Our photographer simply caught Mercedes-AMG’s new 544 hp electrical Shooting Brake on the Nürburgring — and there is dangerous information for American patrons

Mercedes-AMG’s upcoming CLA Shooting Brake EQ is sort of completed testing. But it hasn’t graduated fairly but: our photographer lately noticed it present process robust, presumably late-stage testing on the Nürburgring. For the 2 of you who don’t know, that’s a legendary 13-ish mile racetrack (which can be a public freeway, legally) in Germany. It’s hosted among the most iconic races of all time, and producers completely love testing there.

The standout function is undoubtedly the deployable energetic rear wing. It’s built-in into the liftgate-mounted spoiler and might modify itself as wanted to supply much less drag, extra drag, or a bit of additional downforce. Given the performance-forward nature of the upcoming AMG, the inclusion of considered one of these was just about a given.

Still, it’s good to see it in motion on an iconic race monitor.

Big adjustments have additionally been made to the entrance fascia. Fans will be aware the closely revised entrance bumper, in addition to the aero-efficient entrance grille. While the automobile is closely camouflaged, you could possibly make out the brand new outer-side consumption ducts, and be aware that the decrease grille opening has gotten a bit bigger.

If you have a look at the facet shot, you’ll discover the automobile’s hefty brake disks and purple calipers. As these of you acquainted with monitor driving know, brakes are fairly vital, and customary brakes will overheat inside a couple of corners. The hefty elements hiding beneath the AMG-design rims present that this can be a automobile constructed for efficiency. Oh, and there’s a star brand within the headlights as a result of that’s what Mercedes does.

This string of spy pictures didn’t embrace have a look at the inside, although getting that form of shot is tough when the goal is belting round one of many world’s most demanding racetracks at excessive pace. So we’re giving the cameraman a bit slack right here. Still, we’ve heard that the CLA Shooting Brake EQ goes to be utilizing the brand new MB.OS working system. This comes with an AI-powered digital assistant, as many autos do lately. Mercedes has constructed its navigation system on Google Maps. Plus, the within might be just like what we noticed within the upcoming GLA EQ, simply tailor-made to suit the smaller automobile.

The efficiency is there, however the sound is probably not

If rumors are to be believed, the Mercedes-AMG CLA Shooting Brake EQ is packing an eye-watering 544 horsepower, which is produced by three axial flux motors working in tandem.

While Mercedes is but to verify the tri-motor setup, months of leaks, spy pictures, and basic hypothesis level in the direction of the Shooting Brake EQ having this precise configuration.

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The automobile can be rumored to be constructed on an 800-volt structure, particularly the MMA (Mercedes-Benz Modular Architecture) platform. Again, it hasn’t been confirmed formally, however with a lot of Mercedes’ rivals transferring to an 800-volt setup, the German model can be lagging behind if it rolled out the Mercedes-AMG CLA Shooting Brake EQ on a 400-volt structure.

Higher voltage has a couple of benefits, it drops automobile weight aiding efficiency, it’s extra environment friendly so the powertrain makes use of much less juice, and it enormously improves charging instances. It’s speculated which you can get between 186 and 200 miles of vary in simply 10 minutes once you plug the Shooting Brake EQ right into a 320 kW quick charging station.

Not all the things concerning the new AMG is value getting enthusiastic about, although. Mercedes appears to have fallen into the identical entice as Dodge and lots of different efficiency producers who’ve determined to go electrical. The producer is allegedly together with an artificial “V8” sound to the automobile.

Unfortunately for Mercedes, folks aren’t silly. This is just not a rant, however no one likes listening to pretend moans, least of all from efficiency autos. EVs can produce some distinctive sounds, the quietness of the motors permits the sound of the automobile’s aerodynamics to shine via so why not do one thing there? They may at the very least do what many different EV producers do and make the Shooting Brake sound like a biblically correct angel. If I need to hear a V8 noise via a set of audio system I’ll simply look it up on YouTube and blast it via the automotive stereo. But I’m not going to do this as a result of it could be as silly as together with a pretend engine noise on an EV.

Anyway, Mercedes is anticipated to unveil the CLA Shooting Brake EQ later in 2026. While North America is receiving the Mercedes-AMG CLA EQs sedan variant, it’s not but confirmed that the US is getting the Shooting Brake EQ.