10 Nov 2017  -  New Zealand will pass a significant milestone in its electric vehicle revolution this month. All of New Zealand’s electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids combined will avoid emitting 1 million kilograms of greenhouse gas in November.  This estimate is from Flip the Fleet, a citizen science coalition of pure and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle owners that upload data from their vehicles to a communal database each month. The project estimates the amount of greenhouse gas that a conventional vehicle of the same size and power would have emitted over the same distance as each electric vehicle travelled.

"The data just received show that, on average, each low-emission vehicle avoided emitting the equivalent of 191 kg of carbon dioxide in October" said Prof. Henrik Moller, a co-founder of Flip the Fleet. "The Ministry of Transport’s estimates that there were 5,341 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in New Zealand by the end of October. The electric fleet is growing at approximately 9% per month. So we reckon that from now on we’ll be saving more than a million kg of greenhouse gases each month".

"That’s a million small victories for our grandchildren" said Prof. Moller, a sustainability scientist at the University of Otago.

"At the current rate of growth of New Zealand’s electric vehicle fleet, we should eliminate 10 million kg of emissions per month by the middle of 2020".

Flip the Fleet is a citizen science project that provides scientifically reliable information on the benefits and constraints of electric vehicles in New Zealand. The project is partly funded by MBIE’s Curious Minds portfolio, through Otago Museum.

Participation is free and all New Zealand’s electric vehicle owners can enrol at www.flipthefleet.org

| A Flipthefleet release  || November 9,  2017   |||

7 Nov  -  Royal Enfield has inaugurated its new Technology Centre in Bruntingthorpe Proving Grounds, Leicestershire. The brand new facility, located at the heart of the central Midlands area of UK, is housed at the largest privately owned vehicle test track facility, thereby ensuring ease of access to a host of vehicle development, engineering and testing-related​ ​facilities. The choice of location suits the iconic motorcycle manufacturer considering Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome and Proving Ground first opened in 1942 for the Royal Air Force (RAF) and hosted both the RAF and US Air Force.

In line with its aim to expand and make gains in the fast-growing global midsize motorcycle segment (250-750cc), Royal Enfield says it has been investing extensively towards increasing capacities, infrastructure and product, and as well as people capabilities. The new technology centre in the UK was set up with a view to bring a more global approach towards product and technology. Also,​ ​the​ ​fact​ ​that the ​​UK​ ​is​ ​the​ ​birthplace​ ​of​ ​the ​brand which made its first motorcycle in 1901,​ ​made​ ​it​ ​an​ ​obvious​ ​choice.

The UKTC (UK Technology Centre) acts as the innovative hub and global headquarters for product strategy, product development, industrial design, research, programme management and analysis for Royal Enfield. The facility boasts state-of-the-art equipment and modern workshop facilities that enable engineers to develop authentically styled and accessible​ ​motorcycles​ ​and​ ​future​ ​concepts.

Seeing tomorrow todayUKTC, which has a contemporary and futuristic industrial look, is spread across 3,000 square metres and over two levels. It essentially is a modern workspace for employees, with an Industrial Design Studio, Engine, Electrics, Chassis Build, Spray-shop, Model-shop, Metal work and Part store on the other floor.

The spacious Industrial Design Studio has variable-height modelling platforms and a suite of workshop facilities to bring the majority of model preparation in-house. The Engine Test building, spread across 470 square metres, houses the​ ​latest​ ​dynamometers​ ​and​ ​emissions​ ​equipment​ ​for​ ​testing.

Since commencing operations in January 2015, the UKTC now has over 120 employees working on multiple projects, that includes development of future products and platforms. The first modern Royal Enfield 650 twin and the new range of motorcycles​ ​has​ ​been​ ​developed​ ​between​ ​the​ ​teams​ ​at​ ​UKTC​ ​and​ ​Chennai,​ ​India.

Back to the futureWikipedia has it that Royal Enfield was a brand name under which The Enfield Cycle Company of Redditch, Worcestershire sold motorcycles, bicycles, lawnmowers and stationary engines which it had manufactured. Enfield Cycle Company also used the brand name Enfield without Royal. The first Royal Enfield motorcycle was built in 1901. Enfield's remaining motorcycle business became part of Norton Villiers in 1967 and that business closed in 1978 after which Royal Enfield, as we know it in India, began manufacturing motorcycles in Chennai.

