McLaren launches chassis for hybrid and electric supercars ‘entirely engineered, developed and produced’ in Rotherham

The new ‘vehicle architecture’ has been ‘entirely engineered, developed and produced’ at the company’s £50m state-of-the-art McLaren Composites Technology Centre on the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham.

The firm says it has used world-first processes to strip out weight while improving safety. And the new product will ‘underpin its next generation of electrified supercars’ including a new hybrid next year.

The announcement will come as relief to Rotherham staff. In May, the company announced plans to cut more than a quarter of its workforce across its automotive and F1 divisions after the coronavirus crisis hit sales and advertising revenue.

The firm employs about 4,000, and of the 1,200 to be made redundant, the vast majority will be in the UK, it said then.

Chassis made in Rotherham are shipped to a factory in Woking, Surrey, where cars are built by hand.

Chief executive Mike Flewitt said: “The new ground-breaking vehicle architecture is every bit as revolutionary as the MonoCell chassis we introduced with the company’s first car, the 12C, when we first embarked on making production vehicles a decade ago.

“This new, ultra-lightweight carbon fibre chassis boasts greater structural integrity and higher levels of quality than ever before with our new MCTC facility quickly becoming recognised as a global centre of excellence in composite materials science and manufacturing.

“Our advanced expertise in light weight composites processes and manufacturing combined with our experience in cutting-edge battery technology and high-performance hybrid propulsion systems means we are ideally placed to deliver to customers levels of electrified high-performance motoring that until now have simply been unattainable.

“For us, light-weighting and electrification go hand-in-hand to achieve better performance as well as more efficient vehicles.”

The Rotherham factory was opened by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2018.

Launched in 2010, the company is now the largest part of the McLaren Group which comprises three businesses: Automotive, Racing and Applied.

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