Woking, England - With Lamborghini and Aston Martin having jumped onto the profitable crossover SUV bandwagon, and with Ferrari due to do so soon, it seems supercar maker McLaren can no longer resist the temptation to get its own wheels dirty too.
According to Autocar, the British carmaker is working on a high-performance crossover that will only be offered with battery-electric power.
However, don’t expect to see this high-riding McLaren on the street any time soon as it’s apparently only going to be launched in the second half of this decade.
Autocar believes it will remain true to the company’s tradition of creating lightweight cars with highly advanced aerodynamics.
However in order to achieve the desired weight goals, McLaren is said to be waiting for battery technology to improve in terms of size and weight. The company could even be eyeing the much-anticipated solid-state battery technology, it is speculated.
As well as light, the new McLaren crossover is said to be relatively compact and low-slung, while buyers will likely get to choose between dual-motor and tri-motor powertrains that could make them among the fastest SUVs in the world.
With internal combustion cars set to become illegal in many countries from 2030, McLaren has no choice but to go electric, but quite sensibly it will use hybrids to bridge the gap. By 2026 all McLaren supercars will have a hybrid architecture similar to what we see on the Artura, Reuters reports, and the company will look to launch fully electric models later in the decade.
Last year McLaren’s executive director for purchasing, Ruth Nic Aoidh told Reuters that due to the extra weight penalty that batteries would impose, the company was rethinking the way it builds vehicles from the ground up. McLaren wants to reduce vehicle weight by around 15%, and to achieve this the company has developed a new in-house process that allows it to make carbon composite chassis tubs in a matter of minutes at its new facility in Rotherham, England.
McLaren also intends to produce its own batteries, which could be sold to other carmakers to maximise revenue.