Riding a wave of demandRoyal Enfield currently is witnessing a surge in demand for its products and with its new manufacturing base in Chennai, the company has been able to grow its production rapidly. Since the past five years, it has notched over 50 percent growth every year. Royal Enfield’s product line-up in India includes the Bullet, Classic and Thunderbird models in 350 and 500cc displacement​ ​along​ ​with the Continental GT 535cc café racer and the purpose-built Himalayan adventure bike powered by the new LS410 engine.

The company operates through 17 company-operated stores and over 705 dealers in all major cities and towns in India, and exports to over 50 countries across the world including the USA, UK, several European and Latin American countries, as well as the Middle East and South East Asia.

| An AutoCarPro release  ||  November 7,  2017   |||

Bringing a whole new meaning to “speedy recovery

We all know Formula 1 is a test bed for a variety of technologies that will eventually trickle down to the street. Now, McLaren is taking its go-faster know-how and applying it somewhere a bit unexpected – health care. The body armor you see here was created in response to a client’s request for a device that would help keep his organs protected after undergoing surgery. It’s called Invincible shield, and it protects the rib cage through the use of high-failure strain Dyneema fibers, as well as woven fabrics and a highly-toughened resin system. The construction and materials pull from McLaren’s F1 experience, and includes the same fibers used as side-impact crash protection in the race car. Essentially, this armor is made from the same stuff that’s going into next year’s F1 competitor.

The end result is something lightweight, but tough and rigid enough to protect the client. The armor was designed to be discreet as well, and was perfectly tailored to the client’s body to be hidden under a shirt. Responsible for its creation was McLaren’s Applied Technologies division, which apparently has a hand in developing health care products. “From digital therapeutics, to tailored human performance programs and bespoke medical devices, our aim is to innovate health care solutions that can be tailored for individual patients,” says Dr. Adam Hill, McLaren’s Chief Medical Officer. Yeah, I didn’t know McLaren had a Chief Medical Officer, either.

Continue reading for the full story here on TopSpeed  ||  October 5,  2017   |||.

Former McLaren employee John Nicholson, who prepared Can-Am and F1 engines for the team and played a key role in the World Championship victories of 1974 and 1976, has passed away in his native New Zealand. He was 75.

Nicholson was also a gifted driver in his own right, and he even briefly made it to F1, competing in the 1975 British GP as well as four non-championship races. Although he never raced a works McLaren, he did a lot of testing for the team, driving Can-Am, F5000, F2 and on occasion F1 machinery.

John was born into a mechanical background in 1941. His father, who was an armourer in the air force, raced powerboats in New Zealand, and in his youth John helped to prepare them. From school he went to work for an engine reconditioning business, and he undertook a four and half year engineering apprenticeship – and in his final exams he earned the top marks in the whole country.

He had a few races in his father’s boat before he began competing on four wheels, initially in karts. He then acquired a Lotus Elan, and subsequently a Lotus 27 single-seater. In 1968 he took part in the New Zealand GP, a round of the Tasman Series – and thus joined a grid that included Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Jim Clark, Chris Amon, Pedro Rodriguez and Piers Courage. In an uncompetitive car he finished ninth, albeit many laps down.

He later replaced the Lotus with a year-old Brabham BT18. He then decided to head to England, with an ambition to race in F3, and after earning some cash as a mechanic in the Far East he arrived on May 9th 1969. Like many Kiwis before him, he saw McLaren as his natural home.

“I’d contacted a few friends in Britain concerning a job here and had written to Bruce McLaren,” he said in a 1974 Autosport interview. “But I’d never met him, nor knew who he was. I arrived on the Thursday, and went straight to Earls Court.

“Meanwhile my friends had talked to Phil Kerr at McLarens and on the Saturday I took the Green Line bus down to see McLaren. I went in round the back and two guys recognised me, Alan McCall and Jimmy Stone, but there was this guy with his back to me. When I asked to see Mr McLaren he turned round and said, ‘I presume you’re Mr Nicholson.’”

He’d got the job – he was given responsibility for building the team’s Can-Am Chevy V8 engines, working under the supervision of American George Bolthoff. Bruce duly won the 1969 Can-Am title with engines that Nicholson had helped to prepare in England. John’s driving talents came to good use, and he did some testing at Goodwood.

In late 1969 Bolthoff came up with the idea of setting up an engine shop in the USA at which to prepare both Can-Am and Indy engines. The plan was that John should start the 1970 working in England, before moving to this new McLaren Engines Inc facility in Livonia, near Detroit.

