First it was 460 hp AMG. Then there was the 500 hp M5. Then Ingolstadt rolled out it ‘s 600+ hp RS6 Wagon. Okay that may be simplifying it a bit but there has been an escalation in power out of the Germany manufacturers (and the Americans to some degree) over the last five years that has raised a few eyebrows. And now, it seems to be coming to an end. Car Magazine interviewed Wolf Zimmerman, R&D boss of Mercedes AMG and he had these comments:

> “We ‘re almost a the top in terms of power now. There ‘s something in the pipeline, but we ‘re nearly at the top. Then cars will become less powerful. ”

Those are (excuse the pun) powerful words. The quote is followed up by a description of how AMG will be going green, presumably along with the other German makes as well.

We ‘ve heard rumblings of this for the past few years out of BMW. Obviously the BMW Group has the impressive EfficientDynamics program already in place but it feels like a stop-gap measure. Something that feels like the first phase in something big. Granted one could argue AMG (and Mercedes) have much further to go. BMW ‘s engines are smaller and generally speaking more efficient. The cars are also lighter (although not lightweights by any measure) and the engineering seems to be more focused on the whole aspect of the driving experience rather than all out brute force. The M3 vs the C63 is a great example of this.

So what does this all mean for BMW? Car theorizes this will lead to the first green supercar and it will indeed wear the Roundel. You can read the article (and the entire magazine with the BMW Green Supercar story) in May issue of Car.