Among the features we already know about with EVs is their extraordinary acceleration capability. But Mercedes-Benz‘s AMG arm just proved they can make cars that out-muscle and out-hustle anything powered by gasoline. And they’ve just set an astonishing series of milestones with two CONCEPT AMG GT XX cars that broke more than 25 long-distance records.
First, the twin, 1,360-horsepower cars traveled the equivalent of a lap of the earth—25,000 miles—in eight days. They accelerated to a constant speed of 186 miles per hour around Italy’s Nardo test track after each charging session—and thanks to some pretty amazing charging tech that Mercedes has created, also recharged at a ridiculous rate of 850kW. That’s the equivalent of adding nearly 250 miles of range in just five minutes.
All of which means, what? Well, here’s how we see the milestones and what it means for future EVs.
The CONCEPT AMG GT XX cars use axial flux motors. Yes, it sounds like something from Star Trek or Star Wars. Basically, the idea is relatively simple. Current EVs use a radial flux motor. That’s where the electromagnetic flux runs perpendicular to the motor’s axis of rotation. But in an axial flux motor the flux runs parallel to the motor’s axis of rotation. In essence, this revised arrangement enables more power transfer in a far smaller package.
You can imagine that if you can deliver three times the power from a single-motor EV and cut significant weight, then dual-motors wouldn’t be necessary.
Mercedes-AMG says they can deliver triple the power output of radial flux motors, and the motors themselves are tiny, roughly just a third of the size. That means that in the CONCEPT AMG GT XX Mercedes could mount a pair of motors on the rear axle, but still achieve an incredibly low-drag silhouette. These motors are also two-thirds lighter than those of a radial design. Plus, they’re more durable, and can operate at a higher continuous peak torque output.
Like a lot of production cars, the CONCEPT AMG GT XX uses grille shutters. In this case, to both cool the car’s motors and reduce drag, Mercedes designed the shutters to remain shut to direct air underneath the chassis, and only to open in case of the need to add cooling—more on the latter, below.
Airflow both above and beneath the car further reduced drag on the already incredibly sleek body—it has a drag coefficient of a scant 0.19. Thanks to simple physics, the faster the car went, however, the more wind resistance it had to overcome. At 186 miles an hour, 83 percent of power was being used to overcome aerodynamic drag. That meant that even reducing c/d by .0001 was the equivalent of cutting 198 pounds out of the vehicle.
That said, heat is the enemy of efficiency, so both the battery and the motor units use a closed circuit of oil that’s electrically driven via a new unit Mercedes calls a Central Coolant Hub (CCH). This operates like an on-demand A/C unit that’s actively monitoring the temperature of the motors and the battery, as well as other components, and proactively preventing these from getting too hot. And it “knows” when you’ll be rapid charging, too, so it also accounts for the heat generated by refueling. Mercedes says the CCH enabled greater speed of every process, from driving at triple digits to rapid charging at 850kW, to maximum acceleration back onto the track.
Additionally, it prevented the grille shutters from needing to open as frequently—which would’ve reduced range by adding drag.
There’s re-gen and then there’s what the CONCEPT AMG GT XX uses. To feed as much power back into the vehicle, engineers developed a high-power re-generative braking system that can generate more than .6 gs. This, in turn, meant brake cooling was nearly superfluous, and instead, Mercedes created carbon-fiber-clad hubcaps that fire air through the car, from the outside to the inside on the front axle and in the opposite direction at the rear. That created maximum downforce and control at 180 miles per hour.
While it wasn’t deployed on the CONCEPT AMG GT XX, Mercedes-Benz experimented and tested a new technology that can be used on future cars. The idea is to create an electrified “skin” on certain parts of the car that would otherwise need a physical spoiler—which has disadvantages because spoilers add weight as well as cost, and are only functional at certain speeds. But an alternating current creates a minute plasma field that can interrupt the airflow as well, so the “release” of air at the back of the car, for instance, could be handled this way, and takes very little energy to operate, and only needs to be functional at certain speeds.
A lot of this tech likely seems very far out from production. But we’re already sure the axial flux motors will hit production soon, because they solve so many problems at once:
You can imagine that if you can deliver three times the power from a single-motor EV and cut significant weight, then dual-motors wouldn’t be necessary. That further cuts weight as well as cost. If just one of these motors was used it could produce nearly 500 horsepower. Even if that’s 400 horses, it’s plenty for most production vehicles. And the crucial factor is that this means Mercedes could make higher performance but lighter electric cars that feel more like gas cars. That last part is crucial.
Because at first, novelty was driving electric car sales. Now it’s time for them to blow away gas cars with pure driving excitement, and that can only happen when they finally feel as nimble, lightweight and fun as what we know from gas cars.
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