.