Mercedes-AMG V8 to live on

While other manufacturers predict the demise of the V8 engine and even the internal combustion engine, Benz’s hard-core performance tuner AMG is confident it will be screwing yet more power and torque out of big, bellowing engines into the distant future.

It has even committed to further development of the 1000Nm M257 6.0-litre V12, for which it has overall responsibility within Mercedes-Benz.

“I work with the internal combustion engine until I am dead,” declared AMG engine and powertrain chief Friedrich Eichler during a wide ranging interview at the company’s Affalterbach headquarters late last week.

“As long as the customer likes more power he will have it. We will develop that.

“But our philosophy is to reduce the fuel consumption and not just make the engines bigger and bigger and more powerful. With intelligent technology and systems … we can reduce the fuel consumption significantly.”

AMG has already cut its CO2 emissions by 25 per cent since 2008 and is aiming for another 20 per cent chop by 2017 when it celebrates its 50th anniversary.

By 2020 Mercedes-Benz has a goal of sub-100g CO2/km outputs range-wide, something AMG has also committed to.

Weapons in achieving those goals include engine capacity downsizing, cylinder deactivation, forced induction, direct injection, light weight and combining electric motors and combustion engines.

AMG has also just revealed first details of its first four-cylinder engine. The circa-250kW/400Nm M132 turbo-petrol 2.0-litre will power next year’s A45 all-wheel drive hot-hatch.

As yet, there are no plans for six-cylinder engines, but that development may come as part of the AMG Sport program, which adds performance to production Benzes.

Mr Eichler said downsizing will apply to the AMG V8 engine family, while cylinder deactivation will spread into other V8s and the V12 from the naturally aspirated M152 5.5-litre engine that debuted in the SLK55 AMG. At 8.5L/100km and 197g CO2/km, is claimed to be the most efficient V8 engine currently in production.

Mr Eichler also confirmed AMG was investigating electrically forced induction, which employs an electric motor to boost intake charge rather than exhaust gases (as in a traditional turbocharger) or being mechanically linked to the engine (as in a supercharger), providing finer control, reduced lag and, in a supercharger’s case, less parasitic power losses.

He also revealed AMG had pursued a “top secret” form of supercharging two years ago that showed great promise.

“There were significant difficulties with this supercharging system that we couldn’t solve in the short time of the development process of the car so we changed to a turbocharger. It is top secret, but when it works, it works very, very, very well.”

Mr Eichler said AMG’s use of electric motors would emphasise performance rather than economy. It has access to KERS (kinetics energy recovery system) and ERS (energy recovery systems) technology via the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team.

“There is a lot of possibility to recover energy again and these are the projects we are working on at the moment,” he confirmed. “It is quite interesting and it makes a lot of sense.”

However, he rejected any chance of electricity becoming the dominant form of motive power at AMG, even though it will launch the all-electric SLS supercar in Europe in 2013. Mr Eichler describes the 552kW four-motor coupe as a rolling test bed from which the company can extract the maximum amount of EV knowledge in the minimum amount of time.

“We will bring that technology into our sportscar,” he said. “We are just thinking about that and there are some strategy projects at the moment studying different ways for electrification.”

However, he made it clear orthodox petrol-electric hybridisation was not an option AMG was rushing to embrace.

“We will achieve less fuel consumption for much less money without hybridisation. Hybridisation is very expensive and you have to give space away in the body to batteries and bigger transmissions and everything else. So we try to avoid that as long as possible.”

However, Mr Eichler, an obvious petrol-head who worked at Porsche before coming to AMG and road-raced motorcycles at European national level, believes the death of the naturally aspirated M156 and M159 6.2-litre V8s which power the C63 and SLS AMG, is unavoidable in an increasingly stringent emissions and fuel economy environment.

“Everything goes in the direction of charging,” he said.

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