http://ift.tt/2tuuaSu
eMarketer’s 2017 forecast puts Roku ahead of Chromecast, Fire TV and Apple TV http://ift.tt/2h3f5Tf Roku may be the most-used connected TV device this year, edging out Chromecast, Fire TV and Apple TV, according to a new 2017 forecast from eMarketer released this morning. The firm estimates that 38.9 million U.S. users will use a Roku device at least once per month in 2017, up 19.3 percent from last year. This would lead to Roku capturing 23.1 percent of all connected TV users, in terms of market share. eMarketer’s estimates for Roku, however, are much higher than Roku’s own recently released statistics. Earlier this month, Roku said it reached a milestone of 15 million monthly active user accounts across its platform, which encompasses its range of streaming media players and Roku TVs. The big discrepancy between eMarketer’s numbers and Roku’s own has to do with how “monthly actives” are being counted, we understand, after checking with various sources. Roku’s active user accounts are those who have streamed within the last 30 days. eMarketer, on the other hand, counts individual users of streaming devices who used the internet through the device at least once per month. Because Roku devices don’t have user profiles where each person get their own Roku account, the devices will have multiple users associated with a single Roku account in many U.S. households. eMarketer’s forecast puts Roku slightly ahead of Chromecast in the U.S., which will have 36.9 million users this year, or 22.0 percent of connected TV users. Amazon Fire TV will have 35.8 million users in 2017, or 21.3 percent of connected TV users. Apple TV lags much further behind, with 21.3 million users this year, or just 12.7 percent of U.S. connected TV users. Roku is coming out ahead because it’s a neutral player in a market where competitors are pushing their own hardware, software, content marketplaces, and/or streaming services. “As the only major market participant not affiliated with a content or TV device platform, Roku has used its neutrality to strike deals with a wide range of partners, including smart TV makers, over-the-top service providers and social media companies,” said Paul Verna, principal video analyst at eMarketer. “That expansive strategy, combined with the company’s broad selection of connectivity devices at various price points, has put Roku at the head of the pack,” he added. It’s hard not to agree. On Roku, you don’t run into issues like not being able to watch your Amazon videos because Apple and Amazon are in a fight. While those two rivals finally came to an agreement which will see Amazon Video’s app hitting Apple’s TV platform this year, Amazon users for several years could only watch their videos via AirPlay on Apple TV. Verna also points to the lack of the Amazon Video app as one of the things impacting Apple TV’s market share, along with its lack of a “compelling content offering,” and a much higher price bracket. Apple’s hardware starts at $150, while Google, Amazon and Roku all offer streaming sticks priced under $40, the report noted. Roku’s neutrality benefits consumers who don’t want to be tied into one hardware or software ecosystem. The company doesn’t have its own streaming service to push, like Amazon, whose Prime Video content and recommendations dominate its Fire TV user interface. Nor does it have a content marketplace where users rent or buy movies or shows, like Amazon, Apple and Google today do. Instead, Roku users customize their device with the services they want to access – whether that’s Google Play Movies & TV, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or any other of the now 5,000 channels that can be added to Roku. As for Apple’s position in the market, eMarketer is not predicting that it will be able to reverse the trend of trailing its rivals anytime soon. The firm forecasts that competitors will add between 20 million to 30 million users by the end of 2021, but Apple TV will add less than 4 million. This estimate, however, should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. Apple could introduce new hardware or a more robust streaming service before then, as it’s been rumored – and this, in turn, could drive further adoption. While Apple stopped trying to sell a “skinny bundle” of TV channels, it has reportedly been working on a premium bundle add-on, which could also entice users. It also has started rolling out original content for Apple Music. Though Apple Music’s originals don’t offer anything super compelling for the time being (unless you actually liked “Planet of the Apps”), it could be something that Apple chooses to expand over time. One other notable estimate from eMarketer’s report is that it downwardly revised its forecast of total connected TV viewers, due to increased sales of smart TVs. This will impact those in the market for a third-party connectivity device, Verna said. In 2017, 168.1 million people in the US will use an internet-connected TV, up 10.1 percent over last year. Smart TVs are the largest subgroup in that category.
Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com July 26, 2017 at 10:36AM
0 Comments
http://ift.tt/2rGNPL1
Off The Record sessions will tackle the big topics at Disrupt SF http://ift.tt/2w09dN5 At TechCrunch Disrupt, thousands of rapt attendees watch great interviews on stage only to feel a bit disappointed. Why? They can’t get follow up on the discussion afterwards to address their specific questions. So at Disrupt SF (Sept. 18-20) we are introducing a new twist for attendees who want to keep the conversation going. We call it Off The Record sessions and the idea is to invite attendees (but no media, apart from TechCrunch’s own) to join a moderated conversation with investors and founders on the big themes of the show, like AI, Crypto/Currency, Robotics, China, and more (see below). Those topics happen to match some of the featured categories in our Startup Alley, which ensure we have plenty of founders in on the discussion. And we will also focus on those topics in our main programming with speakers like Sebastian Thrun, for example, tackling AI. We literally want to surround Disrupt attendees with an opportunity to learn and engage with these massively important topics for founders and investors. The Off The Record format is simple – the time and place for each will be listed in the show agenda so you know the who, when and where. A moderator will lead a conversation with a panel of notable founders and investors (and sometimes main stage speakers) and all participants can join in with questions to keep the discussions going. Afterwards, everyone can network and mingle with like-minded attendees. What more do you need to know? Applications are still open to find some crack investors for each Off The Record topic, each of whom will be able to attend Disrupt SF gratis. Here’s the List of Off The Record sessions:
And if you are ready to buy an early bird ticket to Disrupt, click here. You won’t want to miss Kevin Durant (Golden State Warriors), Sebastian Thrun (Udacity), Bob Xu (Zhen Fund), Adi Tatarko (Houzz) or dozens of other terrific speakers.
Featured Image: TechCrunch Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com July 26, 2017 at 10:22AM The Bogus Rationale for Trump's Trans Military Ban Is Some Bigoted Bullshit http://ift.tt/2uxpkE2 On today’s date in 1948, President Harry Truman desegregated the American military with an executive order. On the same date almost 70 years later, President Donald Trump announced he was kicking transgender people out of the military on Twitter, the platform he usually uses to spew stream-of-conscious nonsense and bigoted vitriol. Why? Apparently, transgender healthcare is too much of a burden to our nearly 600-billion-dollar military budget. That’s bullshit. You know it’s bullsht. Advertisement Estimates show that there are between 1300 and 6000 active transgender service members, accounting for somewhere between 0.1 and 0.5 percent of active serving members. Transgender care would cost the military between 2.5 and 8.5 million dollars annually, according to a RAND corporation analysis published last year. That amounts to a healthcare expenditure increase of 0.04- to 0.13 percent. Advertisement A single F/A-18 plane costs around $70 million. Outfitting the Afghan National Army in a proprietary camouflage pattern may have cost the government $28 million. The Pentagon flushed over $100 billion in administrative money, and then tried to hide the results of an internal study reporting that fact, according to the Washington Post. To allow another few thousand Americans serve their country in a military the president wants to grow is a few-million-dollars drop in the bucket. It is a nearly risk-less investment. This decision wasn’t financial. It was just a cruel, hate-filled political move. Advertisement And it’s a move that will only cause further hurt. There’s no evidence to prove that removing transgender soldiers will have any benefit, of course (because that’s a ludicrous thought) and anecdotes support the opposite. “Commanders noted that the [foreign military transgender inclusion policies] had benefits for all service members by creating a more inclusive and diverse force,” according to the RAND analysis. And as a reminder, the ACLU reports that one fifth of transgender people—approximately 134,000—are veterans. Though Trump’s decision does not mention veterans, it is worth noting that transgender people are currently twice as likely as others to serve in the military. Advertisement This is a hate move. There is no explanation but hate. How does pulling a few thousand Americans out of the military make our country safer? Advertisement Trans healthcare is already bad. But it’s not bad because it’s expensive (though some parts of it can be). It’s bad because insurance companies don’t cover it, and because American doctors don’t know how to speak to someone who just wants you to treat them with the respect they deserve. It’s bad because doctors are unwilling to accommodate transgender patients. It’s bad because the President is unwilling to accommodate transgender people. As with many of Trump’s Twitter ravings, the details of how the president plans to enact this abhorrent decision are unclear, although CNN reports that Defense Secretary James Mattis already delayed enactment of a 2016 Obama decision that would allow transgender people to serve openly in the military. Advertisement Still, the president’s announcement today should serve as a reminder to you that Making America Great Again has nothing to do with making the country better in any way. My understanding was that we’re supposed to be proud of our military as defenders of the country and its values. Advertisement I’m sorry, but what values? Digital Trends via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com July 26, 2017 at 10:18AM
