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Mercedes-Benz E400 vs BMW 540i

What's the difference?

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Mercedes-Benz E400
Mercedes-Benz E400

$59,994 - $85,868

2018 price

BMW 540i
BMW 540i

$49,799 - $84,950

2017 price

Summary

2018 Mercedes-Benz E400
2017 BMW 540i
Safety Rating

Engine Type
Turbo 4, 2.0L

Turbo 6, 3.0L
Fuel Type
-

Premium Unleaded Petrol
Fuel Efficiency
7.4L/100km (combined)

7.7L/100km (combined)
Seating
4

5
Dislikes
  • Can feel a little bland
  • Doors are super heavy
  • Far from cheap

  • Softer than petrol-powered sibling
  • Boot smaller due to batteries
  • Hard to match fuel claims in real world
2018 Mercedes-Benz E400 Summary

It is hard to immediately think of a country more suited to the convertible life than Australia. Even our coldest states (you know who you are…) are blessed with more warming sun than almost anywhere else on the civilised parts of the planet, so you’d think we’d be swanning about in dropped-top bliss almost year round.

But it’s actually in the UK (despite being cold, grey and almost always underwater) that convertibles really fly out of dealerships, with sun-starved Brits buying more than anyone else in the world. Weird, right?

Still, here they remain something of an oddity, sold in small numbers to drop-top diehards. At least partly because the convertibles of old were almost always slightly worse than their hardtop equivalents. 

But Mercedes - which makes more convertibles than most - claims to have mastered the soft-top formula with the E400 4Matic, a car it says offers all the perks of open-air motoring without any of the dynamic or practical downsides. 

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2017 BMW 540i Summary

Eco-friendly vehicles are the leather pants of the new-car world; it takes a lot of money to make them look good (but people who own them think they look fantastic regardless). If you don't have a gazillion dollars to drop on a Tesla,  then it's a one-way ticket to Prius town. And really, who wants that? 

But what if it didn't have to be that way? Behold the BMW 530e iPerformance.

Seemingly tired of waiting for the Australian Government to introduce any sort of meaningful subsidy for green cars, BMW has made the choice simple: you can have a petrol-powered 530i for $108,900, or opt for the plug-in hybrid 530e for... $108,900. This is truly revelatory thinking.

There's no specification penalty, either, and the hybrid will power to 100km/h in an identical 6.2 seconds, so you're not even any slower. But you are sipping less fuel, emitting less C02 and basking in the general smugness, and sweet silence, that comes with feeling like you're saving the world.

So what's the catch?

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Deep dive comparison

2018 Mercedes-Benz E400 2017 BMW 540i

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