Aston Martin joins forces with Lucid Motors for an EV future

The old guard, Aston Martin, is teaming up with newcomer Lucid Motors, to stay ahead in the race to electric vehicle supremacy.

The Aston Martin DB12

One of the world’s oldest car companies, Aston Martin, is teaming up with one of the newest in a bid to stay relevant in an electric future.

Aston Martin, the British sports car maker that recently celebrated its 110th anniversary, has announced a new technical partnership with Lucid Group, an American electric-vehicle specialist that only began operations in 2007.

Several of Lucid Group’s key staff are ex-Tesla employees and the company’s automotive division, Lucid Motors, already has the Lucid Air electric sports sedan for sale in the US.

Aston Martin wants to short cut its electric learning curve by teaming up with Lucid to source electric powertrain components, helping to meet the increasing demand for EVs - both from customers and legislators around the world, which are beginning to put an end date on petrol-powered cars.

This kind of arrangement is nothing new for Aston Martin, the British brand has relied on Mercedes-AMG in recent years for support with internal-combustion engines and other key components that would otherwise be costly and take too long for the smaller car maker to do itself.

Crucially, this new arrangement doesn’t mean Aston Martin will no longer work with Mercedes. Instead, Aston is aiming to integrate EV technologies from both Lucid and the German automotive giant to create a new electric platform that will underpin a huge variety of models.

Roberto Fedeli, chief technology officer for Aston Martin, explained what the company has planned.

The DB12 features twin turbo V8, and has a top speed of 325km/h and 800Nm of torque

“The proposed agreement with Lucid forms a significant pillar of our electrification strategy, providing Aston Martin with access to the industry’s leading powertrain and battery-systems technology,” Fedeli said. “Combined with our internal development, this will allow us to create a single bespoke BEV platform, suitable for all future Aston Martin products, all the way from hypercars to sports cars and SUVs.”

It’s all part of an aggressive push from Aston Martin’s relatively new ownership group, headed by Canadian businessman and Netflix Drive to Survive star, Lawrence Stroll.

Stroll has leveraged his connections with Aston Martin and Formula One to bring the brand into the racing series, while simultaneously overhauling its range of road-going production cars.

Having focused on front-engined ‘grand tourers’ for most of its existence, the company now wants to use F1 to move into the lucrative mid-engine sports car market, with the upcoming Valhalla - which will use a Mercedes-AMG engine.

But as Fedeli revealed, electric sports cars and even a hypercar successor to its hypercar, the Valkyrie, are also on the agenda, thanks to this new deal with Lucid.

The DB12 has an automatic ZF 8-speed transmission with electronic rear differential

Stroll, whose official title is executive chairman of Aston Martin, said the deal secures the brand’s future as EV sales continue to rise in key markets, including China.

“The supply agreement with Lucid is a game changer for the future EV-led growth of Aston Martin,” Stroll said. “Based on our strategy and requirements, we selected Lucid, gaining access to the industry’s highest performance and most innovative technologies for our future BEV products.

“We will not only leverage the significant investments Lucid has made to develop its world-class technologies, but will also further enhance and differentiate the drive experience through the work Roberto Fedeli and his teams are already developing, aligned with our ultra-luxury, high-performance strategy.

“Along with Mercedes-Benz, we now have two world-class suppliers to support the internal development and investments we are making to deliver our electrification strategy.”

The company says the first product from this new three-way partnership should hit showrooms by 2025, with plans to have its “core range” electrified by the end of the decade.