Russ ;x Posted March 7, 2020 Posted March 7, 2020 The British government proposal to pull forward a ban on the sale of gasoline and diesel powerplants from 2040 to 2035 has raised some serious questions for the UK's luxury automakers, especially as many of them are about to move into hybrid powerplants, which also face the ax. "It was a surprise, and not a particularly nice one," McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt told Car and Driver when we spoke to him by telephone earlier this week, in lieu of the interview we were meant to carry out at the canceled Geneva auto show . "Moving to 2035 is aggressive, including hybrids obviously much more so. I see it as a vision by the government. There's no plan underpinning it in terms of infrastructure or technology at this stage." McLaren is going to join with other automakers in lobbying for hybrids to be excluded, but Flewitt also acknowledged that McLaren's global sales mean it will almost certainly still be working on cars using at least some form of combustion power, even if these have been banned in Britain 15 years from now. "I've always thought that EV rollout would see different market segments responding at different speeds. It does suit small commuter cars pretty well," he said, "with other sectors like ours responding a little later. I also think there will be geographic Differences, with some markets like China pushing aggressively and other markets having a more relaxed time frame. Add all that together, and you've got a mixed powertrain strategy for the next 20 or 30 years. " McLaren is already committed to hybridizing almost its entire lineup, but with electrical power playing a relatively limited role. Moving beyond that to bigger battery packs would produce some major packaging headaches. "As a lower-volume manufacturer, our strategy is built around one platform," he said, "so we might need an EV platform for certain markets and a hybrid platform for other markets or sectors."
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