Aston Martin to unleash first electric sports car by 2025
Aston Martin plans to launch its current front-engined sports cars, including the Vantage and DB11, as next-generation all-electric cars from 2025. Before 2025, however, Aston Martin will focus on hybrid powertrains.
The electric cars from Aston Martin are to offer a range of more than 600 kilometres. Additionally, CEO Tobias Moers wants to follow the launch of the all-electric sports cars with a purely electric SUV from the middle of the decade. As before, the brand is aiming for a product range consisting of 50 per cent BEVs by 2030.
As reported, however, Aston Martin is devoting the next few years to the hybridisation of its models. Automotive News also provides some details on this: A few days ago, the British company presented the hybrid super sports car Valhalla as a concept. This is to be launched on the market in 2023. A plug-in hybrid version of the SUV model DBX is to follow shortly afterwards. And the production version of the Vanquish Vision study is also planned as a plug-in hybrid.
Incidentally, anyone who reads the announcement on the presentation of the Valhalla concept carefully will come across an unpublished about-turn that Aston Martin has apparently made. The hybrid super sports car was announced with a 950 hp hybrid drive based on a 750 hp V8 engine and second electric motors. And will therefore not be launched with the 3.0-litre V6 engine developed in-house, which was promised in 2020 as the “core of the hybridisation plans”. According to the company plans, this should actually be designed as a full hybrid or plug-in hybrid depending on the model and be used for the first time in the Valhalla. The new concept of the petrol engine as a mid-engine remains, but it is not the promised in-house development that is used, but the 4-litre V8 from AMG.
As is well known, this is not the first loop that the British luxury carmaker has made with a view to the electrification era: after the entry of the Canadian investor Lawrence Stroll, Aston Martin had already reoriented its electric vehicle plans at the beginning of 2020. The fully developed Rapide E with 800-volt technology did not come to market, and the launch of the Lagonda electric car brand was also postponed from 2022 to 2025 at the earliest.
Stroll is confident of the current roadmap and highlights the Valhalla as Aston Martin’s first mid-engined production supercar as a “truly transformational moment for this ultra-luxury brand”. The launch of Valhalla demonstrates Aston Martin’s commitment to building a range of exceptional, driver-focused mid-engined cars – “a crucial next stage in the expansion of our product range”.
The announcement of all-electric front-engined sports cars from 2025 is likely to keep the current range of combustion-based sports cars in the portfolio for longer than originally planned. Moers announced that a “halo model” will be added on top of the current trio of Vantage, DB11 and DBS. He did not reveal details of this.
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