McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt told Car and Driver that the British supercar company plans to fully hybridize its lineup in the next three to four years.

The next-generation platform will support a plug-in-hybrid system with around 15–20 miles of fully-electric range.

An all-wheel-drive system with front electric motors could help a hybrid achieve a 2.3-second zero-to-60 mph time.

McLaren's next-generation supercar will include an all-wheel-drive hybrid model with a targeted zero-to-60-mph time of 2.3 seconds. That's straight out of the mouth of McLaren Automotive CEO Mike Flewitt, who laid out the British automaker's plans in an interview with Car and Driver. The all-wheel-drive model will use an electrically driven front axle to help it rocket off the line significantly quicker than the rear-wheel-drive 789-hp McLaren Senna, which hit 60 mph in 2.7 seconds in Car and Driver testing.

McLaren will officially announce its next-generation platform and hybrid powertrain in spring of 2020, with the first vehicle being revealed before the end of that year and going on sale in the U.S. in early 2021. Flewitt says the brand's entire lineup will be hybridized within three to four years using a plug-in-hybrid powertrain with around 15 to 20 miles of fully-electric range. The CEO claims the hybrid will be just 65 pounds heavier than current-generation McLarens, but we suspect that figure applies only to rear-wheel-drive cars that will use a new, lighter V-6 engine paired with the hybrid hardware. The company will likely continue to use turbocharged V-8 engines with hybrid capability in its high-end models.

McLaren's CEO is less bullish on battery-electric supercars. He says today's lithium-ion battery technology is too heavy, too expensive, and not energy-dense enough to support McLaren's performance values. He's more hopeful for solid-state battery technology, which he expects to be commercialized in 2023 to 2025, but even then Flewitt suggests an electric McLaren could be as far off as 30 years.

Flewitt reassured us that McLaren's mind is in the right place when it comes to SUVs. "Why would we?" he says. "We don't have to." The CEO also acknowledges that McLaren couldn't build an SUV from its existing mid-engine architecture, and that developing an SUV would require an investment of up to $1 billion for an all-new architecture. "We'd never get a return on it," Flewitt says.

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