German Car Zone

Looks to be a study for the next B Class. Looks to be an electric/green car... It will be revealed at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show.















If someone could translate that would be great!

Mercedes-Studie Concept BlueZero - Die neue B-Klasse fährt elektrisch - Greencars - autobild.de

Lool thats so wierd looking..
Looks like a fish of some sort..
Like that bionic car MB made a while ago

the first mercedes you could mistaken for a bmw
otherwise, nice concept

The text says it’s the new B-Class, and that it also will feature an electrical motor, according to Thomas Wever, R&D boss of MB. In 2009, a fuel-cell B-Class will be released (an expensive small-series), one year later a full-electric. No price was given, but it won’t be cheap.

In 1997, with the first A-Class and its sandwich-floor, an electrical motor in this sandwich floor was already seen as a possibility. Now it’s becoming reality with this Blue-Zero Concept, presented in Detroit.

Three versions will be presented: all of them have an electric motor. One will be all-electric, another will add a fuel-cell to the electric motor, the last will add the 3-cylinder of the Smart to the electric motor to boost the autonomy and produce electricity (hybrid). They will be called the BlueZero E-Cell, F-Cell, E-Cell Plus.

The electric motor produces 100 KW maximum (70 KW normally) and 320NM of torque. Less than 11 seconds to 100 km/h, mx 150 km/h (to save energy).

But the car doesn’t spare anything other than the energy. 5 places, 500l of luggage space, Li-Ion batteries which are refrigerated, 200km autonomy for the all-electric model. Filling the batteries cost around 2,70€, with a capacity of 15,3 KW/h. 3 to 4 hours are needed to fill it on your conventional home-electricity.

The Fuel-Cell version has more autonomy, can be started easily even at -25° Celsius. Only the electric motor is used when parking the car, when accelerating both electric and fuel-cell motors are used like in an hybrid. Braking-energy is of course recuperated. The autonomy is 400kms, the problem is to find the Hydrogen..

The hybrid-model has the electric motor plus a 68hp Smart-3 cylinder petrol engine placed where the sparewheel usually is. When driving, this motor is re-charging the batteries, so the autonomy is 600kms. Average consumption, 4,5l of petrol every 100kms.

The electric cars sold in series will only come in 4 years, though…

Good ideas are worth it. Example, the Sandwich-concept of the A-Class… it is particularly adapted to electrical cars!

Interesting concept. A lot like the Bionic Car MB showed some times ago, like Artist said. It also features the transparent structure covering the rear whell, also seen on the F700.

Guess we may see this on a MB one day, it must be a good thing for the aerodynamism of the car.

I quite like it, but of course it's more the technology who is interesting. The design is typical B-Class, in modern. Not the kind of cars you can drool about, but not bad-looking either.


I think the article is a bit mistaken. it says this is the new B-Class. I think it's not true: I am pretty sure the next B-Class won't feature the Sandwich-Concept, but a conventionnal architecture shared with the new A-Class, to allow the C-Class motors to fit in them.

It is only the electric-versions of the B-Class who will have the Sandwich-Concept, and will in fact be modernized versions of the current B-Class and not based on the new A/B platform.

I could be wrong of course.

Anyway, t's a very interesting concept and the design is interesting too, very organic. The current B-Class can be recognized in this concept. Its design however is nothing like the newer, edgy Mercedes we saw recently!!!

I actually like it. What I really want is for them to do a 190E type sedan from this platform, a real little coupe and convertible. I guess this is still FWD though?


M

This is FWD.
But I read that the next A-Class will be way lower than today, because it won't have Sandwich-Concept any more. It will be more like the A3 than like the current A-Class. And a small roadster, FWD and based on the new platform, could see the daylight too.

It 's very BMWish.

Well it ain't going to win beauty contests, that's for sure... I think the design screams Citroen. Especially the rear.

Compared to the last Concept this is horrible…