World renowned premium automobile manufacturer Mercedes Benz is planning to instil a plethora of new technologies to meet the new demands of the automobile legislations of Europe. The company will try to manufacture new engines with a better performance, electric vehicles, which cause lesser emissions and plug-in hybrids in the next couple of years.
The main focus on the engine is on the basis of improved performance and efficiency. Downsizing the capacity of the engine will combat the frictional losses. The all-new V8 Mercedes-AMG GT engine as well as C63 is an example of this type of engine approach.
The capacity of the engine has been reduced hugely from 6.3 litres to 4 litres. This has been done introducing twin turbo cylinders to maintain or sometimes even boost the power. Also, the brand has introduced the new Nanoslide technology, which has increased the efficiency of the engine by almost 30 per cent. As a result of the turbocharging, the engine is capable to produce more torque at a reduced speed. Also, due to lesser activity by the engine, the motor friction is less, thus causing a lesser dissipation of energy.
Thomas Weber, the group board member of Mercedes Benz, said, “Even in lane one, we will see mild hybrids using belt-driven starter-generators or crankshaft integrated starter-generators. In lane two we will have the premium plug-in hybrids and by 2017 we will launch 10 plug-in hybrids. The third lane will be zero-emissions vehicles powered by batteries or fuel cells. By 2020, we expect the energy density of battery technology to have doubled and the cost halved. Without any other changes being made, the range of the B-Class Electric Drive could increase to 185 or 250 miles. Lithium sulphur will be the next step after lithium ion, followed perhaps by lithium air. Lithium sulphur is comparable to lithium ion but lithium air will be a completely different world.”
