The withdrawal of the Mercedes models with a V8 engine in the United States is not a coincidence, but the star brand already warned of cuts long ago. The reality is that the star brand has confirmed its radical transformation into an electric brand in 2030, for which it needs to comply with the demanding global emissions standards, especially Euro 7.
The Euro 7 emissions standard will come into force in 2026. By then, the average CO2 emission limits will be a lot stricter, down practically to the level of plug-in hybrids. A measure to force manufacturers to abandon combustion and its transformation into brands of electric cars, or hybrids. Mercedes has already announced that its model range will be zero emissions in 2030, but until then it will exhaust as much combustion models as possible.
And it is that the manufacturer himself has pointed it out, pointing out that the they will continue to sell as long as customers demand them. Of course, without developing new engines of gasoline or diesel to comply with the Euro 7 standard, more restrictive than the American one. This is the main reason why V8 models have disappeared from the market on the other side of the Atlantic, as the firm works with several open technological fronts to reduce CO2 emissions to the maximum.
Markus Schäfe has pointed out that “We will reduce the number of versions, going through Euro 7, by approximately 50%. With the future AMG C 63 we will be switching from a V8 to a plug-in hybrid four-cylinder, so the transformation is about to begin. ” However, there is no doubt that it is a very radical decision to withdraw the offer of the V8, since it is not exempt from losing money, because the orders already placed have also been put in the same bag and it is unknown when they will be delivered.
Despite eliminating versions, it remains to be resolved how the brand will reduce the figures in which they remain for sale. The “European Consortium for Ultra Low Emission Cars”, a body of the European Commission, has given some brushstrokes of the technologies that can be equipped, specifically pointing out the multi-stage super-catalysts, which do not specify for what type of fuel in particular but points to diesel with several AdBlue injections.
At the same time, for gasoline engines a heated electric catalyst, dual three-way catalysts, a particulate filter and an ammonia slip catalyst. None of them sound cheap, precisely, although the first one does sound much more to us. It is one of the gas purification systems that has been mounted on the new Mercedes-AMG ONE, the plug-in hybrid hypercar.