The new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupe was unveiled on 19 May. It is genuinely extraordinary hardware. Three YASA axial flux motors, two on the rear axle and one on the front, produce 1,153 horsepower in GT 63 specification. The AMG.EA dedicated electric platform can apparently accommodate over 1,300 horsepower when someone decides to turn it all the way up. It does zero to sixty in around two seconds. It charges at 600kW. By any rational measure of what a performance machine is supposed to do, this thing does it.
And then they piped a fake V8 through the speakers and hoped nobody would notice.
AMG calls the system AMGFORCE S+. It uses over 1,600 individual audio samples, recombined in real time based on throttle inputs, speed and driving behaviour. It simulates a gearbox with nine ratios that does not exist, with paddle shifters on the wheel that generate fake upshifts, fake rev drops, fake burble on overrun. The seat motors vibrate to simulate drivetrain shudder. There is a fake tachometer on the dashboard with a fake 7,000rpm redline. The sound system activates when you plug in the charger. It makes a noise when you unlock the car. They got the sound right down to mimicking the AMG GT R's V8 bogging down and running out of revs, because apparently the aspiration here was to accurately reproduce the limitations of a combustion engine in a machine that has none.
This is not a criticism of electric vehicles. The AMG GT is extraordinarily fast. The problem is that Mercedes knows it has removed something that mattered and its solution was to build an elaborate machine for pretending it is still there.
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The soul of a performance car is not a noise. It is the relationship between what is happening mechanically and what you feel and hear as a result. A V8 sounds the way it does because eight pistons are actually firing, fuel is actually burning, valves are actually opening and closing and all of that mechanical event is escaping through an exhaust system as organised chaos. It is not decorative. It is the car telling you what it is doing. Synthetic audio is the car telling you a story about something that is not happening.
Electrek's reviewer, who was given an early test ride, called it the best fake V8 sound in the industry. That is probably true. It is also a sentence that would have sounded absurd to anyone who bought an AMG in 2005.
Other manufacturers have tried versions of this. Dodge built the Fratzonic chambered exhaust for the Charger Daytona, a physical resonator that generates actual sound pressure rather than simply broadcasting recorded noise, which at least has the virtue of being real. Hyundai's Ioniq 5 N projects sound outward as well as inward. Those are engineering responses to the same problem. What AMG has done is different in kind. It is a simulation of a previous product, down to the fake mechanical imperfections, running on top of a genuinely new one. Mercedes CEO Ola Källenius, who used to work at AMG, called it proof that AMG moves the bar rather than just meets it. The bar being referred to appears to be the fidelity of the illusion.
The GT 55 arrives at US dealers later this year with 805 horsepower. The GT 63 at 1,153 horsepower follows in early 2027. Pricing will be six figures, in line with the previous generation. You will be able to adjust how fake it sounds from the drive mode selector.
The car will be fast. It will be exciting. It will be technically impressive in ways that matter.
It will also be lying to you, constantly, about what it is. And the saddest part is that nobody at Affalterbach thinks that is a problem. They think it is a feature.
Sources
- Electrek — Mercedes unveils AMG GT EV: 1,153hp, 0-60 in 2s, 11-min charge, fake V8 noise
- Carscoops — The 1,153 HP AMG GT's Fake V8 Has To Be Heard To Be Believed
- Jalopnik — The New Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupe's Synthesized V8 Sounds Might Be The Best EV 'Engine' Noises Yet
- Wheelfront — AMG Goes Electric: 1,153 HP and a Fake V8
- Autoblog — Mercedes-AMG's Electric Super Sedan Has a Fake V8 Sound and Over 1,300 HP
- ArenaEV — Mercedes-AMG GT swaps V8 for high-tech sound and power