A Daimler source said the C- and E-class full hybrids will be launched in Europe before 2013 and an S-class plug-in hybrid will be launched in 2014—followed by releases in the U.S. about six months later.

Do these announcements of an imminent bright future for Mercedes hybrids sound familiar? That’s because Daimler comments about future hybrids date back at least seven years. In Feb. 2004, Automotive News reported that Daimler will produce hybrids “in the coming years.” At the time, Daimler CEO Deiter Zetsche sounded skeptical. “Although hybrids have been a roaring PR success, the jury is still out if they can be a practical, long-term business-case driven success,” Zetsche said.

Three years later, in Sept. 2007, Zetsche appeared more resolute (or you could save defensive). “We are no longer developing any cars without a hybrid option,” in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine. Following a year of roller-coaster gas prices and intensified environmental legislation, Automotive News reported in Jan. 2009 that Zetsche said Mercedes would “launch at least one new hybrid vehicle a year.”

How many future Mercedes vehicles will carry its hybrid badge?

In Aug. 2009, the company’s first hybrid, the Mercedes S400 mild hybrid, reported its first month of sales: 22 units. The $91,000 sedan has a combined city-highway mileage rating of 23 mpg. By October, Zetsche promised a hybrid version of each of Mercedes’s high-volume cars and a plug-in hybrid in 2012.

By the end of the year, the company had introduced its M-Class SUV hybrid. The Mercedes ML450 is only available for lease—either 36 or 60 months at $659 or $549 per month, respectively. Mercedes cited “limited supply of batteries” as the reason. Mercedes, just getting into the market, managed combined sales/leases of 601 units for the two vehicles for 2009.

Did the company pick up the pace in 2010, as it moved toward becoming a competitive hybrid brand? Not quite. With a few years of production and sales under its belt in 2010, Mercedes put fewer than 2,000 hybrids on U.S. roads— 955 of the S400 mild hybrid sedan and 766 of the ML450 hybrid SUV. Meanwhile, Toyota in 2010 sold more than 15,000 units of the Lexus RX 450h luxury hybrid SUV, and more than 10,000 units of the HS 250h hybrid sedan.

Therefore, when Daimler’s Kohler now talks about a leading position with alternative propulsion in premium, he must be referring to diesel. The company has four so-called “clean diesel” vehicles offered in the United States, and sold 7,558 of them in 2010. (To its credit, Mercedes is planning to shift high volume sales to the new 2012 Mercedes C250—its gas-powered four-cylinder model with direct injection and turbocharging—delivering combined mileage of 24 mpg.)

So, should we be encouraged by today’s announcement that Mercedes will have new hybrids, and that a plug-in hybrid is on the way? Sure. Every new consumer option for a vehicle with a more efficient hybrid drivetrain is a good thing. But until Daimler delivers these vehicles with even better improvements in fuel efficiency, at a competitive price, and in higher volumes, it looks like CEO Deiter Zetsche and his company are still in 2004 mode—seeing hybrids as a PR effort and not a long-term solid proposition.

The post Mercedes Latest Hybrid Announcements Are Déjà Vu Again appeared first on HybridCars.com.

The BMW ActiveHybrid X6 will sell for $89,725. The two-mode hybrid mates a 4.4-liter twin-turbo 400-horsepower V8 engine with two electric motors delivering 91 and 86 hp each. The ActiveHybrid is geared for performance, granting 0-60 speed of 5.5 seconds. The hybrid system means a 20 percent improvement over the standard X6—but that only adds up to 17 mpg in the city and 19 on the highway.

Standard features include 7-speed automatic transmission, leather interior, 20-inch aero wheels, rearview camera with top view and heads-up display.

The Mercedes-Benz ML 450 Hybrid shows slightly more deference to fuel economy, with its 3.5-liter, 275-horsepower V6 and two motors providing 335 horsepower. Mercedes says the ML 450 Hybrid will deliver fuel economy of 21 mpg in the city and 24 on the highway. That’s a nice boost compared to the V8 ML550, which rates 13/18—and roughly compares to the clean diesel Mercedes ML350 Bluetec rated at 18 mpg in the city and 25 mpg on the highway.

Curiously, the Mercedes ML 450 Hybrid will only be offered on a lease of $659 a month for 36 months, or $549 a month for 60 months. Mercedes USA spokesman Rob Moran said, “We are offering this vehicle as lease only due to a limited supply of batteries available. We felt a lease only program offered the best option for customers.” Reading between the lines, Mercedes has some concerns about maintaining or replacing the nickel metal hydride batteries in the future. The new Mercedes S400 Hybrid, which went on sale a few weeks ago, uses lithium ion batteries—a technology expected to supplant the current nickel-based hybrid batteries.

