Can Aston Martin Survive in the Electric Vehicle Era?

[Jon39]

For many of us, the Aston Martin sound is an integral part of our ownership experience. Driving an electric version, might be less of an occasion and perhaps the actual driving experience quite similar to all other electric cars.

Piston Ted explained this aspect succinctly when he said;
"... stepping into a two seater performance car and firing up the battery - what a depressing thought".

Aston Martin may introduce beautiful designs, but presumably if the electric driving experience does become generic, there would be other electric cars at a fraction of the hand built cost. It might not be long before the low-cost Chinese cars are on sale in Europe.

If EVs do become a prelude to a different better innovation, manufacturers still need to survive the EV period.

Do you foresee Aston Martin having good demand for their electric cars ?
Present AM enthusiasts might not be looking forward to an electric Aston Martin, but will there be a new group of customers who love electric sports cars.

What are your thoughts ?

[Jon39]

ExecutiveAction said:

If the new motor had been a four litre NA straight six, I would have been whining about its cancellation more than anybody.

Off topic, but can you guess the capacity and how many cylinders this 'in-house' 600 bhp engine has, by listening to the sound.
As the film continues they use more revs.
Oh, if 600 bhp is not enough, perhaps the electric motors help becsuse the overall total is 1,700 bhp !!!!

Not as good as an Aston Martin exhaust sound, but do the flames make up for that ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUmkRGAlO9Y

[Jon39]

Venturist said:

You’re aware that’s a computer game? The real Gemera I believe hasn’t even run yet, it was just a show car, but I could be wrong.

Yes, I have just realised that. Dammit, computer graphics are far too realistic now.

Have just looked for a real car video, but although there are some with the car moving, could not find one with engine sound.
Christian von Koenigsegg has embraced electric and low emissions, but wants to retain the traditional experience for petrolheads (or at least some who can afford the cost). His own engine is an in-line 2 litre 3 cylinder TT 600bhp. He describes 2 litres as being of sufficient size (each cylinder being bigger than a V8V) to produce an appropriate exhaust sound.

[Jon39]

Piston Ted said:

I find it most frustrating that the ban on the internal combustion engine is simply that - an outright ban, no exemptions for low volume car makers no mention of engines being allowed to run on a clean efuel (which would surely save the need to manufacture billions of miles of cabling and millions of chargers and batteries and so on) the powers that be have decided and it would appear at the moment that that is it, finito.

Perhaps if they really cared about the environment they will outright ban people travelling abroad on jet planes for unnecessary holidays . . . Nah there’s a lot less petrol heads than there are holiday makers.

Yes, if the miniscule (in the whole scheme of things) car manufacturers, were given an exemption, presumably it would make little difference to overall exhaust gasses. Rather like charging an annual £600 tax, for us to drive our cars on the road. Many probably only do a few miles in the summer and therefore might pollute less in one year than a Ford Fiesta.

I guess the government see the ban as a very popular policy. Everyone answers that they are green, environmental and recycle to surveys now, then put Jemima into the 3 ton diesel SUV for a daily half mile journey to preparatory school.

Edited by Jon39 on Sunday 29th August 19:26

[Jon39]

geresey said:

".... the ban on the internal combustion engine is simply that - an outright ban, no exemptions for low volume car makers no mention of engines being allowed to run on a clean efuel...."

Is this really true? I hadn't heard this before, and was pinning my hopes on Porsche or someone developing clean fuels. Like others electric leaves me cold, but admittedly never driven one, just can't believe you'd ever get the noise experience you can with E. G. Aston. Guess I'm just an old fart though...

Alternative pollutant free fuels.

This originally sounded attractive to me.
You may have watched the Harry's Garage interview with Lord Bamford (of JCB) Their heavy machinery cannot run throughout a working day on batteries. They are now selling small electric diggers, but they will only run for 2 hours. Every HGV would apparently require 12 tons of batteries. Therefore JCB have converted one of their own diesel engines to run successfully on hydrogen. Fitted in a JCB, it initually emits some visible steam, then when the engine is hot, the water vapour emissions are invisible.

It is the production of alternative fuels which appears to be the inherent problem. Creation of alternative fuels has been discussed by some chemists, I think on a TVR forum. The technicsl process seems to be lengthy, power hungry and expensive. I naively thought H2O simply needed the O removing, to leave two lots of hydrogen. I did wonder why I failed A level chemistry. -

ICE noise experience.

