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Mercedes-AMG Reveals Project One's Ridiculous Powertrain

Mercedes-AMG’s upcoming hypercar is referred to as the Project One, and it will be road legal everywhere across the world except for China.
The drivetrain of the Mercedes-AMG Project One 1 photo
Photo: Mercedes-AMG
The German performance brand has unveiled the powertrain of its masterpiece during a special event held before this year’s 24-hour race held at the Nurburgring. The entire setup is derived from Lewis Hamilton’s 2015 Formula 1 car, and it comes with a 1.6-liter V6 turbocharged engine.

The unit can rev as high as 11,000 rpm, more than many naturally aspirated motors in production today, and even more than some engines that are no longer offered.

While the internal combustion unit was claimed to come from Formula 1, customers will not get precisely the same components as the race cars.

First of all, the idle of an F1 car sits at approximately 4,000 rpm, insanely high for anything meant for the road, and it comes with a machined block that will be too expensive even for a hypercar. The F1 engine also reaches higher revs, and has an increased compression ratio, but all of these would be too complicated for a road-going automobile.

Mercedes-AMG is claimed to have achieved a thermal efficiency of 43% for its ICE unit meant in the Project One. Its turbocharger is kept spooled up at all times thanks to a dedicated electric setup, and the front axle has two motors that ensure drive in the EV mode, as well as all-wheel-drive in the other operating configurations.

There is also an electric unit attached to the crankshaft, which delivers 161 HP (120 kW), just like each of the two motors on the front axle.

As Car and Driver notes, Mercedes-AMG will also let owners drive the Project One in electric mode, which will result in a 240 HP electric model with front-wheel-drive and an insane price tag.

The all-electric range of this car is 12 miles, but nobody will probably bother driving it in those conditions. Its 800-Volt battery pack is the same as the one in Formula 1, but it is four times larger to handle the requirements. The V6 is mated to an eight-speed single clutch gearbox, because the solution is lighter and sturdier than a twin-clutch.

Keep in mind that the officials of the brand have explained that the ICE unit will require a rebuild about every 31,000 miles, but its price and frequency should not be a problem for the multi-billionaires who will get these vehicles and drive them from time to time.

All 275 units are reportedly spoken for, even if the development mules have not begun testing, and nobody outside of Mercedes-AMG knows how they will be styled. The factory will make one unit each day once production commences.
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About the author: Sebastian Toma
Sebastian Toma profile photo

Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland.
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