Mercedes-Benz has commenced production of AMG ONE hypercar.
Described as the most ambitious project the company has ever undertaken from development to production, Only 275 units of the all-new Mercedes-AMG ONE will be built in total.
AMG ONE hypercar, comes with a Formula 1 based hybrid powertrain with a 1.6-litre V6 turbo engine and four electric motors being built by the motorsport experts at Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains in Brixworth (England), who are also responsible for developing and producing the power units for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 racing cars.
The production of the complete vehicle will be implemented in Coventry, UK. For this purpose, AMG worked with manufacturing partner Multimatic to set up a dedicated small series production facility.
Reacing to the development, Philipp Schiemer, Chairman of the Board of Management of Mercedes-AMG GmbH described the production of the exclusive small series as a truly unique challenge
He said: “Mercedes-AMG ONE marks another high point in Mercedes-AMG’s successful strategic development towards an electrified Future of Driving Performance. For the first time, the hypercar brings current Formula 1 hybrid technology almost one-to-one from the racetrack to the road and combines overwhelming performance with exemplary efficiency. This world first is now becoming a reality thanks to the great teamwork between Mercedes-AMG in Affalterbach, the Formula 1 experts at Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains in Brixworth and our production partner Multimatic. We as a whole team are very proud to have now started production of the first customer vehicles.”
The exclusive car production is completed by hand at a total of 16 assembly and testing stations. Many work steps are reminiscent of the production of high-quality luxury watches: some sub-systems are first pre-assembled and tested for function, then disassembled again and only then finally installed in the vehicle. This applies, for example, to the carbon-fibre monocoque with a bonded-in roof as well as all detachable body parts, which are also made of the light and stable – but also costly – material. The entire outer skin is the first to be completely assembled.
Now all the fits are meticulously checked and, if necessary, adjusted for size. This is the only way to create a perfectly even joint pattern. In the process, the specialists have to take into account the final lacquering, which adds its own material thickness. Given that the wall thickness of the carbon is only 1.2 millimetres in certain locations, this is a highly difficult and specialised task. Once everything fits together perfectly, parts including doors and bonnets are dismantled again and then hand-painted as a car set for each individual vehicle – this ensures the perfect colour match of the entire vehicle.
In the next assembly step, the powertrain and the body-in-white are assembled: The 1.6-litre V6 turbo engine, the high-voltage battery and the total of four electric machines have all been previously hot tested on test benches at Brixworth to ensure they are healthy and performant, exactly the same process as is done with Mercedes’ Formula 1 power units. Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains supplies the corresponding units: the eTurbo hybrid combustion engine, the high-voltage battery of the plug-in hybrid, the front axle with the two electric machines and the power electronics including the inverter for each of the four electric motors.
In the workflow, 75 percent of the parts are already assembled before the high-voltage components are installed.
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