Cars today are fast. Your average modern minivan could smoke your average Ferrari from the 1970s. As the standard road car has improved its performance metrics, so too have supercars. Run down a spec sheet and you'll wind up seeing numbers that will make your mind spin. According to the McLaren's Chief Operating Officer, the British company's road cars still have a lot of speed to gain as time marches forward.
His name is Dr. Jens Ludmann, and speaking to Car Scoops at the Geneva Motor Show, the McLaren COO bluntly said that "If you see the trend of the past, you can anticipate the trend in the future." In other words, Ludmann is saying, looking at the previous leaps in performance, there's a direct line to ever more speed and performance-topping figures as we roll into the future. According to Luddman, the recent improvements in areas like powertrain technology and active aerodynamics are proof that there's always more speed to be found.
"For example, active aero, we didn’t have that in the past and now with active aero we can reach new limits," Ludmann told Car Scoops. "Powertrian technology. Eventually, batteries will improve and there will be new powertrain solutions. There is so much focus now on powertrains that there will be different powertrains in the future and again, that will change the game. There will always be technology evolution which leads to better products.”
While we've already begun to see those advances in McLaren's road-going production cars, most recently with the insane Senna hypercar (not to mention vehicles like the Mercedes-AMG Project One and Aston Martin Valkyrie), there are physical limits to just how fast a car can actually go. But when and how automakers will hit the upper ceiling of performance, it's impossible to say––all we (and Dr. Ludmann) know is that we aren't there yet.
