Electric Aston Martin Headed For Production By 2018

Electrified Rapide S will be made with Chinese help.
www.thedrive.com

They’ll get green with a little help from their friends. Aston Martin’s plans to build an electric car will be facilitated via a freshly announced partnership with Chinese technology group LeEco, the two companies announced February 17.

“It brings Aston Martin’s electric car project forward,” Aston Martin CEO and noted electric car-related profanity advocate Andy Palmer said of the joint venture during a Frankfurt press conference. Together, the two companies plan to bring an electric-powered version of the Rapide S sedan to production by 2018 or so; future electric vehicles from both companies are likely to follow.

The news hardly comes as (brace for incoming pun) a shock. While Aston Martin has been discussing electric vehicles for a while, their first real-world dalliance with building an electric version of the Rapide came several months back, when it whipped up a prototype with the help of Britain’s Williams Advanced Engineering. At the time, we heard that a production version could generate as much as 1,000 horsepower, a thought that gave us the sort of happy shivers thinking about electric cars rarely does.

Interestingly enough, the Aston/LeEco partnership is expected also to partner with mysterious electric car company Faraday Future, which has some very deep-pocketed Chinese backers. Does this mean the electric Rapide S will share technology with the top-secret hatchback/van Alex Roy caught a glimpse of? Will it be capable of driving itself? And most importantly, will it seriously have 1,000 horses? Because if it looks like a Rapide and has quadruple-digit horsepower, we don’t care if it’s powered by orphans’ tears—we’ll still want to try it out.

Will is the former managing editor of RIDES Magazine and the former online editor for 0-60 Magazine. He has worked for Time Out New York and Rolling Stone, and was the creator of College Cars Online, the first automotive blog specifically targeted at college students and young professionals.