Aston Martin going electric: Bond driving BEVs by 2025

Super spy James Bond should soon have the choice of electrified power in his favoured car brand, Aston Martin.

Aston Martin is going electric, with the famed British supercar maker promising two new battery electric vehicles as early as 2025 – giving 007 the choice of electric motors.

In keeping with modern trends – and the importance of large, high-riding vehicles to supercar makers these days – one of the promised cars will be an electric SUV, presumably a version of the brand’s DBX. The other, says Aston, will be Vantage-based, which means a proper electric supercar is coming soon.

The secret to the brand’s electric success is set to come down to Mercedes-Benz, with the German giant hard at work on its own EV technology – which Aston Martin will be able to pilfer thanks to the fact that Benz now owns around 20 percent of the British brand. The man in charge at Aston Martin – Tobias Moers – is the former head of Mercedes-Benz’s go-fast AMG division.

And it’s this R&D shortcut that is enabling Aston Martin to rush its EVs to market, giving the brand a significant competitive edge over its rivals.

“We are way ahead of our rivals, and all because of our partnership with Mercedes,” Aston Martin’s chairman, Lawrence Stroll, told the Financial Times.

It marks a return to the EV table for Aston Martin. The brand had been hard at work developing the Rapide E since 2017, but that project was reportedly scrapped last year as the manufacturer faced financial headwinds.

But a flood of investment – Mercedes upped its stake late last year, about 10 months after Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll (now the company’s chairman) purchased a 16.7 per cent stake for £182 million ($328m). Flush with cash, and with Mercedes-Benz tech at its disposal, Aston’s electric journey is back on.

The brand is already dipping its supercar toes into electrified waters, with a plug-in hybrid version of its DBX, while the Valkyrie and Valhalla hypercars adopt F1 hybrid tech.