McLaren discussed issues with making an electric supercar

• Published On: 26 December 2017
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The company says a lot more investment is necessary to create power-dense batteries that put out supercar-level performance.

The company has been working on an all-electric supercar and the engineers at the factory spoke about the challenges they must face.

Dan Parry-Williams, McLaren’s engineering design director, said that McLaren is currently testing on a pure Electric Vehicle (EV) test mule, with the focus being driver engagement. For McLaren, technology is the major challenge just like it is for other manufacturers. Parry-Williams said, “If one wants to do some track driving for half an hour in an EV that has a road drive range of over 500 miles, then, at the end of the tracking, the car would completely run out of charge as the energy required for track performance is staggering.”

Parry-Williams also added that there needs to be a lot of investment into energy-dense batteries, which are good for providing long range. For supercar performance to improve power density, a lot needs to be invested in such tech. So, for McLaren, a full EV is still some time away. Parry-Williams did add that 50 percent of McLaren’s models will use hybrid motors by 2022 that will be high on performance.