Aston Martin will replace Vantage, DB11 with all-electric cars

SILVERSTONE, England -- Aston Martin's first full-electric car will be a replacement for a model in its front-engine sports-car lineup and will go on sale in 2025, CEO Tobias Moers said.

The automaker is in the process of moving away from its traditional reliance on V-8 and V-12 combustion engines and is moving to gasoline-electric hybrid drivetrains, starting with the Valkyrie full-hybrid hypercar, which is due in September.

The company unveiled the mid-engine Valhalla on Thursday ahead of deliveries in 2023. A plug-in-hybrid version of the DBX SUV will quickly follow, while a planned entry supercar, previewed by the Vanquish Vision concept, will also be a plug-in hybrid.

The current lineup of front-engine sports cars including the Vantage and DB11 will then become full-electric models with the next generation, Moers said.

The current lineup of the entry Vantage, DB11 and high-performance DBS range will be retained, with a halo model sitting above them. "The succession of our traditional sports segment has to be full electric, no doubt," he told Automotive News Europe at an event here.

How the traditional cars will be separated from the brand's new midengine lineup in an electric future is unclear. Greater freedom to position the batteries and electric motors will blur the differentiation that exists now.

Moers said the EVs will have a range of 600 km (372 miles), at least.

The move to full-electric cars will mean the current range of sports cars will survive longer than originally planned, he said.

The DB11 coupe was launched in 2016 and marked the first car in the transformation undertaken by Aston Martin's previous CEO Andy Palmer.

Palmer's plan to electrify Aston Martin's lineup with the Rapide E and the launch of the full-electric Lagonda marque in 2022 was dropped by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll when he gave the automaker a financial lifeline last year,  becoming a major shareholder, as well as executive chairman.

Moers told investors on an earnings call in May that the company’s first full-electric sports car will be followed in 2025 or 2026 by an electric SUV, which, he said, would be crucial because of the popularity of SUVs.

Aston Martin has previously said that 50 percent of its lineup will be all-electric by 2030.

Aston Martin has been able to execute its electrification plans after Daimler agreed last year to share more technology in exchange for a stake of up to 20 percent. Daimler owns 2.3 percent of Aston Martin.

The plug-in hybrid V-8 drivetrain in the Valhalla is supplied by Mercedes' AMG performance arm.

Moving to electric power would not dilute the brand, Moers said. "How you experience the brand, the customer journey. These are the things that are going to make the difference," he said.

"It will be about the experience, the driving dynamics, how we are going to serve our customers."

Moers promised that while the brand might use Mercedes technology, it would be tailored to Aston Martin's specific requirements. He gave the example of the HMI or human interface including the infotainment system as something that could be reprogrammed to give a bespoke environment.

Aston Martin has forecast that sales will rise to 10,000 a year "in the medium term," up from the 6,000 the brand has predicted it will sell this year.

Part of that rise will come from increase sales of the DBX SUV, of which Aston Martin has promised more spin-offs. The DBX accounted for 50 percent of the brand's wholesales to dealers in the first quarter of 2021, Aston Martin said in May.