Mercedes AMG GT 4-Door Coupe ~1400 bhp?
Mercedes AMG GT 4-Door Coupe ~1400 bhp?
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Discussion

TheDeuce

Original Poster:

30,190 posts

85 months

Yesterday (20:53)
quotequote all
Another day, another stupidly rapid performance EV emerges.

It's actually odd to think we live in an increasingly risk averse world, all that government nannying, and somehow the world of motoring appear to have zero barriers when it comes to handing the urchins the keys (or fob) to car with well over 1000hp. But, here we are!

Shown here in concept form but AMG have developed the same basic car and it's going to release next year, this is close to what is coming and it's their answer to the Taycan:




And here is the 'actual' (near enough) car, shown off with high production values but the real thing has nearly twice the power on the rear axle than on the front, so if you wanted to recreate this, it shouldn't be too difficult...



Food for thought... One day this car will be ten years old, probably very affordable and still cheap to run, probably working just fine too. What's going to happen when the kids get these cars!?

Anyway, discuss this car and also the direction the performance car industry is heading now we have such powerful new cars to play around with smile

Kawasicki

13,921 posts

254 months

Yesterday (20:55)
quotequote all
Only 1.4 kbhp. Disappoint.
Others have over 2!

TheDeuce

Original Poster:

30,190 posts

85 months

Yesterday (21:11)
quotequote all
Kawasicki said:
Only 1.4 kbhp. Disappoint.
Others have over 2!
Well, this is the crazy world we find ourselves in all of a sudden! 5 minutes ago everyone was clutching their tinkle when the Veyron landed with 1000bhp, now you can buy a practical and 'affordable' 4 door car with well over that power - there are thousands on the roads today!

Who saw this coming!?

1400hp is probably enough for a daily though wink

TUS373

5,000 posts

300 months

Getting 1000bhp+ from an ICE was an impressive feat of engineering. With an EV, its more a case of putting in a bigger motor, extra motor, bigger battery pack. It feels a bit easy.

I would like to know what the usable range of this AMG will be. It must be stuffed with batteries to actually get anywhere....and back.

I dont see the 'value' in such a car being preserved. A Ferrari engine is a masterpiece. A motor and battery are not. Will that mean that these EVs do ultimately become affordable in the future, to levels that they fall into the wrong hands. I don't see them as appreciating assets or an investment.

The car market is increasingly changing its rules.

Kawasicki

13,921 posts

254 months

TheDeuce said:
Kawasicki said:
Only 1.4 kbhp. Disappoint.
Others have over 2!
Well, this is the crazy world we find ourselves in all of a sudden! 5 minutes ago everyone was clutching their tinkle when the Veyron landed with 1000bhp, now you can buy a practical and 'affordable' 4 door car with well over that power - there are thousands on the roads today!

Who saw this coming!?

1400hp is probably enough for a daily though wink
A 1.4 is easily enough for day to day, in the real world. Track days, or on the right roads… 2.0 or even a 3.0 would be more engaging.

uktrailmonster

8,283 posts

219 months

TUS373 said:
Getting 1000bhp+ from an ICE was an impressive feat of engineering. With an EV, its more a case of putting in a bigger motor, extra motor, bigger battery pack. It feels a bit easy.

I would like to know what the usable range of this AMG will be. It must be stuffed with batteries to actually get anywhere....and back.

I dont see the 'value' in such a car being preserved. A Ferrari engine is a masterpiece. A motor and battery are not. Will that mean that these EVs do ultimately become affordable in the future, to levels that they fall into the wrong hands. I don't see them as appreciating assets or an investment.

The car market is increasingly changing its rules.
I think you are underestimating the tech involved here. EVs are inherently more efficient in generating power, but they are also more challenging to package in physical size and weight for a practical range. This one has a very low drag coefficient, along with next gen motors and battery tech.

Simply putting in bigger motors and bigger batteries doesn’t work when weight is already a primary issue. The challenge here is to achieve more power and range with the same or less weight.

You could argue that maybe 1400 hp is far more than required for a road car and they should be focusing more on reducing weight and increasing range at this stage. But there are likely to be lesser powered variants which will achieve those aims too.

ChocolateFrog

33,727 posts

192 months

Funny that it's only urchins when the £ per bhp comes down to a certain undefined ratio.

As long as it's only millionaires that can afford silly fast cars no one cares. Because somehow how much money you have in the bank directly correlates to how well you can drive.

