Gordon Murray CEO: No regrets selling EV division to focus on ICE

CEO Phil Lee must navigate the Gordon Murray Group's shift to electrification

The Gordon Murray Group last year sold its technology arm to an Abu Dhabi government-backed investor

The Gordon Murray Group has been reinventing itself for years now, with projects focusing on production, electrification and even cheap transportation for emerging economies.

Now, however, the group started by and named for the famed Formula 1 designer (now executive chairman of the group) is just focused on million-pound-plus supercars. 

Last year the company sold its EV-focused Gordon Murray Technologies (GMT) to an investment agency controlled by the Abu Dhabi government. That helped to pay for the production and further development of the V12-powered T50 supercar and the delayed follow-up, the T33. The cars are sold out until 2028, but the headache for CEO Phil Lee is navigating the shift to electrification in a niche with little appetite for electric product. Autocar Business caught up with him at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

*Where are you with production on T50/T50S and T33 supercars?*

"We’re about a quarter of a way through the 100 T50 cars. We'll have those finished towards the end of the year. Then T50S [track version] goes into production early next year. The T33 will follow that in 2026. And as a result of various things that happened during last year, we were able to open our brand-new facility over in Windlesham [Surrey] and start production."

*Update us, please, on the company make-up.*

"Gordon Murray Automotive is the primary part of building the supercars. And then Gordon Murray Advanced Engineering is development and engineering. It doesn't do any external work any more. It’s just focused on Gordon Murray products. We've restructured Gordon Murray Technologies and Gordon Murray Design into electrical architectures, chassis systems and battery technologies." 

*Why did you sell Gordon Murray Technologies (GMT)?*

"We won a contract in the Middle East to develop electric vehicles [ForSeven, led by former JLR engineer Nick Collins]. And that became huge very, very quickly and started to swap our focus. It became quite clear that in order for us to keep our focus on supercars that [ForSeven] should take over the technology side and work on electric vehicles. It enabled us to be in charge of our own destiny."

*How much did you sell GMT for?*

"I can't tell you that. The main thing is that it gave us a focus with the staff and the investments to be able to put out these cars here and keep the product line." *What have you learnt after shifting focus entirely onto the supercars?*

"I was always worried that we needed to protect the V12 where automotive is going. What is now is proven in my head is that there is a big demand for V12 and that emotion in a supercar. You can see that from the fact we're sold out now to 2028. I'm not completely sure that there is a place for electric supercars in the way that there is V12."

*Do you think you can steer regulation away from going all-electric or are you planning for it once customers get their heads around it?*

"We’ve got three pillars: customer focus; driving performance; and the technology, including lightweighting. As long as we stay true to the three principles, the powertrain system has got to fit within that. So I fully expect us to go hybridisation at some point in time and keep the V12 as long as we physically can."

*Does hybrid mean plug-in hybrid?*

"What we'll do is some clever way of keeping hybridisation as opposed to go more conventional via a big battery or, you know, like a series or parallel hybridisation.

"At this point in time, the legislation says we can carry on. For example, 2040 is in the cut-off point [for combustion engines] in the US, 2035 in Europe [the EU], 2030 in the UK. We will carry on working and lobbying from our perspective to protect the small-series and low-volume manufacturers."

*Where are the majority of orders coming from?*

"Roughly 50% in the US, Europe around 20% and then Middle East and Asia. In the US, T50 is a show and display car [not fully road legal], but T33 is a fully federal car. It's a global car."

*What's your message to the new Labour government?*

"Governments need to be able to facilitate the growth of business. I don't look to the government to sort out my problems. But they do need to help create an environment with highly skilled workers, where we are encouraged to invest in high-end, high-technology and high-value in terms of a niche product. That creates a bedrock for innovation going forward into more higher-volume areas."

*What’s the danger for the government?*

"If you don't have that almost conveyor belt for high-end technologies and you don’t create an environment for investment in that, then you end up in a vacuum where everyone's afraid to invest because they don't have that stability in terms of knowing what they can sell in the future. At the moment with 2030 [full ICE new car sales ban], the UK government is ahead of everyone else. There's no consistency across the approach."

*What should UK automotive plc focus on?*

"It should focus on what it does well, which is high-end R&D-type programmes and other projects. We are good at it. If we don't, if we move into the cycle of volume or trying to compete on price, we'll lose that sparkle we have in high-end innovation." 

*What is your R&D focused on?*

"Three areas: advanced chassis systems, advanced powertrain systems and electrical architectures. By choosing those three, I think it gives us a fairly level foundation in order to be able to get stability for the future." 

*Are you profitable?*

"Your first vehicle is always the most difficult. But in future years, we will have a more steady growth. The first year, we're not loss making, but we certainly won't have made the money that was first envisaged in the programme. When you’re a small business, cash liquidity is very important, certainly in the early days, because halfway through your first programme, you have to start your second programme."

*So your liquidity is coming from the sale of your EV technology division?*

"A combination of things. From shareholders, from the banks and from our ability to generate funding in-house as well."

*When you do you aim to be fully funded in-house?*

"Certainly within the next three to five years, but we've got high ambitions and I don't want us sit on our laurels."

*What comes next for the T33?*

"We've already launched two variants - the coupé version and the spider version. The third version will be launched next year for delivery in 2028. They're all road-going versions, but the idea is that we offer more exclusivity associated with the vehicles."