McLaren Announces New Electrified Platform

In HotWheels
August 26, 2020
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British car maker McLaren is working on the next generation of supercars which will feature electrification.

Platform development is a fascinating exercise of balancing costs versus engineering. The trick with the smaller car brands is developing a platform to underpin your entire portfolio of vehicles, but each vehicle must feel different. Simply, developing one platform per vehicle is not the most cost-effective exercise and you’ll save a tremendous amount of money by using one platform. Think of Volkswagen’s MQB (Golf, Audi A3, T-Cross) and Toyota’s TNG (Corolla, C-HR, RAV4).

McLaren has had a carbon fibre tub and its twin-turbocharged powertrain combination for some time and as we enter the electrified era, it’s time for McLaren to move on. The British carmaker is working on an “all-new, flexible, lightweight vehicle architecture.”

This new platform has been designed specifically for hybrid powertrains and will be engineered and manufactured at the brand’s state-of-the-art McLaren Composites Technology Centre (MCTC) in the Sheffield region

The new architecture is said to focus on safety as well as the reduction of overall vehicle weight, and will be underpinning the next-generation McLaren hybrid supercars. The first offering built on this new platform will be launched in 2021.