http://ift.tt/2uYWJrM
Rep. Blake Farenthold's Early '90s Internet Message Board Posts Show a Whole New Side http://ift.tt/2h2D8Se Las week, representative Blake Farenthold of Texas lamented on the radio that some "female senators from the Northeast" stood in the way of repealing the Affordable Care Act. "If it was a guy from south Texas," he said, "I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style," suggesting he'd love to duel, say, Susan Collins of Maine. But who really is Blake Farenthold (besides a man who jokes about shooting his colleagues and an actual pajama boy)? Based on his early internet Usenet messages, Farenthold is a man who cares deeply about the accuracy of Die Hard 2's telecom tech, and also that Jimmy Buffet videos be full of boobs. It's not too surprising that Farenthold was big on BBS in the internet's early days, considering his history. He received a bachelor's degree in Radio, Television, and Film in 1985, and even ran a computer consulting and web design firm before entering politics. So it makes sense that on July 9, 1990, Farenthold wrote the following in the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup under the title "Die Hard 2 Dies on Telecom": He may be the Neil deGrasse Tyson of the early 1990s telecom BBS community, but honestly, inane but glaring and wholly avoidable mistakes ruining a move is perhaps the most sympathetic position Farenthold's early postings stake out . A spokesperson for Farenthold's office confirmed this is indeed the same Blake Farenthold, noting that "he has been using the internet since the 1980s." And boy, has he ever! In that same telecom newsgroup, Farenthold—the one-time owner of Blow-me.org—also revealed his strategy for dealing with his apparent "possessive woman" problem: It's worth noting that, in 2014, Farenthold's former communications director sued him for sexual harassment . Farenthold eventually settled out of court, denying any wrongdoing. But the Corpus Christi congressman didn't just use the boards to talk telecom. As an apparent "Parrothead," fond of sharing margarita recipes, Farenthold participated in the alt.fan.jimmy-buffett newsgroup, writing at one point in 1996 that he'd "planned on partying in the parking lot for about an hour or so" before a Jimmy Buffet show in Austin. He then noted that "the location video in Austin was, however better than the one in Dallas, several women bared their chests for the video camera in Austin. The Debutaunts [sic] in Dallas are a little too stuck up to do that :-)." Back in October, when The Washington Post published a tape of Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault, MSNBC host Chris Hayes asked Farenthold if he'd unendorse Trump if Farenthold heard him talking about raping women. Farenthold responded, "Again, I — I — that would be bad. I would have to consider — I’d consider it.” He later took to Twitter to apologize for his "failure to immediately condemn anyone who would say something as outrageous as they like raping women.” This, of course, has nothing to do with BBS newsgroups in the 90s. Though it does continue to astound. Clear History is WIRED’s occasional deep dives into the lesser-known internet lives of the rich and powerful. Think you found someone's online identity? Let us know here. Digital Trends via Wired https://www.wired.com July 26, 2017 at 10:15AM
http://ift.tt/2tCRhaI
Blue is a dating app for verified Twitter users http://ift.tt/2tJLGU0 A new app is looking to romantically match folks who are verified Twitter users. Blue, by Loveflutter, has launched a new version of their existing dating app that only allows Twitter users with that little blue tick to search for love, and only amongst their fellow blue-tick holders. Loveflutter has actually been around for a while, pivoting from matches based on shared interests (innovative!) to now focus on analyzing tweets and Twitter activity to match people. And with that switch, so was born Blue. For those of you who are verified (and actually interested in this for some reason), the app is rolling out in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London and Tokyo, but will only go live once it has 1,000 local members. So, maybe never. Of the just over 300 million users on Twitter, around 150,000 are verified, with about 25 percent of them coming from the world of journalism/media, according to a report from 2015. That number will surely continue to grow now that Twitter has opened up applications to get verified. Actual celebrities — people like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift — have plenty of options for dating outside of using their Twitter Verified status. This includes Tinder Select, Raya, and… walking into any bar on the planet. If anything, this is a smart way to lead-gen into the existing Loveflutter service. If (or when) Blue actually goes live in New York, I’ll be sure to begrudgingly let you know. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com July 26, 2017 at 10:09AM
http://ift.tt/2tCQuqp
