Aston Martin’s Chairman has admitted that drivers don’t want electric cars as the company delays the launch of its first electric car until at least 2026. The Telegraph has the story.
Aston Martin has delayed the launch of its first electric car as the luxury marque’s Chairman admitted that drivers still want “the sports car smell, feel and noise” of a petrol engine.
The luxury car maker had originally aimed to launch an electric four-wheel drive grand tourer as soon as next year but will now hold off until 2026.
Lawrence Stroll, Aston’s Executive Chairman and biggest shareholder, blamed weak demand for higher-priced battery electric vehicles (BEVs) for the delay.
The Canadian billionaire said: “All our [BEV] technologies are in place… Everything is in place.
“The only thing that isn’t in place is the consumer demand at this early stage.”
Mr. Stroll added that drivers outside of cities still wanted the experience of driving a petrol-powered sports car.
He said: “What we are feeling is there are people that still want some electrification to drive around the city for five, or 10, or 15 miles but still have the sports car smell and feel and noise when you get onto the auto routes.”
Aston Martin will use hybrid cars, which use both battery and internal combustion motors, as a “bridge” to fully-electric models for now, Mr. Stroll said.
The company has already launched its first plug-in hybrid supercar, the Valhalla (pictured), and has announced plans to launch plug-in versions of the Vantage, DB12, DBS and DBX models as well.
Mr. Stroll is the latest car executive to express caution about the speed of the switch to EVs amid a slowdown in sales.
Government rules mandate that 22% of all new car sales this year must be fully electric, rising to 80% by 2030. Manufacturers risk fines if they fail to hit the targets.
However, consumers have baulked at high prices and a lack of charging infrastructure.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire behind Ineos who has developed his own four-wheel drive vehicles, last week warned BEVs are being “forced down the consumer’s throat”.
Mercedes has also insisted it will keep making internal combustion engine cars “well into [the] next decade” amid slow consumer uptake.
Worth reading in full.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that Apple has pulled the plug on its self-driving electric car project after 10 years’ development, while CNN has a feature on why the EV market became a “major disappointment”.
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I don’t go to the gulag pubs where you have recite your ID number before you can get a drink
We have our own freedom pub
Sadly not found such a pub yet where I live so they are all closed to me
I haven’t come a pub yet that is serious about the QR code stuff. Most are just going through the motions and are not strict about it. People either pretend to use it or just don’t bother.
My favourite pub is open but it has a flat, sterile atmosphere as if drinking in a shop storeroom. Mask wearing is depressingly ahered to by the regulars (not me) even if taking just three steps to and from the main door. That the landlady goes about without a mask herself does not seem register with my fellow drinkers. I find it perplexing.
Why do we continually refer to ‘as a result of the pandemic’ when it is a result of government policy – plain and simple – right?
Totally agree. I am forever correcting people on that one.
Yes. Entirely correct. The pandemic itself has caused few problems in the greater scheme of things. The hysterical overreaction, both by government and a pliant public, has caused the damage.
The government wants to engineer a situation where vaccinated people can mix as they please and therefore any difficulties economically can be blamed on those who won’t submit.
We were in LONDON for the anti Lockdown demo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday 10am meet fellow lockdown sceptics
Join our Telegram Group: t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
To be honest I don’t have that much sympathy. A lot of them have happily gone along with these absurd measures – what do they expect.
Part of the grand plan to crush the spirit of Brits by destroying whee we meet, where we worship, families, relationships, small businesses.
Hancocks has gone. Johnson and Gove next.
Enough is enough.
I will never comfortable in a pub – not until I can simply walk in, go to the bar, and get myself a drink. (And I promise not, unlike the Health Secretary, to get caught having a emotional rendezvous with a member of the bar staff in the cellar.)
I will never [feel] comfortable in a pub…
The working class must be crushed by the WOKEing class
It’s like watching Whales trapped on a sand bar, refusing to help themselves and go back into the sea! I just don’t care about these businesses any more, they have had fifteen months to register all the facts, if they can’t help themselves so be it. I only go to pubs where I can sit in an outside space, be served, end of. I don’t go anywhere where masks are put on for standing up etc…totally demented. Just frickin open, take the chance, advertise, block the courts up, be dammed if you lose your licence, get together and protest, just DO something!