2009 Mercedes-Benz BlueTech – Preview

June 26, Manchester, VT – I just spent a day driving a trio of SUVs from Mercedes-Benz featuring their new clean diesel technology called BlueTech. Let me correct that; I spent part of the day driving and the rest of the time scripting, filming and generally screwing up a video that I’ll share with you in the near future.
Mercedes-Benz chose Vermont to showcase their new BlueTech diesels in order to highlight that they are the first company to get EPA approval to sell their diesel vehicles in all 50 U.S. states. Vermont, along with CA, MA, NY, ME and OR, has more stringent emissions standards than the rest of the U.S. and as a result, car companies haven’t been able to sell diesel vehicles in those states. With BlueTech equipped vehicles, Merdeces-Benz meets and exceeds current and future emissions requirements not only in Vermont but in the rest of the country as well.
Blue What?
“BlueTech” is the somewhat awkward name for the technology that MB uses to make their new diesel engines powerful, efficient, quiet and virtually emissions-free. It consists of a turbo-diesel engine featuring common rail direct injection, a particulate filter and a exhaust treatment technology that pre-treats the exhaust with urea right before it enters the catalytic converter. The last step is the most significant because the urea, or AdBlue in Mercedes-speak, allows the catalytic converter to reduce the Nitrous Oxide in the exhaust to harmless nitrogen and water vapor. The result is extremely clean exhaust with none of the black soot that used to be equated with diesel engines. Watch the brief video below from Mercedes-Benz that explains it graphically.

As I mentioned above, I worked diligently yesterday with film crew to get our driving impressions and review on film. Once that is edited properly we’ll post it for your viewing pleasure. In the meantime, enjoy the photos of the ML 320 BlueTech courtesy Mercedes-Benz.