Microsoft’s new Azure Container Instances make using containers fast and easy http://ift.tt/2v7OlqW Barely a day passes without some news about containers and that speaks to how quickly this technology is being adopted by developers and the platforms and startups that serve them. Today it’s Microsoft’s turn to launch a new container service for its Azure cloud computing platform: Azure Container Instances (ACI). The company also announced that it is joining the Cloud Native Computing Foundation as a platinum member (that’s a $370,000/year commitment). While we’ve seen our fair share of container-centric services from the major cloud vendors, ACI is different from the likes of Azure’s existing Container Service, AWS’s EC2 Container Service and the Google Container Engine. ACI is all about simplicity. It lets you spin up a single container with your choice of memory and CPU cores in a few seconds and usage is billed by the second. As Microsoft stresses, these containers are first-class objects on Azure and get all of the same role-based access controls, billing tags and other features that you’d expect on the platform. These containers are isolated from other customers using “proven virtualization technology,” Microsoft says. What you don’t get, however, is the hassle of having to manage VMs or learning about container orchestration. If you do want to use orchestration, though, you can do that with the help of Microsoft’s new open source Kubernetes connector. This allows Kubernetes clusters to deploy containers directly to ACI and lets developers mix and match VMs and ACI as needed. Right now, ACI only supports Linux containers but it will soon also support Windows Containers as well. Deploying a container only takes a single command with a few basic parameters and you can pull containers from public repositories like the Docker Hub or our private repositories on Azure. Given its speed, the main use case of ACI is probably for bursty workloads and scaling. One of the main advantages of containers is that you can easily move them between services, so going from ACI to a more traditional VM-based container infrastructure shouldn’t be a problem. “This offers a level of agility for deploying Kubernetes, unlike any other cloud provider, enabling services that start in seconds without any underlying VMs and are billed and scaled per second,” Corey Sanders, Microsoft’s Head of Product for Azure Compute, writes in today’s announcement. As Sanders also announced today, Microsoft has decided to join the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) as a Platinum Member. The foundation hosts the Kubernetes project, as well as a growing number of other open source tools that help developers build, monitor and manage container-based applications. Other CNCF Platinum members include the likes of Cisco, CoreOS, Dell Technologies, Docker, Google, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Joyent and RedHat. The CNCF is a Collaborative Project of the Linux Foundation — which Microsoft joined last year. “Cloud native technologies like Kubernetes enable better developer productivity, higher frequency deployments and more efficient utilization of computing resources,” Dan Kohn, Executive Director of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, told me. “Active engagement by companies like Microsoft means that cloud native will increasingly be the standard way to deploy software both for new, greenfield applications and the standard platform for evolving existing monolithic applications into the cloud native future.” Featured Image: shutterjack/Getty ImagesDigital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com July 26, 2017 at 10:01AM
http://ift.tt/2uZ44I7
CPG investing platform CircleUp will now issue loans to help consumer brands grow http://ift.tt/2uWXlyG It’s hard raising money as a consumer packaged goods (CPG) company, but one startup wants to make it easier. CircleUp, which already helps consumer brands raise millions in equity financing, is now going to issue loans to help smaller CPG companies raise working capital and avoid cash crunches. Historically CircleUp has operated an equity investment marketplace focused specifically on emerging CPG companies. In essence, it lets new consumer businesses apply to raise funding on its platform, and gives investors a new way to find and back those businesses. To do that, CircleUp has built a proprietary algorithm focused specifically on analyzing the industry. Called Helio, the system analyzes each company’s financial performance as well as its competitors’ performance, while also taking into account the strength of the company’s brand, its retail and online distribution, and the underlying team behind it. To date, CircleUp has used the data collected from Helio to make recommendations to investors and help 243 companies have raised a total of $365 million in equity financing. But not every CPG company wants to raise millions (or even hundreds of thousands) of dollars to fund its growth. Some are just in need of additional working capital, and in the CPG world and small and medium-sized business world in general, fundraising is hard to come by. As a result, CircleUp is now applying its learnings from Helio to help extend lines of credit to companies just looking for smaller amounts of capital to finance their growing businesses. With the launch of CircleUp Credit Advisors, it has begun issuing loans ranging in size from $25,000 to $600,000 to help businesses fund future purchase orders, increase inventory and smooth out cash flow while waiting on late accounts receivable payments. To launch the new lending product, CircleUp has partnered with Community Investment Management (CIM), an investment manager focused specifically on economic development and social impact that comes from backing small and medium-sized businesses. To get the program off the ground, CIM is contributing a $20 million credit facility which CircleUp will use to fund the loans it issues. According to CIM managing director Jacob Haar, the partnership with CircleUp fit right into his firm’s sweet spot. “Most banks are uninterested… in lending to small businesses,” Haar said. And many of the lenders that are available for those companies aren’t always transparent. CircleUp wanted to do what few banks in the industry were willing to do, which is provide reasonable and responsible lending products to help small businesses grow. Because it plans to recycle the credit as borrowers repay their loans, Haar expects that credit line to fund more than $100 million worth of cumulative loan originations. And $20 million is just the start — if the pilot goes well, CIM or another partner could increase CircleUp’s credit facility over time. Already, CircleUp has issued 50 loans to CPG borrowers, and it expects to do about 200 over the course of the year. One of those early borrowers was Carlos Ramirez, founder of Powerful Yogurt, a maker of high-protein yogurt, yogurt drinks and oatmeal for consumers with an active lifestyle. Powerful Yogurt had previously raised $2 million in equity financing through CircleUp, but when it came time for Ramirez to invest more into his business, he didn’t want to dilute himself further. “Raising equity is very expensive,” Ramirez told me. By contrast, he said the process of borrowing money was easy and transparent. “Now I’m able to fund my working capital with this, which is what i wanted to do from day one,” he said. Now that its trial has proven successful, CircleUp is expanding its credit product even further. With more than 17,000 companies having already applied to its investment platform and millions of data points to help evaluate them, the lending option is well on its way to providing a much lower-cost way of raising working capital for consumer brands. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com July 26, 2017 at 10:00AM
http://ift.tt/20WNcIp
Line’s Q2: Fewer active users but profits leap off rising ad revenues http://ift.tt/2tYWrNs Not every social messaging player can hope to grow into a mega platform. And Japan’s Line Corporation looks to have reached a peak in user growth — even as it shows it can grow revenue and generate rising profits off of a shrinking user-base. In its second quarter earnings report, the now public company has posted a quarterly decline in user numbers across its four main markets: Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia — reporting 169 million monthly active users for the quarter, down from 171M in Q1 (although it added 2M users in its home market); and up a modest 7.5 per cent year over year. At the same time, revenues for the quarter increased, with Line reporting total revenues of 39.8BN yen (~$356M) across its different business segments, up from 38.9BN (~$348M) in Q1. The Japanese market accounted for a full 73 per cent of the company’s revenue. Profit for the quarter leap up to 8.9M yen (~$80M), rising a whopping 446.5 per cent quarter over quarter, and 187.6 per cent year over year. Line’s revenue growth in the quarter was mostly driven by ads, which accounted for 44 per cent of its revenues, with ad revenue up 38.7 per cent year over year, and 5.7 per cent quarter over quarter. (The next largest segment was content (which includes games), accounting for a quarter of the business revenue.) Other portions of its business saw revenue shrink, quarter over quarter, including its comms segment which bundles together paid offering such as sticker sales (which users can buy to send to other Line users) and fees for calls to non-Line users (overall this segment declined 6.4 per cent QoQ, though was up 2.3 per cent YoY). This segment accounted for just under a fifth of total earnings. Revenue for content sales on Line’s platform, which combines revenue generated from games and other content sales such as music, dropped both year over year, and quarter over quarter, declining 11.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively. (Although revenue for the Line Music service individually was up, and it breaks out one game title that grew revenue QoQ.) While an ‘Others’ category, which includes a variety of service offerings, such as a part-time job listings service; Line Pay mobile payments; and an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) service that Line launched last summer, posted year over year and quarter over quarter growth, recovering from a QoQ dip in Q1. And grew to account for 12 per cent of total revenues. Reporting consolidated earnings for the first six months of the year, Line set its results against a backdrop of economic uncertainty — referencing “the economic policies of the new U.S. administration”. It also noted mobile phone shipments in Japan decreased for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016. Though the wider competitive challenge for the business, unremarked in its report, is very evidently scaling a social platform business in a space that’s dominated by messaging giants in both the East and West: namely Tencent’s WeChat, and Facebook’s suite of social platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram. Line’s focus on diversifying (and growing) revenue by innovating and expanding its service offerings