Mercedes AMG Project One

[ggr]

$2.5M hypercar from Mercedes AMG:
Mercedes-AMG Project ONE Revealed: AMG’s $2.5 Million Halo Hypercar | Automobile Magazine

Slower 0-60 than a Model S. 13 mile electric range. That's very helpful, since the gas engine has to be rebuilt every 30k miles... just drive it to the store and back, no problem. One of the 4 electric motors is to drive the turbocharger! (I don't quite understand this.)

 

[Saghost]

$2.5M hypercar from Mercedes AMG:
Mercedes-AMG Project ONE Revealed: AMG’s $2.5 Million Halo Hypercar | Automobile Magazine

Slower 0-60 than a Model S. 13 mile electric range. That's very helpful, since the gas engine has to be rebuilt every 30k miles... just drive it to the store and back, no problem. One of the 4 electric motors is to drive the turbocharger! (I don't quite understand this.)

One of the limitations of a Turbocharger is that it can't produce boost until it has an adequate volume of exhaust gasses. That means you generally don't get boost at low RPMs, and also that after you nail the accelerator it takes time for the turbo to spin up and boost to build (this delay is called turbo lag.) Designers also have to decide whether they'd like to get the maximum performance at the top end or a good boost in the mid range, because they have to size the turbocharger for the correct level of exhaust flow.

By having an electric motor driving the Turbocharger, it can operate as an electrically driven supercharger instead - spinning faster than the exhaust gasses would drive it and generating boost before the accelerator hits the floor - no turbo lag, and a much borader potential power band.

I doubt it's on many minds at Daimler Benz, but one of the other interesting possibilities here is turbo-compounding. That electric motor can presumably act as a generator too - sucking extra electrical energy out of the exhaust gasses to improve efficiency when you aren't getting on the loud pedal. This can potentially improve efficiency by something like 20% or so...

 

[AustinPowers]

The 0-60 mph time might be slower than that of a Model S, but the 0-200 km/h time of less than 6 seconds seems pretty good to me

Oh and this quote:

"Out of a pool of more than 1,000 applicants, Mercedes accepted six-figure deposits from 275 carefully selected friends of the three-pointed star."

Makes it sound like the AMG version of the Model 3