There’s no denying that electrification is inevitable, and Mercedes as a company has already embraced that concept. Recent evidence includes the new Mercedes C-Class that will only be sold as a four-cylinder, mild-hybrid, including the range-topping AMG C63E, of all things. More recently, AMG has confirmed that it’s working on a high-performance EV while Mercedes as a company has said that it will let the ICE live on until it dies a natural death. Now, Mercedes has released a short video to remind us that it’s been in the EV game for a lot longer, with the star of the video being none other than the Mercedes SLS Electric Drive.

The Mercedes SLS Electric Drive – A Car Ahead of Its Time

In the video that I’ve embedded below, Mercedes refers to the old SLS Electric Drive as “the most electric supercar” and, at the time of its production back in the early 2010s, it really was. The SLS Electric drive featured a 60 kWh battery, which was kind of a big deal then as modern cars like the Nissan Leaf, for example, boasts a battery of 40-62 kWh depending on model. Other, newer high-end cars, like the new Rimac Nevera, for example, have a 120 kWh battery, but 80-100 kWh is pretty much the standard capacity range today. In the SLS, that 60-kWh battery was paired with a total of four electric motors – two on each axle, with each set controlled by their own dedicated transmission.

Despite being paired at each axle, the SLS AMG Electric Drive was able to distribute toque on demand as needed for optimal traction, handling, and acceleration. Back then, however, charging wasn’t so fast, so if you used a traditional wall plug, it would take 20 hours to fully recharge the battery. Mercedes did have a dedicated wall charger that could accomplish the task in three hours, but it was sold at quite the premium. In the end, that full charge would get you 155 miles of range on a good day.

Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Coupe Electric Drive specifications

Powertrain

four electric motors

Power

740 HP

Torque

738 LB-FT

0 to 62 mph

3.9 seconds

Top Speed

155 mph


All of this said, and as cool as the SLS AMG Electric Drive was, it was definitely a car ahead of its time. Tesla was just getting started, really, and the idea of performance and luxury brands like Mercedes-AMG selling pure electric cars was still in its infancy. The company originally planned to build and sell 100 examples of the SLS AMG Electric Drive, however, one was recently up for sale with the undisputed claim that it was just one of nine ever made.} Each one sold would have cost right around $508,000 at current exchange rates, which explains why not that many were sold as that’s more than the AMG GT Black Series. What’s even weirder, though, is that over the past few years – as Mercedes and AMG have started to ramp up their electrification efforts – we’ve laid eyes on an old SLS AMG Electric Drive with tons of crazy equipment.

First spotted on the road back in 2017, we assumed that the old AMG SLS Electric Drive prototype, completely covered in various cameras and sensors was being used as a testbed of sorts. We speculated that it could have an advanced electric powertrain that would land in an equally limited electric version of the new AMG GT. It would have made sense with the AMG GT being such a popular car. In the end, we never learned what Mercedes was really doing with that weird SLS EV mule, but it’s possible that it was testing some hybrid tech for the AMG Project One, or it could have simply been its way of testing new technology for cars like the Mercedes EQA, EQB, EQC, or even the new EQS sedan that will get an AMG makeover sometime down the road.

The Cryptic Video

Now that you’ve had a nice little history lesson on the SLS AMG Electric Drive, here’s the video that Mercedes released. It’s super short at less than a minute and could be hinting at that electric AMG GT or something entirely. At the end, we’re left with just one phrase:

Perhaps the company just wants to remind us that it had a serious, although far from successful, EV a decade ago or, perhaps, the company is really hinting at the electric AMG GT. If nothing else, it’s definitely setting the primer for a whole fleet of electric AMG vehicles, so at the very least, we know that AMG will, without a doubt, survive the industry’s transition into full-scale electrification.