appears to be its strategy to compete against the challenge of mega platforms, by making the most of its user base (and keeping them engaged with new offerings), though with user growth on its platform at best stalled, if not set for further shrinkage, and its heavy reliance on a single market (Japan) to generate the vast majority of its earnings, it remains to be seen how sustainable its strategic will prove. In its investor forecast for the next quarter, Line says it expects continued “steady growth” in ad revenue, and while it warns over an expected rise in operating expenses for Q3 — as a result of plans to expand its services and marketing activities, as well as “full-scale investments” in its virtual digital assistant tech, Clova (announced back in March — and due to be embodied in a smart speaker, called Wave, launching later this summer), plus new share-based compensation expenses, it says it remains confident of continuing to turn a profit. Featured Image: Lighthouseinsights.in (IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED)Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com July 26, 2017 at 09:56AM
http://ift.tt/2uxjBOB
Apple’s signature earbuds were inspired by Star Wars’ iconic Stormtrooper http://ift.tt/2tZph0d The best iconic designs tend to share inspiration with other inspired creations, and it turns out Apple’s instantly recognizable white plastic earbuds, and by extension the current EarPods and AirPods) were in part influenced by Star Wars: specifically, by the Empire’s ubiquitous enforcer, the Stormtrooper. Once you hear it, the connection seems apparent – Stormtroopers are clad head to toe in gleaming white plastic body armor, and Apple’s earbuds are known by their glossy white plastic shell. The iconic earbud look is what helped Apple create an indelible advertising campaign for the original iPod line, and it’s also what makes the current AirPods extremely easy to pick out in a crowd. Apple design lead Jony Ive told Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams that he was thinking of Stormtrooper garb when he came up with the design for Apple’s earbuds, according to The Wall Street Journal. But the inspiration works both ways: Abrams took cues from Jony Ive for the unique design of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, which has a rougher blade projection that occasionally flickers off sparks, something the director said was a direct suggestion from Apple’s design guru. This is excellent information to have, since it means that when I wear my AirPods while donning full Stormtrooper regalia (I’m always only a single impulsive act away from buying a prop-quality set of full Stormtrooper armor), I won’t be doing anything wrong from a design canon perspective. Featured Image: Leon Neal/Getty ImagesDigital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com July 26, 2017 at 09:55AM
http://ift.tt/2tYMkbJ
The upcoming P15 could be McLaren’s most extreme supercar yet http://ift.tt/2uZ4JJF McLaren may have just launched the 720S, but it’s already working on an even more extreme supercar. According to Autocar, the British firm is preparing to launch a new model, the McLaren P15, that will sit above the 720S in its lineup, and serve as a replacement for the limited-edition P1 hybrid in McLaren’s top Ultimate Series. The P15 will be shown to prospective customers later this year, but won’t make its public debut until the 2018 Geneva Motor Show next spring. The P15 will be the most extreme McLaren road car to date, according to Autocar. On the road, it will outperform the P1. It will also surpass nearly every previous McLaren on the track, except the hardcore P1 GTR. Presumably, McLaren’s upcoming BP23 hypercar will also top the P15 in performance. The P15 will reportedly borrow the MonoCage II carbon fiber body structure and 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8 from the 720S. That engine will produce an estimated 789 horsepower, compared to the 903 hp the P1 extracted from its 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8 and electric motor. But without the bulky hybrid system, the P15 should be lighter than the P1, giving it an edge in performance. Autocar claims it will weigh 2,866 pounds, compared to 3,410 pounds for the P1. An anonymous source told Autocar that the design of the P15 is best described as “brutal.” The car was reportedly designed purely with function in mind, rather than aesthetics. Luggage space is said to be so restricted that there is only room for two helmets and two racing suits. Like all current McLarens, expect plenty of clever aerodynamic features, and a body made almost entirely from carbon fiber. Production will be limited to 500 cars, priced at around $900,000. Because of the extreme nature of the car, McLaren reportedly won’t produce a convertible version, and a higher-performance road-going version akin to the 675LT won’t be necessary. McLaren may produce a track-only GTR variant, though. As if the P15 wasn’t exotic enough, McLaren will follow it up with the BP23, a car that should be even faster, and rarer. The BP23 is rumored to cost $2 million, and production will be limited to 106 units, matching the production run of the legendary McLaren F1. Like the F1, the BP23 will also have three-abreast seating that places the driver in the middle of the cockpit. It will also have a hybrid powertrain.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://ift.tt/2p4eJdC July 26, 2017 at 09:42AM |
Categories
All
Archives
October 2020
|