2010 Mercedes-benz Ml350 on 2040-cars

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Recharge Wrap-up: Toyota FCV Rally Car To Compete, Barra bullish on Chevy Volt

The Toyota FCV will compete in the last stage of the 2014 Japanese Rally Championship. The sport-tuned hydrogen-powered car will tackle the 177-mile Shinshiro Rally on November 1 and 2, emitting no greenhouse gases in the process. The rally course will help prove the safety of the vehicle before it goes on sale in Japan in the next several months. The Toyota FCV, rumored to be called "Mirai" in Japan, will begin sales there before April, according to Toyota, and in the summer in the US and Europe. Read more in the press release below. Carsharing is becoming more popular, and more visible, throughout the world, including the US. According to WardsAuto columnist John McElroy, 18 percent of US drivers have used some sort of carsharing service. Additionally, he says 60 percent of Americans are familiar with Zipcar and Uber. Mercedes' Harald Kroeger says promotions like free parking for carshares in Stuttgart are encouraging growth for Daimler's carsharing service, Car2go. Read more at WardsAuto. Ethanol is being help up by rail transport, according to ethanol producer Green Plains. More and more stations are carrying E15 blend gasoline, but grain producers have complained that crude oil is given higher priority by the rail lines shipping it, which rail companies deny. Union Pacific and BNSF Railway say they are stepping up service to make sure that ethanol can be shipped reliably to customers. Read more at Omaha World-Herald. General Motors "has placed a significant bet [on] the electrification of the automobile," says CEO Mary Barra. In a speech to the Detroit Economic Club this week, she spoke about the Chevrolet Volt, and its importance to GM's future. While Barra admits the Volt's success has been "not everything we wanted," it has provided experience, and shows that EVs have "an important role in the future of GM." The new Volt is more refined, stores more energy, has longer range, uses less fuel and is a big investment for Michigan. She announced that the new Volt's electric drive system will be built in Warren, and that all of its major components will be made in Michigan. "Silicon Valley doesn't have a corner on the market for innovation, creativity and drive," says Barra. "These qualities exist here – in this region – as well." See the speech's highlight video and read more in the transcript below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Mercedes-AMG celebrates F1 dominance with special A45

Mercedes-AMG is celebrating its second straight Formula One World Championship with a special edition hot hatch based on the A45 AMG. The Mercedes-AMG Petronas 2015 World Champion Edition is available in three shades of gray or silver offset by teal and black accents inspired by the Silver Arrows livery. The aero kit is also upgraded with a new front splitter and rear roof spoiler. Inside, it comes standard with sports seats in leather and microfiber, and both Mercedes' Night and Dynamic Plus packages are standard. There's also special trim and and badging, and it all runs on unique 19-inch wheels. The 2.0-liter turbo four carries over with 381 horsepower, as introduced in the recently upgraded A45. That's more muscle than even the Focus RS, but unlike the Ford, this Mercedes isn't offered stateside. Here we have to suffice with the GLA45 crossover and CLA45 sedan, which pack the same engine, but different body styles. The 65,402.40-euro ($69,216.34) asking price may seem like a lot for an A-Class, but it's considerably more accessible than the special-edition SL63 roadsters with which the German team celebrated last year. This is the second year running that Mercedes took both the drivers' and constructors' championships in F1, with Lewis Hamilton re-crowned champion and Nico Rosberg coming in second. Out of 18 rounds already held, Mercedes won 15, with one race still to go. If it wins this weekend in Abu Dhabi, it will match its run from last year, when it took 16 out of 19 grand prix victories. Exclusive A-Class marks victory in the constructors' and drivers' world championship: Mercedes-AMG celebrates Formula 1 world championship title with special edition of the Mercedes-AMG A 45 4MATIC Affalterbach, Nov 26, 2015 Affalterbach. It doesn't get any better: with victory in the constructors' world championship as well as the drivers' championship plus runner-up titles clocked up by Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team has achieved the ultimate in motorsport's champion's league in 2015. To mark the end of the season Mercedes-AMG is celebrating this outstanding team achievement with an exclusive special model: the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS 2015 World Champion Edition of the A 45 4MATIC blends the expressive Formula 1 look of the victorious Silver Arrows with particularly extensive and unique equipment.

Mercedes rules out hybrid supercar, promises SLS successor

The recent Geneva Motor Show was a festival of hypercars, with the presence of not one, but three over-the-top debuts: the Lamborghini Veneno, McLaren P1 and Ferrari LeFerrari. The latter two have hitched their carbon fiber bumpers to the electrification bandwagon by using hybrid-electric powertrains not entirely unlike the propulsion systems we've come to know in cars like the Toyota Prius and Chevrolet Volt. Does that mean the flow of electrons up the four-wheeled food chain will eventually consume our hallowed supercars? Not if AMG has anything to say about it.
AMG Director of Vehicle Development Tobias Moers recently confirmed that not only will there be a successor to the Mercedes-Benz performance division's SLS AMG, he notes that its internal combustion engine will most definitely not be sharing living quarters with an electric drivetrain. Instead, AMG plans to focus on further pushing the power and efficiency envelope of the internal combustion engine and advancing the use of lightweight materials to achieve their goals. The first example of this effort can be seen in the new SLS AMG Black Series that incorporates many weight-saving techniques to shed some 154 pounds from the SLS AMG GT (above), which itself is lighter than the standard SLS AMG.
Furthermore, Moers remarks that his company is happy to leave the hypercar segment to companies like Ferrari and McLaren. He admits that, "Ferrari in the hyper-car segment is still a different brand than AMG. We have to be honest..." So rather than taking the SLS further upmarket to do battle with bulls and stallions, Moers hinted that the next-generation SLS may be joined by another performance model that fits neatly between itself and the C63 AMG.