The 335d does this by combining sports-car acceleration with exemplary fuel economy, and then adding in comfort and attention to detail.  Indeed, this very combination may be the forerunner of a new breed of luxury-performance sedans.

The 3er Series was first introduced in 1975 as the successor to the 2002, the car that first defined the sports sedan.  Since then, the BMW 3er Series has continued to define this genre and it is the car that other car makers try to emulate.

The 3er doesn’t attempt to pamper the driver and passengers; instead, it focuses on a driving experience that is unlike any other.  One can recognize a 3er Series driver: he’s the one who is grinning from ear to ear after every trip.  The 335d driver is grinning even more as he knows how much fuel he saving with every trip.

The 335d was launched in the U.S. in 2009 as a four-door sedan in conjunction with a mild redesign of that body style. As a result, the 3er Series sedan bears a much stronger familial resemblance to the new 5er and 7er Series sedans.  The front looks wider and sports new headlights and a bolder bumper/spoiler. More prominent longitudinal hood lines frame the hood’s power dome. New taillights and a more pronounced character line complete the look.

The 335d’s three-liter six-cylinder inline twin-turbo diesel engine with common-rail, high-pressure direct fuel injection with piezo injectors and two-stage turbo charging produces 265 hp and an incredible 425 pound-feet of torque. To put the car’s power into perspective, the M3 generates a mere 295 pound-feet of torque.  There’s so much torque that BMW had to use electronics to keep the rear tires from spinning out of control.

BMW designed the 335d’s turbocharger system to negate turbo lag by using one fast-and-small turbocharger for initial acceleration with a second, larger turbo that takes over as engine speed rises. As a result, there is no noticeable turbo lag.

The BMW 335d is also the most fuel-efficient cars BMW of North America has ever sold and can travel almost 40% farther on a tank of fuel than its gasoline-powered sibling.   I’ve gone several weeks without having to fill the tank and I could drive from New York to Washington, D.C. and back (round trip 750 km or 466 miles) without having to stop to refuel.

So after three months and several thousand kilometers (keep in mind that the car spent a month in transit getting from Munich to New York), how does it drive?  Suffice it to say that the 335d is the most sought-after car at The Diesel Driver and the driving experience combined with fuel economy is simply unparalleled. Click here to continue to page 2.

Without much fanfare, BMW has added geotagging and social networking capabilities to its cars that allows drivers to geotag their location with a few clicks in iDrive and share it with friends via e-mail.  If a route has been entered into the car’s navigation system, the destination will be sent in the same e-mail.

This is the second update to BMW’s online services functionality within a week.  [A few days earlier,  BMW added real-time news from CNN and other sources.]  According to Henning Schlieker, BMW’s telematics marketing manager, BMW is able to easily add new functionality because the system is server based.  BMW’s online services, he promises, “will get better and better.”

To send one’s location, the driver merely clicks on “Send to Mail” in iDrive and enters a new e-mail address.  The five most recently used addresses are also stored and can be used as well.

The recipient receives an e-mail from BMW with clickable links to Google Maps for the current location or geotag as well as the destination (if navigation is active).

Geotagging adds geographical identification, such as latitude and longitude coordinates, to information or media.  It can be used to help users obtain location-specific information and find location-based news or services.  When social networking tools are combined with geotagging, leading to geosocial networking, new social dynamics can be enabled, ranging from helping a group of people meet in person to planning the location of an activity.

You could also e-mail the location of a location you wish to return to or even make note of a pothole that needs to be reported.

In more practical terms, this is an easy way to update friends and family on the progress of your trip or even to remember the location of a parking spot.

See our exclusive video for a full demonstration.

BMW Assist is standard for four years on most models including the 5er, 6er, and 7er Series and optional on other models.  BMW Assist information services including Send to Mail and News require the new CIC (Car Infotainment Computer) iDrive system.  The Convenience Plan (required for information services) costs an additional $199 per year.

Back in 2008, BMW became the first automaker to allow drivers to send destination information directly from Google Maps to their car and is the only automobile manufacturer that offers Google local search in the vehicle.

This week BMW quietly added a real-time news feed to its online services portfolio.

Drivers now have access to the latest reports from CNN, covering general and world news, business news, sports coverage, news from the entertainment world, and the latest news from BMW.   While drivers in Europe have had access to news through BMW Online for several years (and unlimited access to the Web in Germany),  information services in the United States have been limited to weather, stock market indices, and fuel prices until now.

Each news article is only a couple of sentences and the car can read news to the driver using sophisticated text-to-speech technology which sounded quite good in our tests.

See our exclusive video for a full demonstration.

BMW Assist is standard for four years on most models including the 5er, 6er, and 7er Series and optional on other models.  The Convenience Plan (required for information services) costs an additional $199 per year.  The speech-to-text feature is available in cars manufactured starting in September 2009.