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The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.

McLaren 650S successor will get twin-turbo V8 hybrid

The trickledown theory is central to an automaker's justification of auto racing. It's the idea that stuff developed in competition informs how production cars are built or what features are included. It's why today you can get performance cars with carbon fiber bodies and carbon-ceramic brakes – and thanks to Formula 1 and endurance racing, it's why you'll soon be able to buy high-performance hybrids. McLaren is all about the trickledown theory. The energy recovery system that started in the company's F1 cars inspired the hybrid drivetrain in the P1 hypercar. And now, the British company has confirmed that a similar setup will grace the replacement for the 650S and 675LT. Code-named the P14, Car and Driver reports an updated 3.8-liter, twin-turbocharged V8 will be the centerpiece, but a focus will be on reducing the weight of batteries and electric motors. In fact, McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt said shedding weight is central to all of the company's hybrid pursuits. "The P1 had 375 pounds of [batteries/motors] if you added it up; I think that today we're within a 70- to 110-pound weight penalty for hybrid," Flewitt told C/D. "I want to eliminate that, get it to zero – and then really hack off my engineers by saying we want to make it even lighter than a conventional powertrain would be. But that's in the future, it's something we're constantly driving." Just because the next mid-range supercar from McLaren will get bits of P1, don't expect this kind of hybrid technology to filter into the company's more affordable offerings. Part of the reason McLaren is making this move with the successor to the 650S/675LT is because it will much faster, and in turn allow the company to create an even greater separation between its so-called Sports and Super Series cars. Still, McLaren is making some very good decisions for drivers. Moving such an advanced piece of technology downmarket and focusing on cutting weight out of said tech is proof positive that the trickledown theory of motorsports works. Expect to see this new McLaren hybrid at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show. Related Video:

Fernando Alonso drives Senna's McLaren in latest promo clip

McLaren has put a lot of great drivers in the cockpit over the years. Several multiple World Champions in fact, from Ayrton Senna to Fernando Alonso. It may seem only fitting then that the latter should get a chance to sample the former's ride, and that's just what the team has done for this latest promo video. It's actually the trailer for a new clip called Don't Crack Under Pressure, celebrating 30 years of partnership between McLaren and TAG Heuer, filmed at Catalunya (Spain). Which is all well and fine, but the point is: Alonso, in Senna's car, the MP4/4 in which Senna won his first World Championship in 1988. And he's playing cat and mouse, no less, with Jenson Button in the new MP4-30, which is powered once again by Honda. Just like in the Senna days.