It was of course to be a fraught season for the team. In May Hulme suffered serious burns at Indianapolis, and then in June Bruce was killed at Goodwood in a Can-Am testing accident.

Having headed to the States John wrote to team boss Teddy Mayer saying he wanted to return to the UK, and he did so at the end of the year, after the recuperating Hulme had clinched the 1970 Can-Am title. His timing was good, because Cosworth announced that for 1971 it didn’t want to service the whole F1 grid’s DFV engines. Nicholson was given the job of preparing those of McLaren.

“I’d never seen a DFV in my life,” he said. “I pulled one apart and thought, ‘I’d better go to Cosworths for a couple of days.’ There I was helped by Alan Peck and learnt by pulling them apart and putting them together. With no knowledge, but the help of four good guys and a small place, we set to work doing McLaren’s DFVs. I had to supervise, and it took two weeks for one man to build an engine.

“They didn’t give much BHP, about 400 to 420, although suddenly we got a 440 engine, ‘061,’ Denny’s favourite. These freak engines turned up in many teams during the 1971 season.”

In March 1972 Hulme scored McLaren’s first GP win for three years, and the first with an engine overseen by John, at Kyalami.

It was a busy time for John, for in 1971 he also resumed his own racing career, driving a March in the Formula Atlantic series, before moving to a Lyncar chassis for ‘72. At one stage he crunched the nose at Oulton Park, and unable to afford he a new one, he fitted a McLaren F1 nose that Hulme and tried and rejected!

At the end of 1972 he was offered a job by March Engineering – company boss Max Mosley wanted him to prepare the team’s BMW F2 engines, and there was even a chance for John to race as well. He eventually rejected the offer, but he had itchy feet, and it had set him thinking.

“I went back to McLarens determined to leave, go it alone, and continue in Atlantic. It was a Saturday afternoon and when I got back, Teddy Mayer was at McLarens. I told him what I was going to do, but he wouldn’t hear of it. We went to Phil Kerr’s house that evening, and by the time I’d left, we had a business contract to go into overhauling McLaren’s DFVs as a separate business.”

John found a premises in Hounslow, and with all bar one of his original colleagues, established Nicholson-McLaren Racing Engines in early 1973. That year Denny Hulme scored the new company’s first GP win in Sweden, and later Peter Revson won at Silverstone and again in Canada.

Meanwhile John’s own racing career flourished as he won the 1973 British Formula Atlantic title, repeating his success in 1974. That year also made own foray into F1 with a Lyncar chassis, with which he did the two British non-championship races, although he failed to qualify at the British GP. He would make his one and only Grand Prix start at Silverstone in 1975, crashing out in the rain. The main problem he had was finding the time to fit his own racing around his business, and by 1977, he had decided to hang up his helmet.

He was a busy man off track. In 1974 McLaren ran a third works car, with Hulme and Emerson Fittipaldi in Marlboro colours, and Mike Hailwood in Yardley livery, so there were more engines to service. In addition he picked up work from Graham Hill’s Embassy team. That year Fittipaldi scored McLaren’s first World Championship win, powered by John’s engines.

And the race wins would keep on coming. Fittipaldi finished second in the World Championship in 1975, and then James Hunt scored a sensational title success in 1976. Hunt continued to be a pacesetter in 1977, winning three races.

McLaren then went through a bad patch until Ron Dennis came on board at the end of 1980, and John Barnard’s carbon chassis was introduced for 1981. John Watson and Niki Lauda scored some memorable successes, but the tide was turning towards turbos, and the days of the Cosworth were numbered.

In late 1983 McLaren began the switch to the Porsche-built TAG Turbo, and Nicholson’s involvement with the team was over. However, there would continue to be a link as John turned his attention to servicing DFVs for many historic racing contenders, including of course some McLarens.

John retired to New Zealand several years ago, but the company he founded is still operational, in racing, engineering and aviation, although there has been no direct connection with McLaren for some time.

| A McLaren.com release  ||  September 20,  2017   |||

The exciting Kia Stinger will provide the power and rear-wheel-drive attributes that have become increasingly scarce following the local demise of two other large sedans. It will reinvent the segment with a thoroughly modern and desirable package.

