while the world While awaiting Ferrari’s first all-electric car due out next year, archrival McLaren insists the technology does not yet exist to deliver an electric vehicle worthy of its name.
Power clearly isn’t the problem, but weight is the enemy at Woking, McLaren’s UK headquarters, and the batteries aren’t getting lighter fast enough. Going all-electric means unacceptable compromises for a car’s dynamics, says McLaren.
Lightweight isn’t just a philosophy to these guys, it’s dogma, and like all those things, that doesn’t suggest much in the way of progressive thinking. Until you reach a curve at, let’s say, a committed speed in the new Artura Spider.
Few cars are as fluid, balanced and rewarding as this one, a sleek-looking machine that soon has you thinking like a racing driver: plotting entry, apex and exit, messing around with the throttle or trying to correct understeer. It reaches right under your skin.
McLaren doesn’t even rate the all-electric steering as pure enough, and the Artura’s precise feel is certainly helped by an old-school hydraulic setup. Apparently, it is almost identical to the address setting on the 600 literswhich is nothing less than one of the best handling cars ever made.
Power P1 Pimp
Photography: McLaren Automotive
However, it would be a serious mistake to confuse McLaren with a technology rejecter. Far from there. The core of the Artura’s amazing athleticism is its carbon composite chassis (MCLA for short), which offers tremendous structural integrity and impressive lateral bending rigidity.
It is manufactured at the company’s exclusive UK facility in Sheffield, and McLaren’s use of carbon fiber across its model range surpasses Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche, who reserve the expensive material for their more hypercars. expensive.
The Artura is also a hybrid, deepening the company’s expertise in an area it first explored in 2013’s groundbreaking P1. The combustion engine is a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6, mated here to a direct-flow electric motor. axial, which is integrated into the gearbox bell.
Engine mapping improvements have increased total power to 690 brake horsepower, an increase of 20 horsepower over the Artura v1.0. Instead of a 90-degree V, the cylinders are positioned at a 120-degree angle, reducing pressure losses in the exhaust. The twin turbos sit in a “hot V” configuration, meaning they can spin faster with useful consequences for throttle response.