I think I read somewhere, that electric cars will have to make an artificial sound, as a warning of their approach to pedestrians.
That leads on to performance car manufacturers offering a petrolhead sounds library option.
You could select the artificial Aston Martin V12 Titanium Exhaust, or Formula One V10. The sound would pretent to change gear and vary with road speed. Bookmark this, then wait to see it happen. How awful.

Edited by Jon39 on Monday 30th August 09:51

[Jon39]

pistonheadforum said:

Can you get a (performance) EV with a mechanical gearbox?

Remember your model railway days. Why would a gearbox be needed?

Porsche though do offer an extra high performance version of their Taycan model, to please the petrolheads.
It is called the Porsche Taycan Turbo.

A Hoover motor with a turbocharger - my hat !!

[Jon39]

LTP said:

Jon39 said:

A Hoover motor with a turbocharger - my hat !!

It simply compresses the electrons to force more negative charge into the wires, so developing more power than an n/c (naturally charged) motor. To get the maximum performance you obviously need to fit an intercondenser to deal with the excess magnetic flux. Oh, and your turbocharged car will attract bits of lint.

[Jon39]

steveatesh said:

I believe the basic Taycan has two gears to make up for the weight/power ratio but the rest of the range is a single gear .

I would like to learn about this.
I thought electric motors produced maximum (or near maximum) torque at almost zero revs.
If that is true, why would gearing be able to increase the performance of the power source ?

[Jon39]

Thank you. I am learning.

I can understand some gearing will/might always be needed, to match the revs of the electric motor to the revs required of the road wheel. You do hear though about electric motors directly driving each wheel, so maybe no gearing at all then.

If the max revs of the electric motor, are matched to the top speed required of the car, then I would have thought the continuous torque of the electric motor should propel the car at any chosen speed, without needing any additional gearing.

Is it the case therefore, that it is possible to use less powerful electric motors to do the same job and as you describe, gear it to say 100 max, then have a second gear for higher speeds?

Perhaps a lower power electric motor is more economic, although a higher powered one (not needing a second gear) would presumably only use more current than a less powerful one at higher revolutions.

[Jon39]

pschlute said:

Not from coal in the UK at least. It produces less than 2% of our electricity demand, and in 2 years time will be none as the three remaining stations close.

I have just had a look out of interest, at how electricity is being generated now

Coal = 1% (You are right, hardly any coal generation these days.)
Burning Gas = 44%
Solar = 0% ( Dawn, still a little gloomy)
Wind = 10% (Must be some wind out at sea.. None here now.)

At least the kind to the environment, emissions free electric cars, are only 44% polluters at present.
Well maybe that is a start, I suppose.

[Jon39]

Perhaps this a line of discussion, might help to answer the topic question.

Will electric DBXs attract customers more easily, than an electric Aston Martin sports car?

[Jon39]

dbs2000 said:

When we get solid state that 400kg will be 200kg, unaffected by the cold and considerably faster to charge.

I have heard this being mentioned by people for quite a while.
I don't know anything about solid state batteries, so can someone explain some of the technicalities of this breakthrough?
Half the weight, double the range, much quicker to charge, it all sounds excellent. Will they draw less from the grid too, if charging is faster. That would help with the generation capacity problem.

I recently came across an interesting comment.
There were apparently more electric cars in use in the early 1900s, than internal combustion cars. The final killer for electric cars then was said to be Henry Fords mass production method, which suddenly reduced the cost of IC personal transport.
Was that true ?

[Jon39]

TR-Spider said:

I'm just curious what new taxes will be raised to replace the huge tax loss coming from reduced fuel consumption once all cars and heatings are electric...

The 'road tax' on cars now seems to be in a muddle and quite unjust.
Most of us probably pay £600 p.a. for our Aston Martins (many probably very low use).
Classic cars, also mostly very low use, No road tax, No MoT and insurance costs only about £100 annually.
I think it is only £140 pa road tax for more recent Aston Martins.
Older cars £250, which becomes almost nothing for many younger cars.

Perhaps the government might move to charging per mile driven, in place of road tax (more likely in addition to).
Possibly advantageous for our low useage cars.

