What makes AMG tick, tock and Boom!

Inside the AMG GT 63 S E-Performance

Nishant Padhiar 16 May 2023 02:02 PM

Having experienced the latest missile from Affalterbach at the Buddh International Circuit, I was confident that the future of AMG is brighter than the sunburst orange shade of the GT63 S E-performance I was seated in. Built using F1 battery tech, with power figures that can make your knees knock against each other, this is the start of a whole new era for Mercedes-AMG. A period that straddles the transition between ICE and EV with a hybrid powertrain that is purpose-built to excite. 

843 horsepower and 1400Nm of torque are not numbers for the weak-hearted or a weak differential and this is where the E-performance technology comes in.

Chief Technology Officer of Mercedes-AMG, Jochen Hermann talks about the current AMG flagship sold in India and what makes it so special.

“On the front axle, you have the AMG V8; as you know, it's an all-wheel drive vehicle. But the real new part is on the rear axle where we have an electric drive unit with an additional 150 kilowatt but it's not just added on the back to the rear axle, but it's actually included in the all-wheel drive. So, what we can do, not only can we drive in an all-wheel drive with V8, so having torque and performance on the front and the rear axle, but we can do the same thing with the electric engine on the rear axle, so it doesn't only drive the rear axle, It also can drive the front axle. So basically, as you can imagine, here, we have an all-wheel drive V8 and we have an all-wheel drive electric, combined in one powertrain! If you think about it, all the possibilities that we have from a vehicle performance standpoint, what we can do with software, we can shift torque from one axle or actually from one wheel to another independently, we can drive fully electric and just by the numbers, ou can imagine how powerful this car is.”

The high-performance battery in the P3-hybrid system used in the AMG GT 63 S E-performance is a technology derived from Formula One. It uses cylindrical cells that are directly cooled to maintain the temperature of the battery cell itself at a very precise level. In this case, at a constant 45 degrees Celsius. Each single electrical battery cell is surrounded by liquid and is cooled completely by the entire cell itself. This allows the battery to be driven to the limit like a power hybrid. Usually, once the battery is drained out, it's very hard while driving to fill up that battery with energy again but that's completely different here. The GT 63 S E-performance harvests immense amounts of braking energy which is put back into the battery and that's the real benefit of this technology. 

“That technology is also used not only in our Formula One cars, but also in our hyper car, the AMG One so it's the same battery concept, cylindrical cells directly cooled, and you can see all these values here. So, one thing is the 150-kilowatt peak power, but really it is the 70-kilowatt continuous power that's very important because this is the only battery technology where you can have really high continuous power which is not only important for the efficiency but also very important for long term performance that you need on a racetrack, for example.So, going Electric is not a threat for AMG it's an opportunity to bring in experience to our customers that hasn't been able before an electrified powertrain.”

The AMG GT 63 S E-Peformance still hasn’t reached the hands of Stuff (India) for a test drive, but when it does, we shall bring you more details about this bleeding-edge powertrain tech and how it actually translates into the driving experience on our streets.