With 365hp (272kW) of peak power and 510Nm of torque available from the twin-turbocharged V6 engine in the flagship GT Sport model, the new Kia has power to burn – it can rocket to 100km/h in less than 5 seconds.The sporty 5-door liftback styling also has the power to turn heads, benefitting from the award winning design prowess of Kia Motors’ Chief Designer, Peter Schreyer and his team.

“The new Stinger will lift Kia into a different league – this is a car with the X-factor,” says Todd McDonald, General Manager of Kia Motors New Zealand.“You haven’t seen a Kia like this before. Stinger has the power to surprise in any number of ways, not least through its rear-wheel-drive architecture, which will stamp it as a true driver’s car.”

The new Stinger will launch in New Zealand with three models, including the very highly-specified twin-turbo V6 as a sporting GT, priced from a recommended $69,990 plus on road costs. The two other models will be powered by a turbocharged four-cylinder engine developing 259hp (193kW) peak power and 353Nm of torque that also drives through the rear wheels and can propel the car to 100km/h in 6 seconds. These models will have recommended retail prices of $54,990 plus on road costs for the EX Turbo and $59,990 plus on-road costs for the GT Line.

All models have a brand new 8-speed automatic transmission with sports settings. Quad exhausts add a further note of sportiness.

Mr McDonald says each version of the Stinger will be exceptionally well equipped, including leather interior, paddle shift gear changes, Autonomous Emergency Braking, Smart Cruise Control, LED headlights and much more. Launch plans are currently in hand and Mr McDonald says Kia expects to announce further details soon.

|A  Kia Motors release  ||  September 14,  2017   |||

For more information contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. from  The Car Company Kia distributors in New Zealand

Waste Management NZ is currently trialling their first electric truck for wheelie bin waste collections, which will start work on New Zealand streets from October this year.

Christchurch will be the first city in the Southern Hemisphere to put a 100% electric residential waste collection truck into service.

More electric trucks will arrive into Waste Management’s fleet in other cities around New Zealand towards the end of 2017.

Waste Management announced its move towards a fleet of electric vehicles in September last year as part of its Sustainability Commitment.

Waste Management NZ’s first electric truck.

The company has introduced more than 20 electric cars within its light fleet. It also launched an electric box body truck, which collects food waste from Countdown supermarkets across Auckland, earlier this year. This new truck will be the first electric truck which is designed and dedicated to collecting residential wheelie bins from the kerbside.

Tom Nickels, Waste Management Managing Director, says the new truck is further evidence of the company’s continued shift to EVs.

“With a large fleet of trucks and cars on the road we believe we can help safeguard our environment for future generations through the adoption of electric vehicle technology. I am delighted we’re bringing this strategy to life by rolling out electric trucks across New Zealand.”

Other logistics operators, such as Infratil NZ, have been trialling electric vehicle technologies. Their business NZ bus is testing the Chinese made BYD fully electric vehicle, in a bid to accelerate the transition to electric-powered public transport in New Zealand.

| A VINZ release  ||  September 13,  2017   |||

Aluminium from end-of-life cars to be recycled into new Jaguar Land Rover vehicles£2 million project cuts waste and helps reduce carbon emissionsExtends existing scheme to recycle scrap aluminium from manufacturing processRecycling uses up to 95 per cent less energy than primary aluminium production

Jaguar Land Rover, the UK’s largest vehicle manufacturer, is expanding the use of recycled aluminium in its car bodies to cut waste and reduce carbon emissions.

The £2 million project, called REALITY, has found a way to enable the closed-loop recycling of aluminium from end-of-life vehicles back into high-performance product forms for new vehicle body manufacture in the UK by Jaguar Land Rover.

REALITY builds on the REALCAR project allowing tens of thousands of tonnes of aluminium generated in the manufacturing process to be recycled and reused as a closed-loop. Aluminium from other sources, including end-of-life vehicles, can now be graded and ‘born again’ in the manufacture of new cars.

This unique ‘closed-loop’ automotive recycling system helps to further develop the circular economy model to deliver both financial and environmental benefits.

REALCAR began as a partnership between Jaguar Land Rover, Innovate UK, Novelis, Norton Aluminium, Stadco, Brunel University London, Zyomax and Innoval Technology. The original project and subsequent work with suppliers enabled Jaguar Land Rover to reclaim more than 75,000 tonnes of aluminium scrap and re-use it in the aluminium production process in 2016/17.

Implementing closed-loop aluminium recycling has involved cutting-edge chemistry, new infrastructure and investment of more than £13 million. It is driving a new culture that treats waste material as a high-value commodity. Quality will remain paramount, and the project has evaluated aluminium grades at chemistry and microstructure level to increase tolerance to recycling.

