Leaving the V8 in the past: The all-electric Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door

Key points

• At a star-studded event that closed downtown Los Angeles’ Sixth Street Viaduct last night, Mercedes and AMG unveiled the next generation of performance electric vehicles.
• The new four-door GT Coupe arrives in the midst of a pivotal period, the result of an almost experimental process that seems to take two steps forward and one step back quite regularly.
• In many ways, the all-electric AMG leaves previous plans in the past by effectively bringing the record-setting Concept AMG GT XX to series production, with many firsts for Mercedes supporting the abandonment of internal combustion power, including new axial motors from YASA and F1-derived battery cells.
• Fittingly, then, Mercedes brought out its F1 team’s personnel, as George Russell presented the new car while Toto Wolff and Kimi Antonelli watched from the makeshift grandstands.
• Hollywood celebs ran the gamut, from Brad Pitt—who drove one GT onto the bridge—to Jacob Elordi and Kevin Hart,...