Speaking at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance last weekend, CEO of Aston Martin Andy Palmer, confirmed to Automotive News that the British automaker plans on bringing to market a 800 hp all-electric version of the Rapide in 2 years.
The executive also expects an all-electric version of the DBX to follow shortly after the Rapide.
Based on Palmer’s comments, it doesn’t seem like the program is far along, but the CEO shared his expectations nonetheless:
- 200 miles range
- All-wheel drive
- ~800 hp
- $200,000 to $250,000 price range
When talking about performance, Palmer made a comparison to Tesla’s Ludicrous mode and he didn’t have nice words for Tesla’s approach to performance:
“We don’t do Ludicrous because Ludicrous speed is stupid. I think that the fact that you could drive a few laps of a decent race course or race it around the Nordschleife [famed track in Germany] is much more interesting than doing 500 meters in Ludicrous mode.”
Palmer is making reference to Tesla prioritizing acceleration over track performance. A Model S with Ludicrous mode can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.8 seconds, but it doesn’t last long on a track due to battery limitations at high usage.
Aston’s CEO didn’t offer any details about how his company plans on achieving track performance with an all-electric Rapide, but he said the company is likely to source batteries from LG or Samsung, instead of Panasonic like Tesla Motors.
Aston Martin is currently trying to improve its lineup of vehicles in order to increase production to 7,000 cars per year, at which point the company expects to become profitable. Last year, they produced 3,400 vehicles.
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Wait, in the last paragraph you tell me, Aston Martin doesn’t make profit? Wow – I expected it to be good company with so many years in business and I didn’t know that they build even less vehicles than the newer company Tesla.
Yeah a lot of these high-end automakers are aiming for exclusivity which leads to unimpressive production numbers: Ferrari sold ~7,000 cars last year – Lamborghini ~2,500 – Rolls-Royce ~4,000 etc.
Some of them are currently trying to breakout of exclusivity though. A good example is Maserati. in 2012 they sold ~6,000 cars, in 2013 ~15,000 and ~36,000 last year.