Wheels The Mercedes-Benz hybrid makes it a little easier being green. // By Mike Guy

wheels

Good Clean Fun

FOR 80 YEARS, MERCEDES-BENZ HAS BEEN PRODUCING EXQUISITE DRIVING MACHINES. THEIR FIRST FORAY INTO THE FUTURE—THE S400 HYBRID—IS A LOOKER, BUT DOES IT BRING THE FUN? // BY MIKE GUY

I’M A HORSEPOWER FIEND. I like an engine that growls, a V-8, a V-12—you name it, as long as it’s fast. I’m attracted to the evil contours of the Murcielago and the impossibly fast-looking missile that is the Mercedes-Benz SLS. As such, I’ve always regarded the responsible hybrid the same way a jock would his clarinetplaying little brother. He’s a dork, but you love him. (Of course, I don’t own a car, and I played the French horn in high school.)

So when I drove the 2011 Mercedes S400 Hybrid from Miami to Delray Beach, I was torn. The Benz is a masterful machine—smooth and powerful, with precise steering, a world-class interior, top-notch Bose sound system and (let’s face it) devilmay-care fuel mileage. It would seem somehow shameful to cut the engine in half and toss in a battery that weighs as much as a motorcycle.

But hybrids are the right thing to do. Lower emissions mean a more livable planet. Luckily, the S400 makes it easy. It’s the world’s fi rst mass-produced vehicle with a lithium-ion battery, which is half as heavy and carries twice as much charge as the nickel-metal hydride battery you’ll fi nd in the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Toyota Prius.

I merge into traffi c, and other luxury sedans crowd the road around me, but when I goose the throttle, the hybrid lunges forward, pinning me into the leather seat. I signal a turn and scream onto a sharp off -ramp. The S400 doesn’t fl inch. Suddenly that horsepower fi end in me wakes up. When I get to the Seagate Hotel in Delray, I check the fuel mileage on the dashboard computer: 31 miles per gallon. In a Mercedes! I hand the keys to valet, who says, “Mercedes makes a hybrid?” “Yeah,” I respond. “But you’d never know it.”

Executive editor MIKE GUY sees a bright future in lithium.

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1 Adaptive headlights detect oncoming traffi c and dim as cars go past.

Radar detects human shapes in front of the car and highlights them on a dashboard LCD.

Pre-Safe Brake warns the driver 2.6 seconds before an impact; at 0.6, the brakes lock.

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3 The 120-volt lithium-ion battery under the hood is no bigger than a shoebox.

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