Put on a pair of sunglasses and feast your eyes on the most powerful street-legal, luxury vehicle ever made by Mercedes-Benz and its performance studio AMG.
Ready to have your mind blown? It's powered by electricity...and we don't mean partially powered by electricity like a hybrid, or deriving electricity from hydrogen like a fuel-cell vehicle. We mean it's got a big battery and electric motors.
Four of these motors, to be precise, produce a time-warping 740 horsepower and 737 lb-ft of torque. With all that juice on board, the SLS AMG Electric Drive can reach 62 miles per hour from a standstill in just 3.9 seconds – barely a third of a second slower than the conventionally-powered SLS AMG GT on which it is based. You might need to plan your Sunday drive in advance though, as the electric supercar takes 20 hours to charge its 60 kWh battery from an ordinary wall socket, though a custom charging unit can take that down to a mere three-hour quick charge.
While the 563-horsepower, 6.2-liter V8 engine from the “regular” SLS AMG may be gone (replaced by the four electric motors), the rest is essentially the same. That means two well-bolstered seats in an enveloping cockpit accessed by a pair of Gullwing doors, just like the original 300 SL from which the SLS draws its inspiration.
What's more is that this isn't some concept car or developmental prototype. Mercedes will offer the SLS Electric Drive to anyone who has the half-million to pony up for it. (Pending local regulatory approval, of course.) The German automaker may even be willing to paint yours a different color from the eye-catching blue chrome used for the show car.