The project, part-funded by Innovate UK, has involved more than 10 press shops (Jaguar Land Rover and external suppliers) with aluminium being remelted by Novelis.

Simon Edmonds, Director of Manufacturing and Materials at Innovate UK, said: “Innovate UK is proud of our support for the REALCAR programme, and this exciting latest stage of the project, REALITY, is another excellent example of collaboration between large and small businesses in the supply chain, supporting them to scale up and become more productive. These projects have been a model in terms of professional delivery of complex research and development.”

Work continues to will refine the process of turning aluminium from ‘end-of-life’ cars into new vehicles. The REALITY project will continue to deliver significant sustainability benefits, with aluminium recycling requiring up to 95 per cent less energy than primary aluminium production. Innovate UK awarded a grant of £1.3 million to the project in 2016 as part of its Manufacturing and Materials Round One funding competition.

The new project will consider advanced sorting technologies and evaluate the next generation aluminium alloys for greater recyclability. Innovations in the sorting and separating technologies applied to automotive end-of-life waste streams will also help other sectors, including packaging and construction. Resource recovery specialist Axion has joined the project to develop the sorting technologies for recovery of a high grade recycled aluminium. The project partners are Jaguar Land Rover, Axion Recycling, Innovate UK, Novelis, Norton Aluminium, Brunel University London, WMG University of Warwick and Innoval Technology.

REALITY supports material stewardship as part of the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) Performance Standard, to actively encourage the most effective recycling approaches for aluminium. Jaguar Land Rover is an ASI member (https://aluminium-stewardship.org/).

For more information on how the REALITY project is an evolution from the REALCAR project, visit: https://youtu.be/2493lsmnCHM

Notes

Jaguar Land Rover will invest £4 billion annually to extend its model range and manufacturing footprintThe World Car of The Year, the Jaguar F-Pace, contributed to the resurgence of the Jaguar brand which saw an 83% increase in sales year on yearOver the past six years, Jaguar Land Rover has doubled sales and employment, more than tripled turnover, and invested more than £15 billion in new product creation and capital expenditureJaguar Land Rover is one of the UK’s largest exporters and generates around 80% of its revenue from exports

|  A LiveNews release  ||  September 7,  2017   |||

Kiwi drivers Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley won the 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans with Porsche but their days in the LMP1 team are limited, with the German manufacturer announcing its withdrawal from the class after November’s final round.

The future of Porsche's two New Zealand factory drivers, Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley, remains secure, despite the manufacturer's decision to withdraw from the LMP1 class of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) at the end of the 2017 season. An announcement was made this week confirming that from 2019 a Porsche works team would compete in Formula E, the world's first purely electric racing series. That effectively leaves LMP1 team-mates Bamber and Hartley without a drive in 2018, as Porsche plans to redirect its focus to international GT racing.

Its motorsport strategy involves using the 911 RSR in the GT class of the WEC, the highlight of which is the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as the American IMSA WeatherTechSportsCar Championship and other long-distance classics.

However, the press release promised Porsche would keep the successful LMP1 team ‘‘fully intact, including the factory drivers''.

‘‘Alongside ventures in other racing series and the intensive preparation for Formula E, Porsche is examining other fields of application and development areas,'' the release stated.

New Zealand Porsche sales and marketing manager Jamie Taylor said he believed Bamber and Hartley had ‘‘achieved a level of success'' that should mean they will remain with the Porsche works team.

The official driver announcements will not be made until Porsche's annual motorsport dinner in November or December, Taylor said.

Porsche will leave the LMP1 class behind after four successful years, which included three consecutive victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and World Championship titles in the team and driver classification in 2015 and 2016. Nevertheless, this year the works team from Weissach wants to defend the two World Championship titles one more time. The season ends on November 18 in Bahrain.

Taylor had recently spoken to Bamber and said the young Kiwi driver's focus was on the remainder of this WEC season.

‘‘He hasn't had the opportunity to win a [WEC] and Brendon has. He'd love to continue on as a Porsche factory driver, but in what capacity, I'm not sure,'' Taylor said.

Bamber, who is a two-time Le Mans winner with Porsche, was not in the 2015 or 2016 teams with Hartley when he claimed the WEC title for Porsche with Mark Webber and Timo Bernhard.

