BMW 7 Series sips fuel like small car
June 22, 2009 by David Twomey
German importer BMW reckons its latest entrant into the luxury sedan market can challenge many small cars when it comes to fuel efficiency.
The company says that buyers of BMW’s new 730d luxury sedan, which goes on sale this month, will benefit from fuel consumption that is identical to many small four-cylinder sedans and hatchbacks.
In a pioneering breakthrough, the 730d also becomes the first, and only, car in the upper luxury sedan segment to emit less than 200 grams of CO2 per kilometre, the actual figure is 192g/km.
BMW says this puts it ahead of hybrid and other diesel competitors in the segment, which all use more fuel and emit greater volumes of CO2.
“Buyers of large premium sedans can now make an even greater contribution to lowering CO2 emissions thanks to the arrival of the new 730d,” said BMW’s general manager of marketing, Tom Noble.
BMW says the new 730d consumes no more fuel, on the official combined cycle, than much smaller four-cylinder cars such as the manual, 1.8-litre, Holden Astra CD, the manual, 1.6-litre, Skoda Roomster, or the automatic, 1.8-litre, Honda Civic VTi.
The 730d’s official combined fuel usage, 7.2 litres per 100 kilometres, is also identical to smaller cars such as the 2.0-litre, Mercedes-Benz A200 and 1.8-litre, multitronic, Audi A4 1.8 TFSI.
“It’s not often a luxurious five-seater sedan is compared with smaller four-cylinder cars, but in terms of fuel consumption the 730d demonstrates the remarkable achievement of BMW’s EfficientDynamics programme,” said Mr Noble.
The diesel-powered 7 Series, the first ever offered in Australia, also delivers a credible alternative to less fuel-efficient hybrid-powered vehicles in the upper luxury segment, which BMW says consume almost 30 per cent more fuel than the 730d.
The brand new turbocharged all-alloy straight six-cylinder engine in the 730d produces 180kW of power and 540Nm of torque, accelerating the car from 0-100 km/h in just 7.2 seconds.
In addition it complies with the most stringent Euro5 European emissions legislation.
Standard equipment levels of the new BMW 730d are the same as the recently released 740i, including features such as Head Up Display, rear view camera, metallic paint, 18-inch light-alloy wheels, Dynamic Driving Control and Brake Energy Regeneration.
The 730d will be launched to the Australian motoring media later this week and CarAdvice will, naturally, be there to bring you our first impressions of this new vehicle.
Print it: 
HOT TIP #1: People who buy these cars DONT care about fuel economy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At least it looks better then the out going 7-series. Well at the front anyway. I’m not really fond of the rear, even the tailight is a bit off puting.
BMW 7 series looks great. Performance is just as great. The only problem with this is it’s expensive. Only a few can buy this car and I’m sure gas for them is not an issue.
Nice, comparing diesel saloons and petrol hatches… why do we care?
OK it does not use much fuel to drive.
How much CO2 was created to MAKE IT?
BMWs have lots of hands on extra finishing and bells and whistles which are very energy intensive.
You will not save the planet by buying this car.
Crouchy, yep…that is why so many E Class diesels are sold these days. Open your eyes, diesel will be the way of the future in the short term at least. They readily offer benefits that ULP just cannot compete with.
the new 7-Series looks absolutely sensational! i LOVE it!
Will, you are correct Diesels are the best way to reduce CO2 BUT you cannot convert all crude oil to Diesel.
So Diesel is only part of the answer.
In this story it is said;
“In a pioneering breakthrough, the 730d also becomes the first, and only, car in the upper luxury sedan segment to emit less than 200 grams of CO2 per kilometre, the actual figure is 192g/km”.
Now the funny thing is in the story previously about the Jaguar XF Diesel S package it was stated;
“It shouldn’t be that hard, as the factory data for the XF Diesel S quotes combined fuel economy of 6.8 litres per 100 kilometres with CO2 emissions at a ridiculously low 179 grams per kilometre”.
I like to see CA compare these two vehicles and not just on economy.
Excellent Idea Frenchie. I’d suggest the BMW 730D is really a large car, whereas the Jaguar XFS is internally at least medium / large. Other than that I’d say it would be a fantastic idea to run a comparitive analysis, nothwithstanding the considerable price difference, I’d speculate the Jaguar would come out on top.
Its the “IT” car of the moment IMO, with serious performance and economy, two things that simply havn’t really gone together in quite such a manner before.
1 awesome fuel consumption
2 Good looking compared to previous gen
3 drives like a BMW should
4 I really love the techno interior
5 i really want one !!
ahhh thats nice to hear about the fuel economy figures, but seriously, if people were that concerned about fuel economy and running costs, they’d buy a hyundai getz for less than $15k and use the savings of forgoing purchase of the 7 series to finance fuel costs for the rest of the cars running life.
but still very nice car and great engineering