TheDeuce

Original Poster:

30,190 posts

85 months

TUS373 said:
Getting 1000bhp+ from an ICE was an impressive feat of engineering. With an EV, its more a case of putting in a bigger motor, extra motor, bigger battery pack. It feels a bit easy.

I would like to know what the usable range of this AMG will be. It must be stuffed with batteries to actually get anywhere....and back.

I dont see the 'value' in such a car being preserved. A Ferrari engine is a masterpiece. A motor and battery are not. Will that mean that these EVs do ultimately become affordable in the future, to levels that they fall into the wrong hands. I don't see them as appreciating assets or an investment.

The car market is increasingly changing its rules.
You can get 1400 hp, or far higher, from the same size battery pack you'd find I'm a typical EV these days, they don't need to keep adding heavy batteries to get more power, just a slightly larger and heavier motor - we're talking a few kilos difference.

As this is a new platform for Merc, I'd expect weight and range to be good, given what they've already achieved in the past and also taking into account that the petrol equivalent would be catastrophically inefficient and itself severely range limited.

A Bugatti Chiron has very similar top trump specs, you won't get more than 200 miles range from one of those even if you drive it fairly politely.

mikey_b

2,412 posts

64 months

ChocolateFrog said:
Funny that it's only urchins when the £ per bhp comes down to a certain undefined ratio.

As long as it's only millionaires that can afford silly fast cars no one cares. Because somehow how much money you have in the bank directly correlates to how well you can drive.
Indeed. Plenty of absolute pricks come over to London from the Middle East in the summer, and spend their evenings hooning around Knightsbridge in supercars. For those guys, the price of something like this is chump change whatever its actual price is.

AB

19,078 posts

214 months

ChocolateFrog said:
As long as it's only millionaires that can afford silly fast cars no one cares. Because somehow how much money you have in the bank directly correlates to how well you can drive.
I'd argue there's probably a some correlation between wealth and common sense/brain power even if it's not a linear...



Murph7355

40,706 posts

275 months

AB said:
I'd argue there's probably a some correlation between wealth and common sense/brain power even if it's not a linear...
Not sure that's a winning argument smile

At best it'll be a wonky bell curve IME.

J4k43

261 posts

Murph7355 said:
AB said:
I'd argue there's probably a some correlation between wealth and common sense/brain power even if it's not a linear...
Not sure that's a winning argument smile

At best it'll be a wonky bell curve IME.
It's not a simple correlation. I don't even think the common sense/ intelligence thing necessarily has much overlap.

I suppose at the very high level intelligent people on balance make better life decisions and in a competitive environment it's really about making less mistakes than one's competitor.

As it happens I've just watched the Grand Prix and McLaren made the school boy error of not covering off the direct competition so even highly intelligent people make mistakes.

I also watched Dylan Fletcher and Hannah Mills earlier today with their team win the Sail GP Grand final after being last at the start where doing something different worked to amazing effect.



TUS373

5,000 posts

300 months

uktrailmonster said:
TUS373 said:
Getting 1000bhp+ from an ICE was an impressive feat of engineering. With an EV, its more a case of putting in a bigger motor, extra motor, bigger battery pack. It feels a bit easy.

I would like to know what the usable range of this AMG will be. It must be stuffed with batteries to actually get anywhere....and back.

I dont see the 'value' in such a car being preserved. A Ferrari engine is a masterpiece. A motor and battery are not. Will that mean that these EVs do ultimately become affordable in the future, to levels that they fall into the wrong hands. I don't see them as appreciating assets or an investment.

The car market is increasingly changing its rules.
I think you are underestimating the tech involved here. EVs are inherently more efficient in generating power, but they are also more challenging to package in physical size and weight for a practical range. This one has a very low drag coefficient, along with next gen motors and battery tech.

Simply putting in bigger motors and bigger batteries doesn t work when weight is already a primary issue. The challenge here is to achieve more power and range with the same or less weight.

You could argue that maybe 1400 hp is far more than required for a road car and they should be focusing more on reducing weight and increasing range at this stage. But there are likely to be lesser powered variants which will achieve those aims too.


People will stand and look at Ferrai engine through the glass bonnet. Its a kind of beautiful thing. Im not sure that we will linger to look at inverters and orange cables in a similar way.

mikey_b

2,412 posts

64 months

TUS373 said:


People will stand and look at Ferrai engine through the glass bonnet. Its a kind of beautiful thing. Im not sure that we will linger to look at inverters and orange cables in a similar way.
I reckon that you could make an inverter pretty much any shape you like, and nicely routed and coloured cables can look pretty damn smart. If it was considered important, they could make the drivetrain components look much more attractive than they currently do, and could surely do so much more easily than with an ICE engine.

