Production-ready Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive supercar unveiled

We’re pretty sure we’ve suffered some amount of vision loss from staring at the ridiculously bright paint scheme on Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG E-Cell over the past few years. MB has rolled it out at virtually every auto show it can and we’ve always stopped for a gander, but now we finally have the full production version — and it’s in a slightly more tame but visually perhaps even more stunning color, a sort of chrome blue that even in the flesh looks CG rendered. It’s the SLS AMG Electric Drive, it’s launching next June and we have the full details after the break.

SLS AMG Electric Drive

SLS AMG Electric Drive – Press Shots

The Electric Drive is a full battery-powered machine, the thumping V8 stripped out and replaced by not one but four electric motors, one for each wheel, delivering a combined massive 750 horsepower — nearly 200 more than the gasoline-powered version. That’s good enough for a 3.9 second 0 – 60 time, top speed of 250km/h (155mph) and a range of 155 miles. Very healthy figures, all thanks to 60kWh of lithium-ion batteries strewn throughout the car. And, with a custom charger, it can be fully topped off in just three hours.

Those numbers are all incredible, but Mercedes finally unveiled two other massively important bits of information: price and date. The car will finally go into production soon ahead of a release in June 2013 and will cost — you might want to sit down — a whopping $500,000. That’s more than twice the cost of the gas-powered version. Worth it? How big is your discretionary fund? If it’s big enough, you can place an order for yours today.

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