British carmaker Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc, best known for being driven by James Bond, are to develop two zero-emissions cars starting in 2025. Chairman Lawrence Stroll told the Financial Times newspaper that the company would produce a battery-electric sports car and an electric sports utility vehicle (SUV).
Stroll, who is a Canadian billionaire, helped to save the company last year with a £535 million (€625 million/$740 million) package. He is also part of Aston Martin’s Formula 1 race team. This won’t be Aston Martin’s first dabble in the electric car world having revealed it’s Rapid E in 2015 and was set for production but it never came to fruition. Maybe the Rapid E will rise from the ashes again and influence the new models.
The company, which has been building sports cars and luxury tourers since 1913, will produce the sports car at the company’s headquarters in Gaydon in England, with the SUV being made in Wales. Stroll also said the company was looking into electric batteries for the vehicles which might be provided by Daimler AG’s Mercedes Benz. This is no surprise with Mercedes owning 20 percent of Aston Martin.
In the shorter-term Aston Martin plan to offer a plug-in hybrid version of the company’s current DBX SUV, which will be out later this year. Several other hybrids will be on the way in 2023 too. While this is all great news, it’s only a small percentage of Aston Martin’s models and the company still plan to produce combustion engine cars until at least 2030. Hopefully, as the electric revolution continues it might help to speed up their move to electric powertrains.
