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AMG Mercedes engineers are well advanced on a plug-in electric version of the upcoming SLS.

Tentatively planned for limited production in 2015, the new zero-emission supercar draws heavily on the production version of the yet-to-be-revealed SLS, which is scheduled to get its first public outing at the Frankfurt motor show on 15 September.

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What on earth are Mercedes up to? Whilst most manufacturers are electrifying vans and small cars for sound financial reasons, they choose to do this. Unless it offers a substantially better driving experience than the petrol version, what exactly, is the point?

Hi; noluddite; Merc are working on electric units which I think are due out 2010 or 2011; they are based on the current A class and B Class; autocar it an item on them.

It has been well reported that the A Class chassis is being used for the first unit that is to be released; bearing in mind that the A Class has a sandwich chassis that was designed 10 or more years ago....the sandwich is for BATTERIES....that's right.....they designed it all in back then......clever Merc; come on fella catch up!

You will find that GM (if memory) serves started on the Volt about 10 years ago....as a side note; also Ford had an EV Ranger in the USA which people really linked; if you type electric ranger or ev ranger into google you should find a link to Wiki for your homework!

Further you have then the Smart Car electric......so I would say Merc are way ahead of the curve....then also they acquired 10% of Tesla Motors the other month or so.....I think you can rest assured Merc have thought it through!! I cannot wait for this model and I guess it is the first of many with this one being an expression of capability.

If Mercedes wanna do it, it must be worth while :-)

This sound interesting but I think Mercedes are being a little ambitous. But reading the fact that this car has about 530bhp and that it certain to be faster than 120mph is very impressive to say this is an electric car!

Very parculiar ideas that Mercedes have and these ideas can sound a bit stupid but it's definatley not!

"Each of the front wheels is driven via a planetary drive set that acts like a torque vectoring device, providing drive to the wheel possessing the most traction" That torque sensing fraud still being perpetrated? It should be qualified with 'unless one wheel has no traction, i.e. no torque, then both wheels will have zero torque.' And lots of power on understeer.

"Each of the front wheels is driven via a planetary drive set that acts like a torque vectoring device, providing drive to the wheel possessing the most traction" That torque sensing fraud still being perpetrated? It should be qualified with 'unless one wheel has no traction, i.e. no torque, in which case both wheels will have zero torque.' And lots of power on understeer. EDITED