Photo: Aston Martin
Tesla has been on a roll lately. Their Model S is now being sold in more variations than ever and thanks to their electric powertrains the updates the company is rolling out allow them to use things such as “insane” or “ludicrous” modes.
Those two allow the electric vehicles to achieve performances that nobody ever thought possible without fossil fuel. And yet, not everyone is impressed, nonetheless.
At this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, Andy Palmer, the CEO of Aston Martin had some rather caustic things to say about the EV sedan, in his typical style. According to him, the cars the company he runs create are always in ‘insane’ or ‘ludicrous’ mode, and they don’t need a particular button to enter this state of mind.
“We don’t do Ludicrous because Ludicrous speed is stupid. I think that the fact that you could drive a few laps of a decent race course or race it around the Nordschleife [famed track in Germany] is much more interesting than doing 500 meters in Ludicrous mode,” Palmer said for Automotive News.
To be completely frank, we agree with his point of view but then again, you can’t deny the improvements and change of pace Tesla brought to the auto industry, proving a couple of valuable points.
As Palmer himself declared, they did valuable work in the field of finding out what the ceiling for an electric car would be in terms of pricing. A fully decked P90D can be had for up to $142,000, and the California-based company has no trouble in selling them. That led the CEO of Aston Martin to believe that if they were to launch a sedan with an electric drivetrain they could ask somewhere between $200,000 and $250,000 for it.
Of course, this would be an Aston and the price would be befitting such a creation, especially since Palmer claimed that it would be a sort of Rapide with a total output of 800 electrical horses. Don’t frown just yet, hear the man out!
It seems like the CO2 emission legislation won’t leave any car maker untouched and Aston Martin, as well as any other manufacturer out there, will have to abide by the new rules. Therefore, if they want to keep making V8 and V12 powered beasts, they will also have to offer something at the other end of the spectrum, such as EVs or hybrids, for example.
Of course, we’re still pretty far off from the launch of this model, the CEO placing it somewhere around 2018, but even so, it will be interesting to see how things evolve.
At this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, Andy Palmer, the CEO of Aston Martin had some rather caustic things to say about the EV sedan, in his typical style. According to him, the cars the company he runs create are always in ‘insane’ or ‘ludicrous’ mode, and they don’t need a particular button to enter this state of mind.
“We don’t do Ludicrous because Ludicrous speed is stupid. I think that the fact that you could drive a few laps of a decent race course or race it around the Nordschleife [famed track in Germany] is much more interesting than doing 500 meters in Ludicrous mode,” Palmer said for Automotive News.
To be completely frank, we agree with his point of view but then again, you can’t deny the improvements and change of pace Tesla brought to the auto industry, proving a couple of valuable points.
As Palmer himself declared, they did valuable work in the field of finding out what the ceiling for an electric car would be in terms of pricing. A fully decked P90D can be had for up to $142,000, and the California-based company has no trouble in selling them. That led the CEO of Aston Martin to believe that if they were to launch a sedan with an electric drivetrain they could ask somewhere between $200,000 and $250,000 for it.
Of course, this would be an Aston and the price would be befitting such a creation, especially since Palmer claimed that it would be a sort of Rapide with a total output of 800 electrical horses. Don’t frown just yet, hear the man out!
It seems like the CO2 emission legislation won’t leave any car maker untouched and Aston Martin, as well as any other manufacturer out there, will have to abide by the new rules. Therefore, if they want to keep making V8 and V12 powered beasts, they will also have to offer something at the other end of the spectrum, such as EVs or hybrids, for example.
Of course, we’re still pretty far off from the launch of this model, the CEO placing it somewhere around 2018, but even so, it will be interesting to see how things evolve.
Google News