Mercedes-AMG to go fully electric but not autonomous

Mercedes-AMG president Tobias Moers has confirmed his engineers are already hard at work developing powertrain technology for hi-po electric vehicles, but he ruled out fully autonomous AMG vehicles any time soon.

“We’re putting a lot of effort into the electrification of powertrains so we’ve moved people from traditional powertrain development to more sophisticated technologies like battery development,” he told motoring.com.au at this week’s Paris motor show.

“Everybody knows that the future of the automotive industry is by nature electric-driven.”

Mercedes-AMG has already delivered its first electrified model in the new E-Class based E 53, which will replace the E 43. It places an innovative starter-generator mounted between Mercedes-Benz’s new twin-turbo 3.0-litre inline six-cylinder and nine-speed automatic.

Fed by its own 48-volt power system, the ‘EQ Boost’ mild-hybrid system contributes 16kW/250Nm to the E 53’s 320kW/520Nm total outputs – 20kW more than the old turbo 3.0-litre V6 in the E 43.

Asked when drivers might be able to get behind the wheel of an all-electric AMG model, Moers said it would happen eventually but couldn’t put a firm date on an EV arrival from the brand.

“Yes, but I don’t know when,” he said. “I don’t want to put a timeframe on it. Strategy-wise we know what we have to do for the future.”

Moers said the rapidly changing motoring landscape required car-makers to be more agile in order to react to market demand and changes in the regulatory environment.

“Having a 10-year strategy is not feasible any more in our industry because it’s so dynamic,” he said. “Things coming up in the next four years will have an impact. That’s my focus -- you have to be flexible.”

While Mercedes-AMG vehicles will eventually go all-electric, Moers said they would not go all-autonomous.

However, the boss of Mercedes-Benz’s performance division said that sharing Daimler’s self-driving technology toolbox would bring big benefits for the brand in future.

“It’s not necessarily important for us to move to [full] Level 5 autonomy,” he said.

“We can combine our use [of the technology] which is performance, in every perspective. Cornering, having the understanding and the feeling of a proper sports car, in combination with that Mercedes typical safety level.

“So far the four-door GT has the same autonomous functionalities as the standard E-Class as well, that’s a great story.”

Moers said Mercedes-AMG customers will be offered the best of both worlds – Mercedes-Benz self-driving tech for the daily commute and Mercedes-AMG performance for weekend jaunts.

“Many people, they enjoy that the car can drive by itself in the traffic jam, but if you can switch off everything autonomous and drive on the country road yourself, that’s perfect.”

But Moers also hinted that Mercedes-AMG will offer similar autonomous performance driving tech to its arch-rival Porsche, which is developing and app that will provide drivers with racetrack coaching from former Aussie F1 star Mark Webber.

“It [autonomous vehicle tech] enables us in the future to have new creative ideas like if you have the sensors and features in the car you can think of a virtual instructor on the racetrack.”