Driving the Future – The Best of Both Worlds

Authors

Ola Källenius, Member of the Board of Management, Group Research & Mercedes-Benz Cars Development, Daimler AG, Stuttgart

Year

2018

Print Info

Fortschritt-Berichte VDI, Series 12, No 807

Summary

The automotive industry is departing to an ever greater extent from its established paths. For Mercedes-Benz, this means becoming stronger with its traditional technologies and, at the same time, accelerating its efforts to conceive new drive systems. By 2025, electric drives should make up as much as 25% of total car sales. The much larger part will consist of high-tech diesel and advanced gasoline engines. Alternative drive systems will also have to be financed partly from the revenues from the successful sales of these engines. Diesel engines will continue to remain a vital element in drive technology – the current generation of OM654 engines with innovative exhaust gas after-treatment has NOx emissions of 40 to 50 mg/km in continuous RDE operation, covering many thousands of kilometres – and the Group’s internal development goal is 20 mg/km. Mercedes-Benz is renewing its internal combustion engine range by gradually electrifying its drivetrains. These highly electrified engines are designated as EQ boost. The new in-line six-cylinder M 256 gasoline engine has a 48 volt on-board network, an intelligent super-charging system with an additional electric compressor and an integrated starter-generator (ISG). With this configuration, the engine provides the same performance as an eight-cylinder engine but requires much less fuel. Another approach to electrification is designated as EQ power and comprises plug-in hybrids with higher output and ranges – both for gasoline and diesel engines. In addition, the Company plans to roll out performance-oriented electrification called EQ POWER+ for serial production. For all-electric vehicles, Mercedes-Benz launched a new brand: EQ. EQ is the acronym for electric intelligence. The EQ bandwidth ranges from compact to luxury vehicles. Mercedes-Benz will invest approximately 10 billion Euros in its EQ product offensive in the coming years.