Mercedes' Electric-Yellow Electric Car

Thursday July 8, 2010
Mercedes is joining the future with its "AMG Performance 2015" program, which has made a splash with the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG E-CELL, an all-electric, gullwinged sports car.

While I'm sure you want to know how fast this thing goes and all that cool stuff, I'm also sure you're asking yourself, "What in the name of bananas and sunshine and all good yellow things is that color?" It is called AMG Lumilectric Magno, a name as obnoxious as the color.

Underneath that fluorescent skin are four electric motors positioned near the wheels, for a combined 392 kW of power (that's about 525 hp) and nearly 600 lb-ft of torque. This adds up to 0-62 in 4 seconds, a hair slower than the gasoline-powered SLS AMG, which covers that ground in 3.8 seconds.

To make sense of all this, the cockpit has new instruments in the dashboard to relay information on charge status and remaining range in addition to speed. The transmission has been simplified to three buttons: P, R, and D, with that last one being most important. No word on whether this car will ever make it to production.