More than four years ago, Deiter Zetsche, Daimler CEO, was fending off criticism about his company’s sluggish plans for producing a hybrid gas-electric vehicle. He quipped, “As my wife often says, if you know you’re going to arrive a bit late to the dinner party, be sure you bring the best wine.” With the ML 450 Hybrid and the BMW ActiveHybrid X6, German carmakers have arrived to the hybrid party with keg-sized jugs of expensive stuff. Unfortunately, the most exciting green car party has already moved on to plug-in hybrids and electric cars with much greater potential to reduce fuel use and emissions.

The post German Hybrids Arrive, With Big Engines and Big Price Tags appeared first on HybridCars.com.

The Mercedes ML450 is only available for lease—either 36 or 60 months at $659 or $549 per month, respectively. Mercedes cited “limited supply of batteries” as the reason.

Mercedes-Benz has long been known for its diesels. In fact, it introduced the 260D, the world’s first passenger car powered by a diesel engine, back in 1936. But proud of its reputation for advanced technology in general, it has been hedging its bets with hybrids as well.

Gasoline, Or Diesel, Or Hybrid?

At the New York Auto Show in April 2009, it unveiled its latest hybrid project, the 2010 Mercedes-Benz ML450 Hybrid. It’s the latest expansion in its ML sport utility line, and it makes the ML the first vehicle in the world to offer gasoline, diesel, and hybrid alternatives.

The three drivetrains return a range of mileage figures. The all-wheel-drive ML350 with a standard gasoline engines gets 15 mpg city / 20 mpg highway, with larger V8 versions doing far worse. As for the green alternatives, the clean diesel ML320 BlueTec delivers 18 mpg city / 24 mpg highway, and now the ML450 Hybrid model tops the list, with 20 mpg city / 24 mpg highway.

The new ML model, built in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is fitted with the Two-Mode Hybrid system jointly developed by General Motors, Daimler, Chrysler, and BMW.

Bigger, Better Battery—And Cooler Too

The Mercedes-Benz version of the Two-Mode system combines a 275-horsepower, 3.5-liter V6 gasoline engine and two electric motors. Together, the complete powertrain delivers 335 horsepower and 381 foot-pounds of torque. But Mercedes-Benz has fitted its own, larger nickel-metal-hydride battery pack, which at 2.4 kilowatt-hours is almost half again as large as the packs used in GM’s various Two-Mode hybrids. And Benz uses liquid cooling to keep its pack healthy and the cells operating at best efficiency, complete with a “super chiller” to blast the pack with coolant when the electrical system is under stress—towing a trailer uphill in desert heat, for example.

None of those components comes cheap, though Mercedes-Benz may have more leeway to charge higher prices than more mass-market big SUVs like the Chevy Tahoe/GMC Yukon twins.

Like other hybrids, the Two-Mode can move the car at low speeds purely on electric power for short distances. But unlike “single-mode” full hybrids, including the archetypal Toyota Prius, the pair of electrical motors and several gear-sets also provide electrical assist to the gasoline engine at highway speeds—hence the name “Two-Mode.”

Externally, the only difference between the new Hybrid and other MLs is the grille and a slightly domed hood—to clear the power electronics, mounted up front on top of the engine. In an odd transposition, the company’s AMG tuning unit liked the looks of the humped hood so much that it is using that part on its high-performance versions of the ML as well.

During a test drive in Manhattan traffic and up the West Side Highway along the Hudson River, the ML450 Hybrid clearly distinguished itself from the GM Two-Mode sport utilities—even the posh Escalade version. Drivetrain noise is all but imperceptible, and the sound damping (known as NVH by auto engineers, for Noise-Vibration-Harshness) is exemplary.

In fact, most drivers might only figure out that this ML was a hybrid by the engine tone, which like most hybrids doesn’t rise in parallel with road speed. Instead, this hybrid and others sound like cars with continuously variable transmissions—which their hybrid systems simulate by shifting power among the modes and running the engine at its most efficient speeds, taking up the slack with the electric motors.

Simulating An Eight-Speed Automatic

Nonetheless, Benz is concerned that some ML owners might find it unpleasant to experience that disconnect between engine speed and road speed. So, the company developed a “Shift” mode that controls the engine to simulate the behavior of an eight-speed automatic transmission. According to hybrid control systems engineer Konstantin Neiss, using Shift mode imposes about a 3-percent penalty on fuel economy.

Unlike Japanese makers like Toyota and Honda, Mercedes-Benz is using hybrid technology to improve the mileage of its largest, heaviest vehicles—recognizing that upcoming gas-mileage regulations will hit its lineup disproportionately hard. With the diesel and hybrid ML variants competing head to head, industry analysts will eagerly be watching to see how much wealthy Mercedes-Benz buyers value various levels of mileage, whether hybrids prove more appealing than oil burners and, most importantly, at what price points. It should be a fascinating model year for Mercedes.

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