The Continental: ESP Now Mandatory in Europe, and Some Tech News from Germany

Each week, our German correspondent slices and dices the latest rumblings, news, and quick-hit driving impressions from the other side of the pond. His byline may say Jens Meiners, but we simply call him . . . the Continental.

Mandatory nanny: In the EU, new cars with type approval awarded after November 1 must be equipped with a stability-control system. Cars that are already approved but don’t have ESP, such as the Land Rover Defender, get a brief pass: They can be sold without the nanny system for another three years, until November 1, 2014. Patented by supplier Robert Bosch in 1987, the system made its first appearance in the large Mercedes-Benz coupes eight years later. I assume most readers are familiar with it; the system is capable of braking each wheel individually to counter under- and oversteer. That’s good, and it arguably has reduced the number of severe accidents here. The annoying part is that the system doesn’t care whether you lost control of the car or merely wish to put it into a nice drift. Oversteer is killed off, and in many cars the stability control can’t be disabled, or only partly disabled. Cross these cars off my personal shopping list, please. And thanks, “Europe,” for the additional regulation.

The new BMW 3-series will be available with a head-up display, which is cool. I loved them on the late 1980s and early 1990s Nissans and GM vehicles, and was mystified by their disappearance. Having speed—and, nowadays, navigation directions—projected on the windscreen takes away a major distraction and allows you to keep your eyes on the road all the time. BMW’s 3-series uses a four-color projection, like the latest 5-, 6- and 7-series, and the X3. The fighter-jet aesthetics of the HUD are cool and contemporary, and they fit the new 3 well.

German car magazine Auto Bild reports that Mercedes-Benz will offer an ultra-lightweight derivative of the next-generation E-class, which—thanks to extensive use of carbon fiber—would tip the scales at almost 800 pounds less than its conventional, steel-bodied sister model. Sadly, those savings will be at least partly eaten up by the baggage that “alternative powertrains” bring with them, such as batteries and hydrogen tanks. Auto Bild further reports that Mercedes is considering a similar variation of the B-class, called—I am not kidding—”B clever.” And there could be another supercar positioned above the SLS AMG, with a carbon-fiber structure and highly contemporary design. Such a car would be a worthy successor of the C111 rotary-powered supercar, which almost made it into production in the early 1970s, before the oil crisis struck.

The fact that carmakers are seriously looking at weight reduction is great news. To me, Audi is a pioneer in this field, followed by Jaguar, with its fully aluminum structure and bodies. But cost has kept the technology confined to the luxury segment. As early as the mid-1990s, Audi had internally calculated the A6 as a fully aluminum car, like the A8, and then decided against it. It would have cost thousands more to produce.

Germany’s premium carmakers are struggling to create credible sub-brands for their “alterative propulsion” vehicles. Strictly speaking from a marketing point of view, BMW has done a superb job with its i sub-brand that will initially comprise of the i3 subcompact and i8 coupe (which is a plug-in hybrid, not an electric). It is not yet clear how much of the unique design language will be translated into the series-production models, but for now the products look convincing, and the “story” is coherent.

Audi’s e-tron seems a bit less ambitious, despite a number of very promising concept cars. But the first series-production models—the R8 e-tron and likely the A1 e-tron—are obvious derivatives of conventional Audis. Even less convincing—again, from a marketing point of view—is Daimler’s E-Cell and F-Cell strategy. Daimler has been talking about these vehicles for too long; there have been prototypes on the road for ages. There is an electric Smart, but Smart’s image has severely suffered in the past few years. Plus, the car has just about nothing in common with the SLS E-Cell, which describes the other end of the scale. Moreover, despite its share in the company, Daimler gets no kudos for the Tesla Model S, and good news about its Chinese cooperation partner BYD has become sparse. It would be undeserved if Daimler’s efforts on electric vehicles and fuel cells get drowned out, because, of the three premium carmakers in Germany, Daimler has arguably put the most consistent and sustained effort into alternative powertrains.

In an interview with German magazine Focus, Porsche CEO Matthias Müller restated his target to offer seven model ranges with a seven-year cycle, so that there is “great news” from Porsche every year. He claims that Porsche is serious about E-mobility, as evidenced by three Boxster E models (which are heavily subsidized by the government) currently roaming the Stuttgart area. Really? He also has this to say: “We will not see a breakthrough of this technology in the next five years.” An electric 911? “No experiments.” And here’s the real good news from Müller: “The E-hype will motivate further development of the internal-combustion engine.”