Three years from now, an EV that looks very much like this sleek four-door coupe concept will be launched by Mercedes-AMG. Called Vision AMG, the design study was officially revealed overnight.
“That car previews the next-generation, fully-electric future of AMG,” said Mercedes-Benz design chief Gorden Wagener at a special sneak peek for media last weekend.
The production version of the Vision AMG will be a rival for the Porsche Taycan, offering a similar blend of size, shapeliness and speed.
It will be based on a purpose-designed EV platform. Called AMG.EA, it was one of four all-new vehicle architectures announced last year by Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kallenius. In a recent interview he confirmed the first car to use AMG.EA would be ready in late 2025.
Mercedes-AMG chief technical officer Jochen Hermann hinted that something like the Vision AMG was coming in an interview with EV Central in September 2021. He indicated the then top secret AMG.EA-based car would somehow replace both the brand’s top models, the two-seat GT sports car and the GT 4-Door coupe, the latter of which is now available as the Mercedes-AMG GT63 S E Performance plug-in hybrid.
The Vision AMG is basically an exterior design study. The show car has no interior. And it lacks everything needed to make a car go, stop and steer. But Hermann, in the same interview mentioned earlier, was prepared to discuss some of the innovative EV technologies the planned AMG.EA-based car will have.
Count on battery cell chemistry similar to that in the hybrid powertrain of Mercedes-AMG’s F1 car being one. The new GT63 S E Performance plug-in hybrid, the big four-door coupe that’s the most powerful road car the company has ever made, already has a motorsport-inspired battery pack. It stores only 5kWh, but there’s no reason the power-dense and liquid-cooled design couldn’t be scaled up to EV size.
The production version of the Vision AMG will use axial-flux electric motors designed by small UK-based outfit Yasa. Mercedes-Benz bought the company last year. These powerful pancake-shaped motors, already used in Ferrari’s SF90 Stradale and 296 GTB hybrids, are perfect for AMG, according to Hermann. “This is the technology that would really be something valid for an AMG performance car,” he said.
The overall shape of Vision AMG echoes the low-drag silhouette of the EQXX. This fully functional concept car is incredibly aerodynamic. Its co-efficient of drag is just 0.17, way better than the production car record-setting EQS with its Cd of 0.20.
The EQXX recently completed a 1000km trip from Germany to France, at an average speed of nearly 90km/h, without recharging. As AMG’s engineers know, aerodynamic efficiency boosts performance as well as range.
Some design details of the Vision AMG are sure to appear on the production car. These include daytime running lights that imitate Mercedes-Benz’s three-pointed star, vertical light bars to evoke AMG’s trademark Panamera grille, and low-mounted tail-lights designed to resemble glowing exhaust pipe tips.
And there will be a huge new AMG logo on the tail, to make sure no-one will have any doubts about what has just overtaken them.