A Classic Mercedes Roadster Is Going Electric in a New Partnership

Hemmels, a Cardiff, Wales-based company that rebuilds Mercedes-Benz SLs, will soon offer an electric drivetrain for the W113 “Pagoda” models to the tune of half a million dollars through a new partnership.

The W113 SL is a glamorous two-seat roadster, which replaced the 190SL. It was introduced as the 230 SL at the 1963 Geneva Motor Show, then was gradually replaced by larger-engine models until the end of the line in 1971. The model was quite popular in the U.S., where nearly 20,000 were sold.

“We were on a route to develop a battery powertrain in-house at Hemmels, and we began to realise what a complex undertaking it is, given international regulations. That’s when we discovered that Everrati had already engineered a solution,” says CEO Tom Butterfield.

The result is a collaboration between Hemmels and Everatti—which restores and electrifies classic “icons” from Porsche, Mercedes, and Land Rover from its base in Bicester, Oxfordshire. Hemmels will restore the cars and Everrati will install electric powertrains. The partnership will be officially announced on Friday, and SLs from both companies will be shown at the upcoming Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance during Monterey Car Week (Aug. 9-18). The first jointly produced car should be available to customers in November or December. Ordering a car and taking delivery will take eight to 10 months.

The price for a full Hemmels build, with the Everrati electric drivetrain, is £400,000 (US$513,000), excluding the donor vehicle that the company can locate for customers. The cars will be offered internationally.

The SLs will have 68-kilowatt-hour batteries, distributed to help maintain the car’s ideal front-rear balance.

“The bulk of the weight will be where the original engine and gearbox were located, and there will also be batteries in place of the fuel tank and a small pack in the boot [trunk] occupying about the space of the spare tire,” says Justin Lunny, Everrati’s founder and CEO. As battery technology evolves, Lunny says, it should be able to get a more powerful pack into the same locations, and upgrades can occur.

Another British company Helix, a Lotus supplier, will provide a power-dense but compact 300-horsepower motor that together with the battery pack should yield a range of 200 miles and a zero-to-60 miles per hour time of under seven seconds. The cars will use a limited slip differential for good grip, and will be equipped for regenerative braking—recapturing energy and allowing “one pedal” driving. “The end result is a very usable driving experience,” Lunny says.

“Our process in rebuilding the cars is very in-depth, and it’s what makes us stand out,” says Butterfield, whose family bought Hemmels in 2018. “We use brand-new and upgraded parts—we don’t restore what’s there unless we absolutely have to go that route.” The restoration process can take 4,000 worker hours, and bespoke buyers have wide latitude in colours, interior materials, and a choice of options. High-end audio and Bluetooth are available.

The cars will have already been rebuilt by Hemmels by the time they take their 130-mile journey to Everrati, where the drivetrains are—very carefully—installed.

Lunny says that the SLs will not be cut up or altered during the drivetrain installation. “We don’t damage the structure of the vehicle,” he says, “and everything is technically reversible. We retain the value of the original vehicle. The owners can keep the original internal-combustion engine, ensuring that it’s still with the car.” Butterfield adds that one of his clients is turning his engine into the base “for a glass table that will be installed in his man cave.”

Lunny describes the SLs as “art pieces that happen to have wheels. We love them like our babies, and everything we do is to a replicable standard, on par with what an [original equipment] manufacturer would do.”

The W113 SLs may be more than 50 years old, but their styling—and appeal across generations—remains timeless.

“It’s not just a certain age or demographic,” Lunny says. “The new audience is the ultra-high-net-worth individuals who adore beautiful iconic cars, especially the Pagoda, but want a clean-air powertrain, with modern air conditioning, that is enjoyable to drive.”

Butterfield intends to keep production relatively low, producing perhaps 10 to 12 electric Pagodas annually. “To stretch to 25 cars per year would risk the quality of our builds,” he says. Some 60% to 70% of Hemmels’ output has gone to U.S. buyers, and that’s one reason the Monterey appearance—the company’s first—is important to the brand.

Hemmels also works its magic on the earlier 190SL, and electric conversions of those models, through the partnership, are possible in the future, Butterfield says.

What’s more important than being a good employee right now? Looking like a good employee in the eyes of AI productivity trackers that more managers are using to evaluate their teams.

Employee-monitoring systems are especially popular at tech companies and are also used by other white-collar firms that want to probe how people spend company time. The scary thing: You might not even know you’re being watched because many states don’t require disclosure.

