McLaren Artura review: a plug-in hybrid for the 1 percent

It’s nary concealed that plug-in hybrid electrical vehicles (PHEVs) person grown successful popularity implicit the past mates of years. Their flexibility offers the convenience of interior combustion arsenic good arsenic the quality to enactment successful an mean day’s driving without it. After all, immoderate magnitude of electric-only propulsion not lone cuts down connected tailpipe emissions but besides wealth spent astatine the pump.

And erstwhile wealth is small to nary object, the convenience origin goes up exponentially. Take the 2025 McLaren Artura, the Woking, UK-based company’s latest entry-level supercar that’s replaced its erstwhile 570S. Starting astatine conscionable implicit $254,000, this hybrid-electrified supercar whitethorn beryllium 1 of the astir versatile, daily-driver-friendly, and thrilling of its benignant ever.

Trickle-down lineage

But 10 years later, trickle-down tech has made the Artura a downright bargain. At little than a 4th of the P1’s archetypal $1.5 cardinal sticker, it reaches arsenic galore arsenic 19 miles of electric-only range, hits 60mph successful 2.6 seconds, goes from zero to 100mph successful 5.5 seconds, and volition execute a apical velocity of 205mph. These are each wrong scope of the P1’s show figures, but it does truthful making 690 horsepower and with a akin 3,300 oregon truthful lb curb value to propulsion distant via the rear wheels.

A unsocial supercar driving experience

Putting this trickle-down tech to enactment makes for a fascinating driving experience. The Artura summons its output from a twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6 motor and axial flux electrical motor, bolted up close down the cockpit. The artillery feeding its centrifugal weighs 194 pounds and possesses a nett capableness of 7.4kWh; charging to 80 percent takes 2.5 hours via a modular 240V outlet.

By default, the Artura springs to beingness successful its all-electric mode, creating a unsocial and absorbing symphony on the way. It besides has nary reverse cogwheel — instead, McLaren utilizes the centrifugal for reverse. Then, if the motor is running, a 3rd clutch sits successful the transmission to marque the acquisition arsenic seamless arsenic possible. If you didn’t know, you’d ne'er announcement that it lone possesses 8 guardant gears. 

Once underway, electric-only acceleration was thing to constitute location about, but it got up to velocity connected the thoroughfare and road comparatively quickly. It was besides a relaxing experience, acceptable for being stuck successful postulation oregon conscionable calmly cruising astir town. Lifting disconnected the throttle to trigger regenerative braking felt creaseless and casual to modulate. Interestingly, I ne'er recovered the request to plug the Artura successful since, betwixt the motor itself acting arsenic a generator and the mean brake inputs and regen, the artillery was ever topped up supra 15 miles of range.

I dug the mighty McLaren’s neighborly wake-up, but astir of the time, I couldn’t defy clicking the right-hand toggle atop its instrumentality binnacle to seamlessly occurrence up the mighty V6 successful Sport oregon Track mode. Its high-pitched growl was much akin to people aspirated V12 supercars of yore than the bigger-displacement V8 it replaced successful the 570S. The Artura’s Bluetooth and Apple CarPlay-integrated infotainment strategy was casual to use, and I surely appreciated its tiny surface size. But I hardly utilized it.

The Artura’s c fibre monocoque and aluminum beforehand and rear subframes are joined by afloat autarkic multilink suspension and adaptive dampers. In Comfort and Sport chassis modes, it had an fantabulous thrust prime implicit LA’s topographically affluent — meaning, peculiarly crappy — thoroughfare surfaces. Doubling down connected regular ability, its comfy fixed-back driver’s spot was mounted connected a manual slider and complemented its spacious, Alcantara-rich interior.

Then, acknowledgment to the instrumentality clump moving up and down successful sync with the steering instrumentality and the quality to bring the second incredibly adjacent to my torso, the Artura’s cockpit was 1 of the astir comfy that I’ve ever sat successful — not astatine the disbursal of visibility, either, arsenic the presumption up was panoramic, and some nonstop and over-my-shoulder rear visibility was rather good. This isn’t ever the lawsuit successful astir legitimately tiny supercars.

Regarding the McLaren Artura’s precocious driver-assistance systems: its radar cruise power performed admirably successful stop-and-go road traffic, peculiarly nether afloat artillery power. However, its lane departure informing was comically inadequate. I appreciated its unsocial squirrel chatter-like notification that I was astir to waft into the adjacent lane, but it often had occupation speechmaking adjacent the astir prominently painted lane markers.

Still, the Artura’s analogue lane departure informing strategy — its brilliantly communicative hydraulically assisted powerfulness steering — made up for it and contributed to this McLaren being downright thrilling connected Southern California’s mountain-top roads.

Thrilling yet thrifty

With ample wide tarmac up of maine atop SoCal’s Angeles National Forest, the 2025 McLaren Artura was phenomenal. Thanks to the electrical centrifugal filling successful immoderate gaps successful the turbo-fed torque curve, it launched rather aggressively, making its sub-six-second zero to 100mph clip rather believable.

From there, the Artura displayed seamless, uninterrupted high-speed confidence. Two 100 thirty-five beforehand and 295 rear 19-inch Pirelli P Zero Corsa Summer tires made the astir of its finely tuned chassis, possessing immense cornering grip and stability. Its hydraulic steering was highly communicative, responsive, and busy, relaying each crease successful the tarmac astatine each times — to the constituent of requiring a steadfast grip and faster than mean hands — conscionable the mode immoderate driving aficionado desires. Chassis connection was arsenic arsenic wonderful, helping find the champion velocity done myriad corners with varying grip levels and camber changes.

Its electric-sourced torque was hard to discern from immoderate turbo-sourced output, and portion powerfulness felt mostly linear crossed the rev band, it was brutally accelerated up high. With the near slope turbocharger bolted up straight down my ears, I felt similar I could perceive each PSI of boost getting shoved done the intake valves arsenic the tach needle climbed, successful summation to its gloriously high-pitched exhaust code up top. However, present is wherever my main gripe lies: adjacent successful way mode, the exhaust measurement was simply excessively quiet. It’s designed to beryllium a versatile and mundane supercar, but I wanted to perceive a batch much of this thing’s property erstwhile conditions allowed. 

Once I got my capable of hilariously amusive lateral and longitudinal G forces, it was bully to loosen up the Artura’s dampers and power implicit to serene, soundless EV mode. Having this benignant of latitude successful a high-performance supercar is the equivalent of a long, blistery ablution aft a hard workout. Then, connected 1 occasion, spending the full travel backmost down into the Los Angeles basin with the motor disconnected netted a full travel system of 26.1mpg.

One greenish supercar

The 2025 McLaren Artura whitethorn beryllium a quarter-million-dollar supercar, but it’s rather imaginable to instrumentality astir municipality similar immoderate much mundane PHEV, similar the Toyota Prius Prime. The aforesaid instrumentality integrated into its powertrain to boost substance system besides boosts its show and driving acquisition to breathtaking levels. On apical of it all, it’s a nicely equipped luxury acquisition featuring a suite of modern ADAS. 

For anyone aft a high-performance instrumentality with each the personality, that’s also arsenic large connected versatility and livability arsenic it is connected nonstop thrills, McLaren’s latest entry-level offering is hard to disagree with.