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 da