Metrics can include performance data that is undoubtedly relevant, such as sales results. But it also can employ dubious proxies like keyboard strokes and how often your computer screen goes into sleep mode.

We generally accepted, or at least understood, heightened surveillance during the work-from-home era. Back then it seemed reasonable for bosses to keep tabs on employees they couldn’t see.

Yet the oversight has only escalated, and tensions are rising, too.

A group of former Meta Platforms employees alleges in a lawsuit that the company used a “constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems” when it began laying off about 10% of its workforce in May. Meta says humans make termination calls.

However that case shakes out, a couple of things are clear. Companies eager to gauge which employees are locked in now have sophisticated AI monitoring systems at their disposal. And they believe they have leverage in a tepid labor market.

So while we may chafe at having our worth reduced to numbers on the boss’s productivity dashboard, we have to play the game as it’s being played. Here are some tips, based on conversations with people who make employee monitoring systems—and others who game the systems.

Be meticulous about your calendar

Calendar integration is one way that productivity trackers have gotten more advanced and, ostensibly, fairer.

Let’s say you make an old-fashioned phone call or attend an in-person meeting. Your Outlook or Slack status may switch to “away,” making you appear as inactive as if you were taking an extended coffee break.

Employee monitors like one made by a company called Insightful cross-check your online status with your calendar to see whether there is a valid reason for your apparent inactivity. If that call or meeting is on your schedule, then the system will recognize that you are busy offline. If nothing is on the books, it could look like you’re slacking off.

Hit the activity sweet spot, around 80%

Let’s not go any further without addressing the underlying question: How much downtime is permissible during the workday? After all, people have been scared to let managers see anything non-work-related on their screens since personal computers first arrived in offices.

No one knows this better than Roger Wagner, who is widely credited with creating the first “boss button” in the early 1980s. He designed a keyboard shortcut to instantly display a spreadsheet if the boss walked by your cubicle while you were playing a computer game. Boss buttons have been features of countless diversions since. (I confess to using one built into a March Madness streaming app.)

Wagner, the founder of computer-education company 1010 Technologies, says his original design was a joke—more of a commentary on overbearing managers than a cover for lazy employees. Good bosses understand workers need mental breaks throughout the day, he says.

This matches what I heard from Insightful Chief Executive Ivan Petrovic. He says customers that use his company’s workforce-management platform don’t expect employees to stay on task 100% of the time.

“On average companies are aiming for 60% to 80% of your time being utilized for work during the day,” he says.

Go ahead and exhale. It’s probably OK to watch an occasional YouTube video at your desk.

And if you’re going to artificially inflate your activity level, be careful. Hitting 90% could look suspicious.

Get physical

So don’t leave your mouse jiggler on all day. Choose the right one if you must resort to shenanigans.

There are lots of software applications that mimic the movements of a computer mouse, so you can appear to be working while away from your desk. There are also devices that plug into computer ports and do the same thing.

Corporate cybersecurity systems increasingly block these apps and devices, and productivity trackers claim to be able to detect them. But some workers swear by mouse docks, like one made by Tech8 USA, that keep cursors moving. The company originally made mouse-moving software but now focuses on physical jigglers.

“People are drawn to mechanical solutions because they’re so simple and don’t require software,” says Tech8 Marketing Director Sam Matthews. “As monitoring technology becomes more sophisticated, that distinction has become even more relevant.”

Use AI, but not too much

Another popular metric for employee-monitoring systems is AI usage. Companies want to know who is embracing new tools, and it can be tempting to think more is better.

“There’s a performative aspect where employees overblow their usage of AI so that they appear relevant in the organization,” says Andrea Derler, principal researcher at Visier, which helps companies track and analyze employee work habits.

In a recent Visier survey of 1,000 U.S. workers, 48% admitted to exaggerating their AI usage.

This is already an outdated strategy. Using AI for everything used to score points for experimentation. Now it can seem wasteful because many companies are watching AI token spending more carefully.

Look, productivity theater has always been part of work. Most of us aren’t trying to cheat the system, but expectations are changing so quickly that we need to be savvy about what the latest employee trackers are looking for.

Sometimes it takes a little gamesmanship to get full credit for our contributions.

A Classic Mercedes Roadster Is Going Electric in a New Partnership

As AI productivity trackers reshape workplace evaluations, employees are learning how to manage calendars, activity levels and AI usage to ensure their contributions are recognized.

Be meticulous about your calendar

Hit the activity sweet spot, around 80%

Get physical

Use AI, but not too much