Aston Martin Boss Reveals Plans for a Fully Electric Performance Car and SUV
Both are due to be built in the U.K., Mercedes may be involved, and names are not finalized.
Lawrence Stroll, executive chairman of Aston Martin, revealed totheFinancial Timesthat the British brand has plans for two electric vehicles. One will be a performance car, the other an SUV. None of this is terribly surprising considering the company's pledge to phase out non-electrified internal combustion engines by 2030. But the details are intriguing, especially when you consider Aston's track record.
Remember, Aston Martin has a relationship with Mercedes-Benz, which supplies the brand with high-tech powertrains—and, last time we checked, that included gasoline-electric hybrid and battery-electric technology. Stroll was equivocal about the notion of using Mercedes components on these vehicles, saying all options are on the table, but there are many reasons why sourcing the components from Mercedes would make sense.
Onto the vehicles: Stroll toldFTthe performance vehicle will be a proper front-engined car, specifically a "version of a DB11/Vantage". This should be good news for enthusiasts given the propensity of those cars to thrill. The SUV will be, well, an SUV—although it's unclear if it'll be a BEV variant of the DBX or another vehicle entirely. Nor is it clear whether the EV performance vehicle will rely on the same underpinnings of the DB11 or if it will utilize a bespoke platform. Those kinds of details should emerge when the company firms up its plans.
Both vehicles will be built in the United Kingdom, according toFT. The electric SUV will be built in Wales, the performance car in Gaydon. While that isn't necessarily indicative of the specific hardware that will underpin the vehicles, the DBX is produced at the St. Athans facility in Wales, and the Vantage and DB11 at Gaydon.
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While Aston Martin has had some difficulty of late, Stroll sounded upbeat in the interview, noting that the DBX is sold out until July—a good sign given the SUV-hungry market. No surprise on our end, since we've said the DBX is simply great. And the company's reinvestment in Formula 1 is also intended to help the company's profile, sales, and aspirational status.
Like a lot of the other staffers here, Alex Kierstein took the hard way to get to car writing. Although he always loved cars, he wasn’t sure a career in automotive media could possibly pan out. So, after an undergraduate degree in English at the University of Washington, he headed to law school. To be clear, it sucked. After a lot of false starts, and with little else to lose, he got a job at Turn 10 Studios supporting the Forza 4 and Forza Horizon 1 launches. The friendships made there led to a job at a major automotive publication in Michigan, and after a few years to MotorTrend. He lives in the Seattle area with a small but scruffy fleet of great vehicles, including a V-8 4Runner and a C5 Corvette, and he also dabbles in scruffy vintage watches and film cameras.
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