Blue Pearl 17" Alloy Wheels Moonroof 31k 3.0 V-6 Rwd One Owner Warranty Leather on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Hollywood stars drink hydrogen B-Class F-Cell emission water in Death Valley [UPDATE]

A plug-in electric vehicle can be used to power a house during a winter storm, but if you're more worried about the heat of, say, Death Valley, then maybe you'll want a Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell along. That's the message of a new video from Daimler and starring Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds) and Joshua Jackson (Fringe) that promotes the company's hydrogen-powered car. The gist? You can drink the tailpipe emissions. The two Hollywood stars drove in Death Vally without any water in their F-Cell but had a special tank hooked up to the tailpipe to collect the H2O drips as they drove in 100+ degree temperatures. There's a reason these two actors were chosen, since they've been driving an F-Cell in their daily lives for two years, according to the Diamler press release. The text is, shall we say, a bit hyperbolic - "Their lives rely on the emissions of the B-Class F-CELL" it says, totally ignoring the film crew that is obviously along for the ride and more than likely had a few bottles with them. Also, when the California Fuel Cell Partnership promoted the same idea a few years ago, it clarified that, "A fuel cell doesn't produce enough water to fill your glass. ... If fact, fuel cells produce about the same amount of water as gasoline vehicle – about 1/3 cup for a full day of driving." Thus, this whole thing is a Hollywood stunt, but it's a visually effective one. See for yourself in the mini-movie below. UPDATE: Daimler has told AutoblogGreen that there was no "extra Hollywood magic" needed for the water collected in the video. Instead, Madeleine Herdlitschka, who works at global communications for Mercedes-Benz Cars, said, "Considering the technical characteristics, the Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL emits about 9 kg of water vapor per kg of hydrogen while driving. The vehicle has a hydrogen capacity of about 3.7 kg, what is sufficient for a max. of about 400 km of range. A tailor-made construction, designed by the production company Markenfilm Crossing in cooperation with our fuel cell experts, made it possible to collect the water in a tank - previously cooling the vapor with a specially designed pipe system." This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Pre-Race notes from the 2015 Nurburgring 24-Hours

Autoblog has come to the German countryside to watch the Nurburgring 24-Hour race, and just one day in, we have to say it's outstanding. Le Mans has been the highlight of our summer racing schedule for the past few years, the 'Ring 24-Hour event being the appetizer we always skipped. Earlier this year, however, while visiting Miami to check out the Cigarette Racing 50 Marauder GT S, we met Scott Preacher. He oversees digital marketing for both Cigarette and AMG during the week, then comes to Germany to compete in the VLN race series on the weekends, driving an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 for Team Mathol. If Le Mans is the Oscars of endurance racing, the Nurburgring 24-Hour race is the Screen Actors Guild award – the one voted on by the actors, for the actors. In this case it's the race by the teams and fans, for the teams and fans, even though the increasing manufacturer presence has altered the team equation. We were told that it wasn't so long ago that true privateers could win the overall, but that's not really the case anymore. Front-running teams have heavy factory involvement – Audi Sport Team Phoenix, for instance, which finished in first and third last year, has its own 'Ring race center and is running the 2016 R8; Aston Martin is represented by Aston Martin Racing and Aston Martin Test Center, and Bentley has a Bentley Motors team and uses HPT to run another team. The fan component hasn't changed, though, and you can't talk about the race for more than 60 seconds before someone brings up the battalions of spectators. Every driver we spoke to cited them as the most incredible part of this race after the track itself. It feels to us like a giant German Sebring, with thousands of people camped out in the ginormous, forested infield, many of whom have been here since Monday erecting their ornate camping compounds. There will be parties everywhere Saturday night, and so much bratwurst on the grill that the drivers can smell it when as they're blasting full speed through Wehrseifen. Even when we drove a Mercedes S63 AMG Coupe on a lap before the race, the fans waved like it was a competition. Scott Preacher's Australian co-driver Robert Thompson said, "You come around a corner and it's like you're driving full speed through the middle of a carnival." The race field itself could also be called a carnival, with an officially invited field of more than 170 cars. Even on a track that's 24.4-km long, that's like racing on the 405 at midday.

Mercedes may be working on a new electric car dubbed 'Ecoluxe'

Automobile has a lengthy piece this month on how the four German mass-market luxury manufacturers each plan to go after Tesla with their own electric vehicles. It was written by Georg Kacher, the magazine's European bureau chief, and the English version came a month after he wrote the German-language original for Autobild. Tesla isn't exactly a threat to the Germans, but, according to the report, the Model S is planting the right kinds of seeds in niches that are important to the luxury players. The thinking is that - in addition to needed electric vehicles anyway for stricter US regulations - it's better to start designing the machinery now. The article posited Porsche's attack would rest on the coming Panamera platform, but a big hurdle would be battery placement. Unable to find one large space for a lithium-ion pack, engineers would instead put batteries everywhere they could, for a supposed tally of some "108 battery pouches" throughout the body. A few days after the Automobile piece, however, Porsche publicly said it had no intention of challenging the Model S, because the enthusiastic driving the brand is known for doesn't jive with useful range. In Kacher's retelling, Mercedes' plans are even more ambitious, supposedly taking aim at the Model S and the coming Model X. It would do this with an investment in excess of $2 billion in a program called "Ecoluxe" – Mercedes has no brand division akin to BMW's i and Audi's e-tron. The new brand would create a four-strong family of bespoke electric vehicles: a smaller platform with a wheelbase around 106 inches and a larger one with a wheelbase around 118 inches. In addition, the range would have "provisions for rear-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, and rear-wheel steering." The numbers are impressive: seating for seven in the larger vehicles, both longer than 16 feet, front and rear storage areas, ratings of up to 610 horsepower and production capacity of 80,000 units per year. When would we see such creatures? Perhaps as soon as 2019. We do know that if Tesla can knock the Model X over the outfield fence, automakers are going to have to do something. We don't know what the chances are that Ecoluxe is Mercedes' first move - but such a plan could help explain the weird Mercedes concept spied in October.