Aston Martin pushes first EV back to 2033 or later

Aston Martin will not build a battery electric car until legislation requires it, chief executive Adrian Hallmark has told UK magazine Autocar, putting its first EV somewhere between 2033 and 2035.

“We only need BEVs to be compliant for legislative reasons just before 2035,” Hallmark says. “I’m not going to give an absolute date, because it’s imprecise. It could be 2035, it might be 2033, but it’s in that three-year window. It’s not 2031.”

He says customer demand and legislation are “changing way faster than any car company can cope with”, and describes Aston Martin as “not BEV deniers but BEV delayers”.

Aston Martin said in 2023 that its first battery electric model would launch in 2025, on a modular platform using powertrain and battery technology from Lucid. That date has slipped more than once since.

Until then the company plans to keep its V8 and V12 engines in production. “We have a roadmap to keep the bigger and smaller engines alive and compliant all the way through to the end of that period,” Hallmark says.

He says hybrid systems will likely be needed to keep those engines compliant, but “probably not plug-in, because we don’t need it; we don’t need the 200kg penalties”.

When Aston Martin does build an EV, it will draw on outside partners. Its supply agreement with Lucid, which also took a 3.7% stake in Aston Martin, remains in place, and Hallmark says the delay means the technology Aston gets will differ from what it originally signed up for.

“We have the deal with Lucid, and the interesting thing is, because we delayed, by the time we activate that deal, the technology that we will get is totally different to what we signed up the original contract for,” he says. “We’re also working with Mercedes-Benz on powertrains and electronic systems will be deepened.”

Hallmark joined Aston Martin from Bentley, where development of that brand’s first battery electric model was under way during his time as chief executive.