These are all the supercar launches to watch out for in 2026 and there's a battle for the hypercar throne

The year 2026 has only just begun, but it already looks promising with several upcoming supercars and hypercars from McLaren, Ferrari, Porsche, Bugatti, Rimac, and potentially Lotus.

Four of the aforementioned brands are expected to replace their halo supercars this year, and then Rimac and Lotus deserve a mention for entirely different reasons.

The year 2026 will also be crucial for the internal combustion engine.

And, lest we forget, it’ll welcome what is arguably the most important Ferrari ever made.

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Combustion, hybrid, and electric will collide

Six years into the 2020s, we still haven’t reached a verdict.

We don’t know whether electric power will win or not, mainly because we don’t know whether people want it or not.

People are buying more EVs than ever – that’s clear – but there are at least three exceptions.

When it comes to trucks, muscle cars, and supercars – EVs aren’t really working.

Nearly all supercar makers, with few exceptions, are therefore relying on both electric and gas power.

All upcoming halo cars from legacy brands (Bugatti, Ferrari, McLaren) will be hybrids.

But there are a few things worth noting and three brands we need to analyze with a bit more scrutiny: Ferrari, Rimac, and Nilu27 (above).

These are the upcoming hypercars and supercars that will dominate the scene in 2026

First and foremost, Bugatti.

Bugatti has already unveiled the Tourbillon, but we tend to forget that production hasn’t commenced yet.

The new V16 hypercar is currently being tested, and the final production version should come later this year.

McLaren will also replace its halo car – the McLaren P1 – with a new hypercar that is currently only known as ‘P18’.

We don’t know much about it yet, but it’ll be a hybrid hypercar, just like the other halo car of the year: the new Ferrari.

It’ll replace the SF90, and it’ll be a hybrid.

Porsche and Ferrari are raising the bar with new electric supercars

This year will be crucial for Porsche and Ferrari because they’re both expected to unveil a new electric hypercar.

For Porsche, it’ll be the fourth electric model after the Taycan, Macan, and Cayenne – but it’ll be the first fully electric high-performance car.

Codenamed Mission X, it’ll essentially replace the Porsche 918.

It’ll presumably look a little like the Mission X concept you can check out in the picture below.

There’ll also be immense pressure on Ferrari because the Italian marque is expected to finally fully unveil the new electric vehicle.

We don’t know what it’ll look like like but we know a few things about it, including its name, because it’ll probably be called ‘Elettrica’.

We also know it won’t be a supercar in the conventional sense – more like a four-door coupe – and we know it’ll be the first electric car with exhaust sounds that aren’t fake.

Ferrari has created and patented a new system to captures real sounds coming from the powertrain and turn them into exhaust noise, which is a pretty neat trick.

Rimac and Lotus are at a turning point

Rimac and Lotus are at a turning point for different reasons.

Rimac is Bugatti’s parent company, and so far the automaker has thrived making internal combustion hypercars under Bugatti, and then fully electric hypercars under Rimac.

But Mate Rimac, who’s the CEO of both companies, made it clear that Rimac is pursuing performance, not electric performance.

Translated, they’ll do whatever works, and if that means turning Rimac into another internal combustion-focused automaker, then they’ll probably do it.

It seems unlikely at the moment, but we never know.

As for Lotus, the idea was to transition from lightweight sports cars to an EV-only brand, but that didn’t really work.

Sales just aren’t there, which is why Lotus is now turning some of its models into hybrids.

The outsider: Nilu27

Nilu27 is a niche car brand founded by an ex-Koenigsegg designer called Sasha Selipanov.

Selipanov said his main goal was to create a hypercar he loved because there wasn’t one in the market.

That’s because Nilu27 is old school.

No turbos, no electric aid, no automatic transmission.

Production, if all goes to plan, should start either this year or in 2027, and it’ll be interesting to see how it performs commercially.