Aston Martin is the latest car maker to announce it's going to move to an all-hybrid lineup. CEO Andy Palmer has told the Financial Times that "We will be 100 per cent hybrid by the middle of the 2020s." Palmer also told the FT that he expects about 25 percent of Aston Martin sales will be EVs by 2030. A similarly bold announcement was made by Volvo earlier this summer; however, in this case Aston Martin will continue to sell non-hybrid versions of its cars as an option.
The first all-electric Aston Martin will be the RapidE, a sleek four-seater due in 2019. But that will be a limited-run model, with only 115 planned. There's also the hybrid Valkyrie hypercar in the works, an F1 car for the road that's being designed by Aston Martin in conjunction with Red Bull Racing's Adrian Newey. But there will be more mainstream (if such a word can apply) hybrid and battery EV Aston Martins coming, too. Like Volvo, some of these will just be 48V mild hybrids.
Guess it's embarassing when your gas-powered supercar gets left in the dust by an EV.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:26PM (1 child)
EV and hybrid, to me, seems like yet another attempt by manufacturers to build in obsolescence into their products. Companies really love that these days. The fact that I have a car that is over 20 years old would be seen as a failure to them.
Then why would cars made in the '60s and '70s only last five years, while today's will easily make it a quarter century?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:42PM
Maybe the manufacturers feel they made a mistake? :)