[Jon39]

Peter McKean said:

Can I suggest, for balance, taking a moment to consider some of the things we might gain from an all-electric vehicle?
A reduction in noise, vibration and harshness.

Just thinking about interior noise for a moment.

My DD has a V6 engine, which except for when using hard acceleration, is almost silent. By far the predominant interior noise is tyre roar on coarse surface roads. The OEM tyres were rated at 74db and the cabin noise was awful. The car manufacturer is supposed to be known as a premium make. By changing to 68db tyres the cabin noise was considerably improved (although tyre life has halved).

Electric cars are going to be in this same situation. Tyre and car manufacturers can do their best to reduce cabin noise, but to no avail unless road surfaces are improved.

No more V8 soundtrack, but get ready for tyre roar, or perhaps choose an EV with narrow tyres.

Edited by Jon39 on Friday 10th September 20:04

[Jon39]

An interesting write-up Dewi.
At first sight of your photo, I thought you were showing us an unannounced SUV version of the Taycan. It looks shorter and taller, but perhaps that is my screen.

Being Pistonheaders we are supposed to always discuss engines, although that will be a struggle for me, because my electric knowledge is limited to Hornby. Anyway I will have a try.

I particularly like the Turbo model of the Taycan, because it is so clever how Porsche can force the electrons along a wire under pressure. Quite a breakthrough.
Does the Cayman have a Siemens engine? I was told that many enthusuasts prefer the ABB, because the winey sound has a delightful rasp on the over-run.


Glad that you enjoyed your trip. How about your next writeup being about the Rimac.

[Jon39]

Ken Figenus said:

..... with 100% Corp Tax deduction in 1st year and 1% BiK. .....

Buyer to salesman.
"Really, that is wonderful. As long as it seats four, I'll take it. I don't care about the car, but writing off so much in 1 year, well that is marvellous. It does seem very generous of the government, are you sure that is correct? Can I have it now?"

Sounds similar to the tax break for hybrid cars. Employees with (was it) tax free BiK, never charged their hybrids (why use my electricity for the benefit of my employer), so just drove them as ordinary petrol engine cars.
Think the government might have realised that eventually, so the hybrid BiK rules might have changed.

[Jon39]

ExecutiveAction said:

For all the enthusiastic chat which is being promoted about forced electrons ...

I wondered whether you might be referring to my earlier reference to forced electrons.
It was me trying to be humorous about the ridiculous name given to the Taycan Turbo electric car.
How can an electric motor be used in conjunction with a turbocharger? Think they might just be hoodwinking their customers, with the name turbo.

Can you comment on peoples' expectations, about a significant battery price drop in the next few years?

My understanding is that they might be confused with the price drops and processor power increases, which we experienced with computer equipment. That also coincided with a one off saving, when production moved to low-cost manufacturing China.
Battery prices must mainly be based upon the metals and other materials contained inside batteries. Many of those commodities are freely traded on world markets. An increase in, for example, the world price of copper, would not reduce the price of batteries.

[Jon39]

volvodrummer said:

Exactly. If EVs and general electrification of transport is gonna work, there will definitely be many more nuclear power plants. It will be mildly amusing to watch the greens realize that the scale of juice needed ain't coming from the sun and wind alone. The good news is that nuclear tech has come a long way from the horrors and narratives of the past. At least thats my limited understanding.

But I thought, after a nuclear power station is proposed, it takes about 30 years for any electricity to come out of it.
Several times in recent years, some partner companies have pulled out of UK nuclear power station contracts. The estimated costs rose too far for them. None of this seems to help, with the greatly increased future electricity generation requirements.

Do you prefer to be without electricity on odd or even days of the month?
Odd might be best, because you would get an extra day with the lights on, once every four years. -

[Jon39]

I passed 8 filling stations yesterday evening, during a journey through Surrey and Kent.
None of them had any fuel for sale.

It must be wonderful marketing for electric cars.
EV sales are probably booming now.

[Jon39]

An announcement by Tobias Moers.

LONDON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - At least 50% of British luxury carmaker Aston Martin's (AML.L) sales should be electric models by 2030, the company's top executive said on Tuesday.

"I would say a minimum of 50% of our sales will be electric, possibly more," Aston Martin Chief Executive Tobias Moers said, during the Reuters Events Automotive Summit.


Hope after 2030, I will still be able to have occasional drives in my V8V, with such glorious exhaust sounds.