As the entire automotive industry moves towards electric vehicles, a fully electric McLaren is inevitable. But it won’t be a supercar. Instead, it’ll be something much more practical.
AutoExpress recently shared portions of an interview that McLaren CEO Michael Leiters gave to its sister publication Evo. In the interview, Leiters said he doesn’t think McLaren is ready to build an electric hypercar just yet. He then went on to not-so-subtly hint at an electric sedan.
“The technology is much more mature [and allows us to] customise it to have a more lifestyle, a more utility purpose,” Leiters told Evo. “Words like ‘utility’ or ‘lifestyle’, you’ll obviously leap to certain conclusions. I think the key measure for McLaren is potentially something with the ability to share with more occupants in the car. Not necessarily higher-riding, but it could be.”
It’s possible you could read that quote as Leiters saying McLaren will go after the Ferrari Purosangue with a crossover, but it sounds to us like he has a sedan in mind to take on the Porsche Taycan. Although it won’t be cheap. He reportedly said it will cost at least $US200,000 ($277,640), which he considers the pricing floor for any new McLaren, adding, “We need to focus on profitability, not volume.”
Leiters also said he’s focused on build quality going forward and making sure any vehicle it sells is fully “mature” before they’re delivered to customers. “What I heard from my team is that in the past, we accepted a non-mature product and would launch it and deliver it to customers,” he said. “The Artura was the first project where we didn’t do that. We saw that the car wasn’t mature, so we stopped deliveries. Doing this risked the financial position of the company, but I think this was important.”
Considering he used to work at Porsche, he’s probably got high standards for what he considers a “mature” car, which can only a good thing for future McLaren owners.