Aston Martin’s first-ever series-production battery-electric vehicle (BEV) is “on schedule” to arrive in 2026, according to Lawrence Stroll, the brand’s chairman, quoted by Autocar.
The British marque will offer details of all the new cars it plans to launch over the next five years – including plug-in hybrids – at its capital markets day on June 27. However, judging from Stroll’s statements, it looks like Aston Martin isn’t betting big on EVs and instead will focus on plug-in hybrids.
“I don’t have many customers asking me for a BEV,” he said during an interview.
Nevertheless, the upcoming battery-powered Aston will be “a new product” on “a new platform,” and not a case of “putting batteries in an old platform,” according to chief creative officer Mark Reichman.
As for the platform itself, details are yet to be released, but one thing’s certain: it won’t come from any tie-up with Chinese car group Geely, which recently raised its stake in Aston Martin, as confirmed by technical chief Roberto Fedeli.
“You will see we have a different target, we have in mind something completely different to the technology out there already,” said Fedeli. “Our thought is that electric is not a powertrain but a new vehicle dynamic. For this reason, we have in mind our own road map.”
As for the brand’s upcoming plug-in hybrids, Lawrence Stroll believes that the technology would “last well into the 2030s,” with Aston’s first PHEV, the Valhalla, slated to go on sale by the end of next year.
In the past, Aston Martin used a badge-engineered Toyota iQ to create the Cygnet, a luxury city car that had a single purpose in life: to lower the average carbon dioxide emissions across the brand’s lineup.
Now, seeing how Aston Martin has a partnership with Mercedes-Benz for its road-going cars business, we might see something similar, possibly in the form of a rebadged, mildly reengineered EV from Mercedes, but nothing has been confirmed on this front.
What is known is Stroll’s ambition of building no less than 10,000 vehicles per year with the help of the new lineup of cars – with each made to order on an 18-24-month waitlist.
"My vision and dream is for Aston Martin to be ultra-luxury wedded with high performance and take marketing and technology from Formula 1,” Stroll said.
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