If you’re the sort of person that thinks all Mercedes-AMG products should be saloons, coupes or estates equipped with eight cylinders and a constant roostertail of tyre smoke pouring from their posterior, we advise you to look away now.
Fresh from confirming that it’s working on a bespoke electric performance SUV, unrelated to any common-or-garden Mercedes, the Affalterbach-based performance division has released some shots of the car undergoing testing.
Yep, looks like… a big SUV. That’s about all we can tell for now because Merc’s done a rather good job of disguising the car. We can see evidence of the slightly frowny face previewed by 2022’s Vision AMG concept, itself a tease of the other standalone EV AMG is working on – a low-slung four-door fastback set to replace the current AMG GT 4 Door.
Both will sit on the new AMG.EA platform, specifically designed for high-performance applications. The electric makeup will include compact, power-dense axial-flux motors and a new high-voltage battery designed specifically for performance applications.
Mercedes-AMG four-door EV prototype
Mercedes-AMG chairman Michael Schiebe said: “SUVs have been among our most popular models for many years. With the ‘Born in Affalterbach’ SUV, we are responding to this trend by offering our customers a truly captivating high-performance off-roader based on the AMG.EA platform. Our new high-performance architecture follows a clear philosophy: ‘AMG First, EV Second’.”
It may have these bespoke EVs in the works, but AMG isn’t totally done with its bread-and-butter V8s. Following the largely flat reception of the new four-pot hybrid C63, the upcoming CLE 63 coupe is widely expected to make a move back to pure V8 power. That’s despite Schiebe recently saying that AMG customers have traditionally been drawn to the brand for its technology, not its big engines.
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