McLaren Focusing On Lightness For Its All-Electrc Hypercar

McLaren has been quite open about researching and developing an all-electric hypercar over the past couple of years, but says it is in no rush to launch such a model and would rather wait until the technology is perfected.

Speaking with Car Sales at the recent Australian launch of the McLaren GT, the automaker’s global marketing director, Jamie Corstorphine, said it is crucially important that McLaren retains a focus on lightness with its future models, including any all-electric offerings.

“What we’ve previously said is that we’re working on an EV prototype in our ultimate series to understand how the characteristics and subjective feel corresponds to an EV,” he said. “It’s always our approach that it’s better to build something and drive it and understand it.”

Also Read: McLaren Says Its Electric Supercar Needs To Last 30 Minutes On Track

“Lightness is one of the core attributes at McLaren. We will maintain that philosophy to make cars as light as possible in the future,” he added. “It’s all about delivering the best driving experience. McLaren is about providing a rewarding driving experience. That’s why we’re developing our prototype in terms of getting the best driving satisfaction driving an EV.”

While car manufacturers such as Rimac, Pininfarina, and Lotus have all unveiled electric hypercars over the past 18 months, McLaren chief executive Mike Flewitt said in August 2018 that battery performance might not reach the level McLaren needs until the year 2025.

McLaren wants its future electric hypercar to be able to do 30 minutes of full-on track use and have a charging system that can fully charge the battery in 30 minutes.