Aston boss doubles down on PHEVs amid EV slowdown
EV hype was 'politically driven' Stroll says; Aston will make combustion cars until legally told to stop
Back in February Aston Martin quietly announced it was set to delay the introduction of its range of EVs. Now the company’s executive chairman, Lawrence Stroll, has confirmed that the plan is to switch development spend to a new generation of plug-in hybrids instead – with these set to live all the way up to any ultimate ban on combustion engines.
“We planned to launch the first car next year in 2025,” Stroll told journalists during a conference at Aston’s Gaydon HQ yesterday, “we were ready to do so, but it seems there is a lot more hype in the EV market that was politically driven rather than by consumer demand. Particularly at an Aston Martin price point.”
Much of the heavy lifting on Aston’s fully electric range has already been done. Stroll confirmed that Aston has designed a platform that will form the basis of four separate vehicles, these being “a sports car, an SUV, a type of CUV and a halo hypercar. We have all those products designed and technically engineered, so that process is done.”
But what was missing was enthusiasm from the existing customer base. “We speak to our dealers, we speak to our customers, when you have a small network you can communicate easily,” Stroll said, “and everyone said we still want sound, we still want smell. Aston Martin sports cars are not the first car we drive every day.”
The result is a two-year delay, with the first EV now set to make its debut in 2027. Before then, Aston is shifting development effort into creating what will become a range of plug-in hybrids. The first of these will be the already-announced Valhalla supercar, with deliveries set to commence at the beginning of next year. But beyond that there will be front-engined PHEVs, with these being the next-generation successors to the company’s existing portfolio.
“We are going to invest much more heavily in our PHEV programme to be a bridge between full combustion and full electric,” Stroll said, “we think that for our customers and our market that’s going to play out and last quite a while.”
Stroll confirmed that the plan is for the PHEVs to continue to use V8 engines from the company’s existing technical partnership with AMG, but he refused to be drawn on where the electrical side of the powertrain will come from. So it could be Mercedes, or it could be from somewhere else. Stroll also suggested that we will ultimately see a hybridised Aston V12 as well, presumably giving the prospect of a power output somewhere north of 900hp.
“We see PHEVs going to the middle of the 2030s, we don’t believe demand will slow down at all,” Stroll said. And he also confirmed that Aston won’t stop making combustion cars until it has to: “for as long as we’re allowed to legally, we will keep making them. I believe there will always be a demand, although granted that demand will shrink.”
There will be more supercars, too. Aston officially cancelled the mid-engined Vanquish project last year – that being the car that was meant to slot below the Valhalla and be produced in bigger numbers. But now Stroll says he sees the Valhalla coupe as being the start of a series of models.
“We are going to have various versions, Valhalla is our mid-engined platform,” he said, “we have various concepts, some road versions, some track versions, for what’s going to happen and how Valhalla gets extended – also through to the mid-2030s.”
As always at Aston, interesting times.
Aston’s plans are an example of market realignment.
The ban’s coming, but at the moment it looks like the cure for type 1 diabetes: always 5 years away.
Even after the ice ban comes in there will still be plenty of older ice cars to choose from for many years to come and in my opinion the older they are the more interesting they are to drive.
The government might make it more expensive to drive ice cars but I can’t see it doing anything too drastic otherwise the majority will be priced out of owning a car.
It’s arguably more environmentally friendly to buy a used car than to create another, especially if you don’t do too many miles annually. I will stick with my Alfa 156 GTA for as long as it lasts…, alongside our petrol 2011 C class estate.
The same pragmatism applies for the vast majority of car buyers at the low-price, high-volume end of the market. The masses (and most car companies, I suspect) are waiting for the grandstanding, lobbyist-loving politicians & regulators to catch up with real-life realities - as proved by hardly any EVs being bought privately.
Well, I’m so sorry that the vast majority of people do not like the same things as you.
The bubble hasnt burst, its still getting going, there is absolutely no way in 25 years anyone will be buying a new ICE car in the UK, this is a transitional period, with ups and downs, but one way or another, electric motors will be powering the bulk of transport in the future.
Not sure why its so hard to grasp, I like ICE cars and have no immediate plans for an EV, I dont rule it in or out but this is happening and its not going away, very naive to think that one article on PH about 200k plus luxury cars sounds the death knell for the EV.
Competition like Maserati and Porsche stealing a march in the new era whilst Aston Martin hide behind this convenient excuse - sounds more realistic.
Putting aside all the childish political blowhard rubbish in this thread, niche manufacturers need to know their customer base to survive and AM is reassuring its base. This is completely irrelevant to the overall change in volume transportation.
Is it any wonder that their EV products are not quite ready?
The Chinese battery manufacturers are rapidly tearing up the rule book when it comes to battery energy density and charging times.
Fitting an outdated battery technology to a new product at the premium end of the market is a significant risk for companies like AM.
It makes sense to bide their time.
It's inevitable that the majority of cars will eventually be powered by renewable electricity, it's impossible to ignore the massive lifetime energy consumption savings on offer and the fact that EV batteries are near 100% recyclable.
Present day EVs in the UK are consuming the equivalent of about 1 litre of fossil fuel for every 4-5 litres an ICE car consumes.
That will dwindle to zero with time, no UK government is going to overlook the opportunity to use offshore wind to decarbonise our cars.
There will be delays, bumps in the road, pain and tears, but the endpoint remains the same.
Won’t change a damn thing for the common man though who can’t afford this (but might see it as a victory because someday dream of being able to)
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