Keen eyes will pick up the AMG grille treatment but otherwise the look doesn’t shout its performance potential – there are no bulging fenders, as the wheels/tires are not extraordinarily large for a car of this size and weight.Jeremy Sinek/The Globe and Mail
A senior Mercedes-AMG official once told me that a significant portion of buyers who choose the high-performance AMG-treated models have zero interest in performance driving. They choose it solely because it is the most expensive version.
At the wheel of the new S63 E Performance, it seems that paradox may now have a new dimension. For 2024, the top-of-the-line S Class sedan also comes as a plug-in hybrid with the capability to go about 30 kilometres on electricity alone. Will buyers choose this version, which we estimate will cost more than $200,000, for the improved fuel efficiency or just because it is the most expensive?
It’s also the most powerful S-Class ever. Helped by the hybrid system, this luxury limousine’s performance numbers are staggering: acceleration to 100 kilometres per hour in 3.3 seconds, maximum speed of 290 and agility on tortuous roads better suited to a MINI or an MX-5 (I tested it on the winding Latigo Canyon Road near Malibu, Calif.)
However, buyers could be excused for not knowing they can drive without using gas. Mercedes-AMG is mindfully pitching this car as a performance hybrid. The role of its rear-mounted, 188-horsepower electric motor is to add more thrust to what’s already delivered by AMG’s signature 603-horsepower turbocharged four-litre V8. Combined outputs are 791 horsepower and a colossal 1,055 lb-ft of torque. Any fuel-efficiency benefits are incidental.
You have to dig deep into the press release to learn that it also has a charge port, and a 3.7-kilowatt on-board AC charger. At 13.1 kilowatt-hours, the battery capacity isn’t huge for a plug-in: it was “designed for fast power delivery and draw rather than longest possible range,” says AMG. To that end, it always maintains a minimum 25-per-cent charge, and the gas engine will add more when you’re driving in Sport or Sport+ mode.
The car has an official EV range of 33 kilometres per the (admittedly optimistic) WLTP test protocol. Real-world? After my first 16 kilometres of typical urban/suburban shuffle in EV mode, the display showed 14 kilometres of range remaining.
The sumptuous cockpit interestingly blends modern screenology with more traditional wood and bright-metal elements.Jeremy Sinek/The Globe and Mail
But then our drive route made a hard right up into the hills. Fun was had, and the remaining range in the battery disappeared in just four kilometres.
Speaking of batteries, an engineer said the electric active roll-stabilization system, making its S-Class debut in the 2024 S63, has its own dedicated 48-volt battery. Most vehicles have one 12-volt battery for everything – ignition, starting, lights, audio, the whole works.
Other chassis assets include rear-wheel steering (up to three degrees), height-adjustable air suspension, adaptive-variable damping, and variable-effort steering. All this, and the powertrain, are adjusted through seven drive modes. There are also three levels of stability-control intervention, and four levels (including none) of regenerative braking.
Heading up into the hills, I twirl the drive-mode selector into Sport+ and the 5.3-metre, two-ton-plus limo channels its inner AMG GT. The exhaust braaaaps and farts (it’s more audible from outside, which heightens the incongruity) as the nine-speed automatic picks the proper gear for each of the cascading curves along this twisted demon of a road. You can paddle-shift it yourself, but why bother?
The gauge cluster is a screen (that’s 200 miles per hour on the speedo, by the way, not kilometres) but unlike on some other recent Mercedes-Benzes, it’s not contiguous with the infotainment screen.Jeremy Sinek/The Globe and Mail
Inevitably, the S63′s sheer size is sometimes cause for pause through curves as blind as they are narrow. But its weight? What weight? The steering remains light - arguably too light for some tastes - even in max-attack mode. At the same time, despite all the computerized active chassis technology masterminding the drive, the S63 manages to feel completely natural. It doesn’t dart-and-deke like, say, a MINI would, but the way it flows through slalom-like sequences of turns is deeply satisfying.
The S63 doesn’t have a drift mode (though its ever-variable front-rear power distribution delivers the desired rear-wheel drive feel if you boot it out of a tight turn), but it does have Race Start. Find yourself a deserted straightway and, in Sport+ mode, stand on the brake pedal. Then floor the throttle and then step off the brake. Even with all-wheel drive you feel the rear end squirming. The exhaust does NASCAR impressions. About three seconds later you’re punching through the Ontario highway speed limit.
To anyone watching (and assuming they’re not already dialing 9-1-1), what they just witnessed was like seeing, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger in a tuxedo give Usain Bolt a run for his money.
In AMG tradition, the gas engine has a plaque signed by the technician who hand-assembled it. The electric motor is combined with the rear axle.Jeremy Sinek/The Globe and Mail
Returning to Los Angeles along the Pacific Coast Highway I drift along with the traffic. While the car stays in the default Comfort mode (which also prioritizes fuel efficiency), I wonder whether non-performance buyers would notice the somewhat grittier rolling feel and sharper ride motions than in “ordinary” S-Class sedans. It’s a small additional price they’d pay for spending to the max to get the version whose capabilities they will never use.
Having started the 30-kilometre return trip with five kilometres of range in the bank, overall gas consumption back at the hotel shows just 8.3 litres per 100 kilometres – impressive for a hyper-luxurious full-size sedan. If I’d started with a fully charged battery, that number could have been zero.
I don’t know if most typical buyers will care about pushing this limo to its performance limits or about plugging it in every night, but the potential exists.
The 2023 S 580 starts at $155,000 and official pricing for this 2024 AMG-treated hybrid will be revealed closer to sale launch in the first quarter of next year, starting with an initial run of 35 Edition1 units.
There’s no such thing as a slow S-Class, but even so the S63 could be considered somewhat of a 'sleeper,' or Q-car as the Brits call them.Jeremy Sinek/The Globe and Mail
Tech specs
2024 Mercedes-AMG S63 E Performance
- Price: TBA
- Powertrain: four-litre turbocharged V8, plus 188-horsepower electric motor
- Transmission/drive: nine-speed automatic/all-wheel drive.
- Fuel consumption: TBA
- Alternatives: Audi S8, BMW M760e, Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid
The writer was a guest of the automaker. Content was not subject to approval.
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