Coming from a GT background, Bamber graduated from this class to the ultimate LMP1 category several years ago. It means he is familiar with the GT cars and perfectly poised to step back into the class with Porsche.

As far as the Formula E class goes, both New Zealanders have plenty of single-seater experience, which would allow them to transition to the category. Launched three years ago, Formula E was organised by the FIA to make a statement in favour of electromobility and to get more young people excited about motorsport.

Unlike most other series, the season begins in the autumn and ends in summer. The race venues are specially-designed street courses in the heart of major cities.

New Zealander Mitch Evans has been competing in Formula E, making his debut this season in the Panasonic Jaguar Racing team.

Like Evans, Hartley and Bamber also made their way up through the ranks in New Zealand's Toyota Racing Series. Bamber did some more single-seater time in the A1GP series in 2009, while Hartley also did several Formula 1 stints as official reserve driver for both Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso.

It won't be long before the two high-flying Kiwis could be testing a Porsche Formula E, as the manufacturer has already taken the first steps towards developing its own car this year.

Porsche AG research and development executive board member Michael Steiner said ‘‘the growing freedom for in-house technology developments makes Formula E attractive to us''.

‘‘Porsche is working with alternative, innovative drive concepts. For us, Formula E is the ultimate competitive environment for driving forward the development of high- performance vehicles in areas such as environmental friendliness, efficiency and sustainability.''

Taylor said electrification was becoming more prominent in Porsche New Zealand, with two plug-in models available - the Cayenne S-E Hybrid and the Panamera 4 E-Hybrid .

He believed the move to Formula E was an ‘‘exciting time for the motorsport programme'' and would have flow-on effects off the race circuits as well.

‘‘Porsche motorsport is the test bed for the road-going cars,'' Taylor said.

|  A Drivesouth elease  ||  August 5, 2017   |||

End of car manufacturing in AustraliaHilco Industrial Acquisitions BV (www.hilcoglobal.com) has announced that it will lead the ‘disposition process’ for a massive machinery and equipment asset sale that will effectively shut down automotive manufacturing in Australia.

The sale is the result of Toyota Australia closing all its manufacturing operations — the last remaining automotive production facilities in the country.

This “unprecedented auto equipment sale” will include all the key production shops and vendors that have been part of car manufacturing in Australia for over 60 years.

All the equipment will be offered for sale via private treaty from the factory floors; it includes aluminium casting furnaces, engine line machine tools, assembly lines, robotic automation, presses, extruders, plastic injection moulding machines, welding lines and plant services.

Certain key machinery and equipment items will be offered for sale via an on-line auction, including maintenance workshops and general equipment.

The auction will be conducted by Grays Online, a joint-venture partner of Hilco Industrial Acquisitions.

| A MachineryMarket release  || July 19,  2017  |||

During a McLaren press conference at the 2017 Goodwood Festival of Speed in the U.K., Chief Financial Officer Paul Buddin said the company’s new plant in Sheffield, England, building McLaren’s next-generation carbon-fiber tubs will have an annual capacity of 10,000 monocoque chassis by the end of 2019.

That number caught the ear of a number of automotive news outlets, including CarBuzz and Car and Driver, especially since McLaren had also claimed its target goal was to build 5,000 cars annually by the end of the decade. The discrepancy between 5,000 cars and 10,000 monocoque chassis, both outlets reported, is a result of McLaren’s desire to make room for any future sales expansion.

“It would be very short-sighted to limit ourselves to 5,000 cars,” McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt explained.

Flewitt also hinted that McLaren is considering using the Sheffield plant to build carbon fiber monocoque chassis for other car manufacturers looking to build limited-run performance cars.

“We won’t do it until we’re fully up and running ourselves, but it is something that we are considering as an obvious expansion.”

One of the innovations that will make this possible is the increase of automation. Back in March, new broke that McLaren aims to completely automate the carbon fiber production process its uses to create the lightweight “tubs” around which it builds its supercars. To do so, McLaren ended its contract with Austria’s Carbo Tech and moved the work to Sheffield. The production process at Carbo Tech, which also made the body for VW’s XL1 eco-car, is only 20 percent automated. McLaren wants to push that to 100 percent, allowing the British automaker to increase production to 20 to 25 cars a day, up from 15 now. The plant produces McLaren’s 720S supercars, the first of which has already rolled off the production line.

| A Composites Manufacturing release  ||  July 17,  2017  |||