Mercedes-Benz, never one to rest on its laurels, has come up with more upgrades for its recently-revised E-Class sedans, most notably a nine-speed automatic transmission.
The new 9G-Tronic 'box is now the only transmission available in the E350 BlueTec V6, where it replaces the previous seven-speeder.
The new transmission must be a slick shifter indeed - despite having to make more gear-changes (and remember, while the 'box is between gears the engine is not driving the wheels) the nine-speed E350 is credited with the same 0-100km/h sprint time: 6.6 seconds.
However, thanks to a wider spread of ratios and the inclusion of an idle-stop function, Mercedes-Benz says average fuel consumption is down from 5.5 to 5.3 litres per 100km, with a corresponding reduction in CO2 emissions from 144 to 138g/km.
What Stuttgart's media bumf doesn't say is how much more the two extra ratios are going to cost the customer.
NO MORE E220 MANUAL
At the same time Mercedes-Benz has dropped the six-speed manual gearbox from the E220 BlueEfficiency Edition in favour of the 7G-Tronic (how's that for parts-bin engineering!) and claims to have reduced average fuel consumption from 4.7 to 4.4 litres per 100km, and CO2 emissions from 132 to 114g/km - which, the maker says, makes the revised E220 Euro 6 compliant.
Sorry, gentlemen, but we'll take those figures under advisement until we've driven one.
In another inspired bit of mix-'n-match, the Stuttgart whitecoats have also dropped the two-litre, turbocharged, natural gas-powered four from the B200 NGD into an E-Class chassis to create the E200 NGD - which makes sense in markets where natural gas is readily available.
Tuned for a conservative 115kW and 269Nm, it'll push the E-Class from 0-100km/h in a leisurely 10.4 seconds, at average cost of 4.3kg of LNG per 100km, the equivalent of 6.3 litres of petrol per 100km.