The Mercedes-Benz SLS Electric Drive is the fastest electric production car in the world. As titles go, it’s an impressive one – and the numbers back it up.
The new SLS Electric Drive, now the most expensive production Mercedes-Benz, is claimed to hit 62mph in 3.9sec, just 0.3sec slower than the Mercedes-Benz SLS Black Series, before extending to a top speed limited to 155mph.
What’s really impressive is that it achieves these claims with a kerb weight of 2110kg, some 560kg more than its conventional combustion-engined gullwing sibling.
That's thanks to its high-tech 60kWh lithium ion battery pack, supplied by Mercedes-Benz’s High Performance Engine division in Brixworth, which weighs 548kg alone.
Climb aboard and, yes, it is immediately apparent the SLS Electric Drive is fast. What Mercedes-Benz’s official performance claims fail to convey, though, is the brutal nature of the acceleration, which comes courtesy of four individual synchronous electric motors, each developing 185bhp and 184lb ft of torque for a total of 740bhp and 737lb ft, to make this the most powerful Mercedes-Benz model ever.
Even after driving the rapid SLS Black Series, the effect of the Electric Drive's spontaneous, instant-on torque left me gobsmacked. Imagine, all the torque of the original Bugatti Veyron developed the very instant you brush the throttle. It is proof positive that if the world’s petrol supplies were to dry up tomorrow the performance car genre would continue to live on.
