10:52 am, March 8, 2021
Aston Martin has said it plans to start building electric cars in the UK from 2025.
In an interview with the Financial Times, bosses said the firm will be building electric SUV models in its new St Athan factory in South Wales (pictured), and an electric sports car at its Gaydon headquarters in Warwickshire.
The pure-electric models will be launched from 2025 onwards – in the meantime Aston Martin said it plans to release hybrids versions of its cars from this year.
Executive chairman Lawrence Stroll, the Canadian billionaire who led a bailout of the company last year, said: ‘The SUV will be built in Wales and the sports cars will be built here (in Gaydon).’
Stroll said the brand is ‘way ahead’ of rivals when it comes to electrification plans ‘all because of our partnership with Mercedes’.
A number of manufacturers have announced commitments to shift from electric and diesel engines in recent weeks.
Last month Jaguar said it will become an all-electric brand from 2025, while Ford announced, two days after Jaguar, it will sell only electric cars in the UK and Europe by 2030.
Ferrari has pledged to release hybrid cars by 2030, while Bentley plans to go fully electric by the same date.
No timelines have been set for pure-electric cars by McLaren or Lamborghini.
The announcement from Aston Martin comes as news emerged it had been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
As reported by Car Dealer, a total of 4,150 cars were sold in 2020 – a third fewer than a year earlier, although bosses had already said they wanted to sell a smaller number of vehicles in the hope of regaining greater exclusivity for the brand.
Losses before tax in 2020 rose to £466m compared with a £120m loss a year earlier.
