Horizon Aircraft has announced it has the former high-performance technology arm of Formula 1’s McLaren Group. Motion Applied will design and manufacture a customized motor drive inverter for the company’s hybrid-electric VTOL, the Cavorite X7, enabling higher power efficiency and reduced weight for the aircraft’s vertical lift system..
“How do we ensure our vertical lift system meets our high-performance standards? By partnering with the team that has powered championship-leading race cars for more than 30 years,” said Horizon Aircraft’s Chief Technology Officer, Tom Brassington. “We considered many companies for this partnership, but ultimately it is Motion Applied’s innovation, deep expertise, and ability to rapidly design, manufacture, and test in-house that provides a great advantage.”
In July 2025, McLaren Applied became Motion Applied, having previously spun out of McLaren Group in 2021. Launching as an independent Tier One technology provider. Motion Applied offers a suite of products that support the development of electric vehicles and aircraft, said Horizon in a press release. The Cavorite X7 will feature a custom air-cooled silicon carbide motor drive inverter (converts DC from on-board batteries into AC to power electric motors), based on Motion Applied’s MCU-X platform. This advanced system will weigh less than 3kg, and leverages silicon carbide technology alongside Motion Applied’s decades of power electronics experience to deliver faster, more efficient power transfer with reduced cooling requirements – all in a compact footprint. The result: significant gains in aircraft efficiency, power density, and range. For a hybrid-electric VTOL such as the Cavorite X7, these are crucial to the aircraft’s overall performance.
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