TheDeuce

Original Poster:

30,190 posts

85 months

TUS373 said:
uktrailmonster said:
TUS373 said:
Getting 1000bhp+ from an ICE was an impressive feat of engineering. With an EV, its more a case of putting in a bigger motor, extra motor, bigger battery pack. It feels a bit easy.

I would like to know what the usable range of this AMG will be. It must be stuffed with batteries to actually get anywhere....and back.

I dont see the 'value' in such a car being preserved. A Ferrari engine is a masterpiece. A motor and battery are not. Will that mean that these EVs do ultimately become affordable in the future, to levels that they fall into the wrong hands. I don't see them as appreciating assets or an investment.

The car market is increasingly changing its rules.
I think you are underestimating the tech involved here. EVs are inherently more efficient in generating power, but they are also more challenging to package in physical size and weight for a practical range. This one has a very low drag coefficient, along with next gen motors and battery tech.

Simply putting in bigger motors and bigger batteries doesn t work when weight is already a primary issue. The challenge here is to achieve more power and range with the same or less weight.

You could argue that maybe 1400 hp is far more than required for a road car and they should be focusing more on reducing weight and increasing range at this stage. But there are likely to be lesser powered variants which will achieve those aims too.


People will stand and look at Ferrai engine through the glass bonnet. Its a kind of beautiful thing. Im not sure that we will linger to look at inverters and orange cables in a similar way.
You're right. EV performance is about performance. You watch what the car does, not how beautifully the slower cars head was milled and it's manifolds polished.

Seriously now - it's all lovely that beautiful cars should have the prettier bits of their mechanicals on display as car porn, but nothing trumps the principle purpose of a fast car: it's there to be fast. A show off car doesn't actually need to be driven fast, but it has to have that ability otherwise it's a fraud. When I was a kid a Lamborghini or Ferrari were incredible because I knew they were insanely fast. We're rapidly approaching a point at which the fastest IC cars can no longer be considered generally unbeatable, they're starting to look slow.

Pointing at a pretty mid mounted engine loses some gravity when everyone in the car park is well aware that the silent car parked next to it is the one that's actually got the pace.

I remember a friend back in the boy racer days of motoring that had a 4 exit titanium tipped exhaust bolted to his Saxo. The exhaust was indeed beautiful, but somewhat undermined by the fact we knew the car itself wasn't actually all that capable.

J4k43

261 posts

TUS373 said:


People will stand and look at Ferrai engine through the glass bonnet. Its a kind of beautiful thing. Im not sure that we will linger to look at inverters and orange cables in a similar way.
Depends on one's perspective.

Engines can almost look like a work of art but so can an electrical infrastructure. It's just having the ability to see it. It's no different to art, poetry, the performing arts, ballet, opera a sports game etc. etc.





uktrailmonster

8,283 posts

219 months

TUS373 said:
uktrailmonster said:
TUS373 said:
Getting 1000bhp+ from an ICE was an impressive feat of engineering. With an EV, its more a case of putting in a bigger motor, extra motor, bigger battery pack. It feels a bit easy.

I would like to know what the usable range of this AMG will be. It must be stuffed with batteries to actually get anywhere....and back.

I dont see the 'value' in such a car being preserved. A Ferrari engine is a masterpiece. A motor and battery are not. Will that mean that these EVs do ultimately become affordable in the future, to levels that they fall into the wrong hands. I don't see them as appreciating assets or an investment.

The car market is increasingly changing its rules.
I think you are underestimating the tech involved here. EVs are inherently more efficient in generating power, but they are also more challenging to package in physical size and weight for a practical range. This one has a very low drag coefficient, along with next gen motors and battery tech.

Simply putting in bigger motors and bigger batteries doesn t work when weight is already a primary issue. The challenge here is to achieve more power and range with the same or less weight.

You could argue that maybe 1400 hp is far more than required for a road car and they should be focusing more on reducing weight and increasing range at this stage. But there are likely to be lesser powered variants which will achieve those aims too.


People will stand and look at Ferrai engine through the glass bonnet. Its a kind of beautiful thing. Im not sure that we will linger to look at inverters and orange cables in a similar way.
It’s still a very impressive piece of tech. Just very different tech. Of course exotic engines are interesting, but so is this EV for other reasons. Ferrari often make a visual statement with their engines, but Porsche never did with their 911 because of the layout and nobody really cared. The car still performed and that’s what mattered most.