It’s not just us. Rather predictably the automotive world is going eco mad. Frankly we’re not surprised. If making holes in the o-zone layer isn’t of a concern, having even your wealthy customers start to flinch when they fill up their Chelsea tractor will certainly shake car manufacturers out of apathy. Perhaps we’re being sceptical. Although you have to take notice when Mercedes announce that their new M-Class will be ‘efficient’. What next, an ‘efficient’ BMW X6? …Oh.

Perhaps the new ‘efficient’ M-Class isn’t so surprising when BMW are throwing the Efficient Dynamics slogan around like it’s been a brand value from day one.

To give credit to Mercedes-Benz, the new M-Class consumes 25% less fuel on average than the previous car. To go eco you’ll have to opt for the ‘BlueTEC 4MATIC, which has quite impressive emissions figures (158g CO2/km) for a car the size of a small bungalow. Mercedes claim that the M-Class will do 930 miles on a single tank of fuel, presumably that distance will drop dramatically when you adopt a more aggressive driving style.

There will be a range of engines: a 2.5ltr, a 3.0ltr and a 3.5ltr. The performance figures outside of eco land aren’t anything revolutionary but in a car like this, who cares. The 2.5ltr will take you from 0-62 in 9 seconds. As usual the styling is very much a personal preference. The front of the car looks a little less ‘box like’ (good) but back has a hint of B-Class (bad). Frankly equivalent Audi and Range Rover models are better looking machines.

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