Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Cars
  3. News

Aston Martin’s RapidE electric car will be expensive and rare

Stephen Edelstein
By

Aston Martin Rapide S
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Aston Martin is moving ahead with plans for its first electric car, but the British automaker is now going it alone. With partner LeEco out, Aston is scaling back production plans and upping the exclusivity of its planned electric sedan, known as the RapidE.

The RapidE, which is based on Aston’s gasoline-powered Rapide sedan (pictured above), was supposed to be developed with help from LeEco, which is also the main backer of U.S. electric-car startup Faraday Future. LeEco’s recent financial troubles caused it to pull out of the project, but Aston still plans to continue, reports Reuters.

Recommended Videos

Aston Martin will try to compensate for LeEco’s absence by cutting the RapidE’s production run, pushing back the launch date, and jacking up the price, CEO Andy Palmer told Reuters. Aston will only build 155 cars, or about a third of what was originally planned. When the LeEco partnership was announced last year, Aston said the RapidE would launch in 2018. That has now been pushed back to 2019.

Related

The smaller production run will make the RapidE rarer, Palmer, said, which will give Aston the opportunity to charge more for it. In the U.K., the car will start at around $255,000, according to Reuters. That’s over $100,000 more than a conventional Rapide with a gasoline V12 engine, not to mention virtually every electric car currently on the market. Aston is expected to begin taking orders next month, which will require a 10-percent down payment.

What will buyers get for that substantial investment? When the first RapidE prototype was unveiled in 2015, Aston CEO Palmer said it produced between 800 and 1,000 horsepower, and had a range of 200 miles. While LeEco may be out, Aston can still count on Williams Advanced Engineering, the engineering arm of the Williams Formula One team, for battery tech.

Following the RapidE, Aston will launch a higher-volume electric model. It plans to use the RapidE as a trial run for an electric version of its upcoming DBX SUV. Gasoline-powered versions of the SUV, which is based on a 2015 concept car, will start rolling out of a new factory in Wales in 2019, with the electric version following sometime after that.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Stephen Edelstein
Stephen Edelstein
Contributing Editor
Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…
Aston Martin will revive James Bond’s DB5 at a price only Goldfinger can afford

James Bond's Aston Martin DB5 is one of the all-time great movie cars, and it's about to make a comeback. Aston is working with Eon Productions, the company that produces the Bond films, to build 25 new DB5s identical to the car that appeared in 1964's Goldfinger. As with the recent DB4 GT project, Aston prefers the term "continuation cars," not replicas.

Each new DB5 will be an exact copy of the original movie cars (one of which just reportedly resurfaced after years in hiding), right down to gadgets like the trademark revolving license plate. Unlike a genuine 1960s DB5, however, the new cars won't be road legal. Aston can't certify newly built cars designed for '60s safety standards.

Read more
Aston Martin Vantage AMR marks the return of the manual transmission
Aston Martin Vantage AMR

Previous

Next

Read more
Mercedes-Benz EQG: range, price, release date, and more
Concept image of the larger electric G-Wagon

The G-Class is going electric. We already knew that Mercedes-Benz was working on an electric, small-size G-Wagon, but it looks like the company is also working on a larger G-Class SUV, in the form of the EQG. In fact, Mercedes has gone as far as to show off a concept version of the off-roader.

While there's much we don't know about what will become the production model of the EQG, Mercedes has also shared a lot about it. Curious about whether the Mercedes-Benz EQG could be the EV for you? Here's everything we know so far.
Design
Fear not -- the EQG will retain many of the design aspects of the G-Class that you already know and love but with a modern face-lift. The EQG will keep the boxy design that gives the G-Class a classic look but with some additional modern styling, at least if the concept version is anything to go by.

Read more