Our friends over at The Diesel Driver venture to BMW Plant Leipzig in a five-door hatch. What the 120d offers up is 177hp from the spark-less engine which is ample for Autobahn style cruising and achieved 52 mpg.Here is a small bit of their experience driving one of BMWs most popular offerings in Germany, be sure to read the entire story here.

“The drive from Munich to Leipzig is ca. 425 km and the route takes us on the Autobahn A9 for all but 20 km of the route. Our 120d came in an elegant space grey metallic with business navigation and multiple BMW EfficientDynamics fuel-saving options including regenerative braking and auto start-stop. Regenerative braking recovers energy that would normally be wasted as heat through the brakes and the start-stop technology turns the engine off to avoid unnecessary idling when stopped.

The 120d’s engine puts out 177 hp (130 kW) with a combined fuel economy rating of 4.7 l / 100 km (~ 42 mpg in the EU test cycle. The EU test cycle has three components: city or urban driving (the first 800 seconds of the test), highway or extra urban driving (the next 400 seconds), and combined (the complete cycle).
On a 300-km stretch with an average cruising speed of 120 km/h (75 mph), the 120d only used 4.5 l / 100 km or 52 mpg.”