MCLAREN CEO TELLS OF PLANS TO TRIPLE SALES
Mike Flewitt, CEO of McLaren Automotive, has gone on the record about how the sports car maker plans to introduce 15 new vehicles and triple its sales by 2022.
Speaking to Automotive News Europe, Flewitt laid out the company’s ambitious agenda.
After selling 1654 sports cars last year, Flewitt expects the company to sell 3000 vehicles this year, and between 4500 to 5000 annually by 2022.
Given the constraints at its factory in Woking, England, McLaren’s production is limited to around 5000 cars each year.
To achieve its goals, McLaren aims to invest £1 billion ($2.1 billion) in 15 new cars up between now and 2022. Many of these vehicles will be built around a new vehicle platform, consisting of a new carbonfibre tub for the passenger compartment and new aluminium frames.
Despite the new underpinnings, McLaren’s upcoming models will stick with the tried and true mid-engine, two-seat layout.
The company will also invest heavily in a new engine that has been “specifically designed for a hybridised application”.
Flewitt declined to indicate whether it would be a V6 or a V8, but the new drivetrain will be a standalone hybrid as it is “more convenient”.
Although the hybrid is being developed to help the brand meet tightening emissions legislation throughout the world, it will “add to the experience” of driving a McLaren. The hybrid drivetrain will be offered in tandem with the existing V8 and should appear by 2019. McLaren’s CEO says that by 2022, more than half of the brand’s vehicles will be hybrids.
-caradvice.com.au