Why McLaren Sees No EVs or SUVs Before 2030

• Don't expect an electric McLaren or a McLaren SUV before 2030.

• The batteries are too heavy, McLaren says, but funding for development could be another reason, in our opinion.

• McLaren's going to concentrate on fun, two-seater, gas-powered supercars for now.

McLaren makes some of the greatest supercars in the world, no doubt about that. And it has plans for the future. Last week it introduced the 750S supercar, and our time behind the wheel was most satisfying. But there’s a lot more going on at the company.

Last week, after we crawled whimpering from the belly of a 750S, we got a chance to talk with Nic Brown, president of McLaren the Americas. Brown may be the coolest cat among automotive executives in the world today.

He has the best resume, for sure. Right out of college he got a job at BMW in Munich as a project manager, soon found himself running sales support for Rolls-Royce North America from Goodwood by age 23, stayed at Rolls for seven years leaving as general manager of RR’s eastern US region, went back to BMW of North America and then, still in his 30s, became VP of sales at McLaren The Americas and president of McLaren the Americas less than three years ago.

So he knows the car industry, and he knows what McLaren needs to remain viable in the supercar segment. Hint: It ain’t an EV just yet and it probably isn’t an SUV, at least not anytime soon. We spoke to him at the McLaren 750S launch in Las Vegas, after a day blasting one of the company cars across the desert and around Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s infield road course.

When it’s at full capacity with a full menu of supercars to sell, McLaren the Americas hits about 1500 to 1600 sales in a good year. 2024 will be a good year, Brown predicts.

“We’ll have the GTS (gran tourer), which we’ve launched but it comes in the spring. We’ll have the 750S Coupe and Spider (which we drove last week), and then, of course, the Artura (plug-in hybrid). So this is really the first year over the last couple of years where we’ll have a full portfolio.”

Those numbers may be small compared to the world’s major automakers, but McLaren occupies a wonderfully fast niche, full of some of the most addictively fun-to-drive cars ever made. McLaren has a lot to offer customers now. Nonetheless, why not add to sales totals with a sedan? Or double sales with an SUV?

“Right now, our focus is on our core segments,” Brown says. “Mid-engined, two-door, two-seat supercars. In the past, we have used words like ‘never’ (when addressing the question of a McLaren SUV). What we’re saying now is that we are open to at least investigating various segments, but we haven’t made a decision yet.”

But all the supercar makers are doing it! Look at Lotus with its coming Emeya and Eletra. Or Ferrari with the Purosangue. Almost as soon as Lamborghini introduced the Urus, sales doubled, seemingly overnight. Why not double sales? Brown gives a philosophical answer.

“For us, the great thing is that we’re always driven by—and you heard it today—we’re a race team that’s making road cars, versus a road car company making race cars. So, we always look at things a little bit differently. And we realized that we have to be very, very true to the core of the brand.”

You could speculate that the money to develop a McLaren SUV could be part of the problem. But McLaren CEO Michael Leiters told Bloomberg last October that the problem with an electric supercar of any kind is weight, and the necessary batteries based on today’s technology are just plain too heavy to go in a McLaren anything.

Leiters said he didn’t see batteries getting light enough for a McLaren, any McLaren, until the end of the decade. Leiters told Automotive News Europe last year that the company’s first SUV would likely be electric, but that it wouldn’t come before 2030.