Mercedes-AMG Open To An SLS Electric Drive Successor

Spy photographers caught a mysterious Mercedes SLS AMG Electric Drive at the Nürburgring last fall and it now appears the company could be plotting a successor.

Speaking to Autoblog at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Mercedes-AMG CEO Tobias Möers said another high-performance electric vehicle is a possibility. While he said the SLS Electric Drive was a “very specific car,” Möers noted he’s still proud of the model and the fact that is set a Nürburgring lap record for electric vehicles when it completed the course in 7 minutes and 56.234 seconds.

The SLS Electric Drive wasn’t very popular, but Möers implied the company can’t ignore the growing importance of electric vehicles. He has a good point as the market has changed significantly since the model debuted at the 2012 Paris Motor Show.

The SLS Electric Drive was introduced several months after the Tesla Model S and electric vehicles sales have taken off since then. Data from the International Energy Agency shows the trend pretty clearly as there were approximately 300,000 electric vehicles on the road in 2013. Four years later, that number jumped to over three million.

While it’s likely that a new Mercedes-AMG electric sports car would see higher demand thanks to the growing acceptance of electric vehicles, that wouldn’t be the only thing going for it. The SLS Electric Drive had a base price of €416,500 ($473,445 / £370,892) and it’s likely that a successor – presumably based on the AMG GT – would be significantly more affordable.

Besides talking about the possibility of an SLS Electric Drive successor, Möers confirmed the next-generation C63 will have a hybrid powertrain. He declined to go into specifics, but stated a hybrid V8 engine is definitely being considered.