TapTechNews, June 12th. Once upon a time, the debut of the Porsche Cayenne made car enthusiasts furious. After all, for a brand dedicated to sports car manufacturing, venturing into the lucrative SUV market seemed like a 'betrayal' at that time.
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But in order to keep the classic model 911, Porsche had no choice. The introduction of the Cayenne (and later the Macan) became a life-saving straw. Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Lotus, and even Ferrari have followed suit and launched their respective versions of 'SUVs'. Now, it's McLaren's turn.
McLaren is famous for its glorious racing history and the record-setting F1 30 years ago, but the company is currently in financial trouble. According to Road & Track magazine, McLaren lost more than $500,000 (about 3.632 million yuan currently) for each car sold last year.
In order to turn the situation around, McLaren's CEO Michael Leiters has put forward some solutions. The first is to limit production. Although McLaren's global sales in 2023 were only 2137 units, Leiters still thinks that further reduction is needed to maintain the high residual value of the vehicles. Ferrari has also adopted the same strategy and has achieved remarkable results.
The other way to get out of the financial plight is to enter the SUV market. However, like Ferrari, Rolls-Royce and Lotus, McLaren will not give it the title of 'SUV'.
In order to fully explore the company's potential, we think we need to take the second step, expand the product line, and enter new markets beyond the existing fields, Leiters said in an interview. We call this model 'Shared Performance', because the new car can accommodate more passengers than the existing McLaren models and let more people feel the surging power.
In other words, we need to be familiar with a new automotive term - SPV, that is, Shared Performance Vehicle. McLaren said the new car will adopt a plug-in hybrid system and use a V6 or V8 engine.
Another possibility is to cooperate with other large automotive companies to integrate McLaren's hybrid system onto the existing platform. Leiters did not disclose the possible partners, but Road & Track magazine speculates that BMW might be a suitable partner because they have cooperated in the past and BMW already has the XM, which is positioned as a high-chassis model with high-performance hybrid.
However, lightweight has always been McLaren's advantage, while the weight of the BMW XM is as high as 6200 pounds, which is contrary to McLaren's philosophy. Leiters said that McLaren can use its expertise to reduce the weight of the platform. We have world-class expertise that can be applied to partnership relationships, including even the structural elements of the platform.
Regarding the price, McLaren's plug-in SPV will be closer to the Ferrari Purosangue and the Rolls-Royce Cullinan rather than the Lamborghini Urus and the Bentley Bentayga. The expected price will be about $400,000 (TapTechNews note: currently about 2.906 million yuan).
In addition to entering the SUV field, McLaren is also developing its first all-electric supercar, with a target weight of only 3300 pounds. Leiters said that in his opinion, the definition of a supercar is not only limited to performance, but also includes weight. For me, a car weighing two tons is not a supercar, he said. It's easy to increase the power output to improve the linear acceleration performance, but this is only the longitudinal performance. An excellent supercar also needs excellent transverse performance, and if the weight is too large, you can't achieve this.