2009 Mercedes-Benz C-class BlueEfficiency

Every carmaker that wants to sell cars in Europe faces the serious business of cutting carbon dioxide emissions before European Union lawmakers enact stringent emissions laws - the proposed level is 120 grams of CO2 per kilometer - in 2012. Mercedes-Benz continues its push toward powerful yet efficient cars with a comprehensive package it calls BlueEfficiency to reduce emissions and lower fuel consumption by 12 percent in its C-class line.

With BlueEfficiency, M-B applies its prodigious engineering talents to improve weight reduction (lighter windshield and forged wheels), aerodynamic drag (a 7 percent better coefficient of 0.25), and rolling resistance. Direct injection also migrates from its exclusive use in the CLS- and E-class lines, to the bread-and-butter C-class in late 2008. M-B showed the new C350 CGI BlueEfficiency sedan (with spray-guided direct gas injection) at Geneva, a more powerful, torquier V-6 with 10 percent better fuel economy than the current C-class V-6.