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Mercedes' 2014 Electric SLS Comes With an Imagination

If you haven't already seen it in a malaise of this morning's headlines, Mercedes-Benz has just unsheathed its electric sex machine in Paris. The "$579,417":http://www.egmcartech.com/2012/09/27/mercedes-benz-sls-amg-coupe-electric-drive-740-hp/ 201...

Drenching my morning in a storm of headlines is Mercedes-Benz’ new electric sex machine, just unsheathed at the 2012 Paris Motor Show. The $579,417 2014 SLS AMG Coupé Electric Drive, despite its clunky name, spews sexual satisfaction comparable to the famed androgynous runway model Andre Pejic. Let me hear your electric motors whirr, baby. (But I mean that quite literally. As is the trend, this electric car comes with synthetic engine sounds, described here as if we’re talkin’ realistic-sounding digital pianos.)

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With four electric motors (one for each wheel), the car boasts 740 horses and 737 pound-feet of torque, and can fly to 60mph in 3.9 seconds (0.3 seconds slower than its gas-guzzling predecessor). All that power comes at the expense of weight and mileage; its 1,200+ pound, 60kWh battery pack will only get you from New York City to Albany (150 miles) before it runs out of juice. And once you’ve reached the governor’s mansion, it’ll take 20 hours to re-up to full bars. But Mercedes, probably taking cues from its Daimler-family friend Tesla, will hopefully roll out some rapid-charge stations of its own.

With virtually every car manufacturer sketching designs for battery-powered futures, it’s a wonder to me how much longer coal and crude oil lobbyists will vy to perpetuate the present-day version of lead paint pasts. The Cove director, Louie Psihoyos, recently told me about the additional income he’s scooping up for switching to electric cars and getting solar-panels installed in Boulder, CO.

While a lot of eyes might roll to the thought of pulling out in a cartoonish looking electric Toyota Rav4, which Louie drives, it’s the wealthy auto enthusiast’s undying need for conspicuous consumption that the Electric SLS answers. Toyota is actually losing interest in electric after seeing declines in projected sales and will continue to focus on the happy medium of hybrids. Meanwhile, rich folks keep scooping up big-buck electric luxury rides, like the Fisker Karma or Tesla Model S, because, really, nothing else lets you flash your bank account and eco-cred at the same time.

Shifting toward the lithium-ion age of cars that whisper their way up California’s HOV lanes, making a statement about your bionically-enhanced genitalia is probably the only reason to buy an SLS. To a certain crowd obsessed with ostentatious wealth, it also helps that the SLS costs roughly 10 times the base price of the Model S *which will also take its drivers 70 miles further than the Mercedes).

But just as horseless carriages were once only the realm of rich tycoons, so will rich dudes in electric Mercedes usher in the next epoch of motoring. Because these days, you can’t even be an oil baron without at least pretending to be green.

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