Aston Martin to Gain Tech from Closer Mercedes-Benz Ties

The news that Mercedes is preparing to acquire a significant stake in Aston Martin comes as no surprise as the British company’s fortunes have been declining over the past few years. Aston already uses both AMG’s 4.0-liter V-8 engine and Daimler’s electric configuration; Since April, former AMG boss Tobias Moors has also served as Aston CEO.

Mercedes already owns a small stake in Aston, which currently stands at 2.3 percent, but instead of Aston Martin gaining access to the large company’s powertrain specialty, it is set to increase dramatically. According to plans announced this afternoon, Mercedes will gradually increase its ownership to 20 percent, second only to Aston’s executive chairman Lawrence Strol.

The plan is to use Mercedes technology to rapidly electrify the range of models and significantly increase sales. Aston says it wants to sell 10,000 cars a year globally by 2024. Last year, less than 6,000 cars were sold, and by 2020, there was a significant COVID-19 sabotage.

Aston CEO Moors confirmed Cars and drivers The technology partnership is primarily aimed at bringing power to the brand with the first hybrid Aston as early as 2023. But he said the new deal would give Aston more freedom to develop combustion engines. At present, Aston has not been able to make significant changes beyond software tuning, but in the future, Moors has indicated that he hopes to use an extensive “toolbox” to allow Aston to create bespoke versions of power plants. Aston insiders have already told us about the flat-plane-crank V-8 manufactured by AMG for the GT Black Series.

We are told that the V-12 engine, which powers the top sports cars in Aston’s range, has no plans to end production. That engine is based on a major development of the engine that Ford originally developed for the DB7 at the end of the last century. Andy Palmer, former CEO of Aston, had previously said C / D The company was planning to bring the V-12 product back to the UK from Germany; We do not know where this announcement will depart from that plan.

Moors acknowledged that the new deal could lead to Aston’s mid-engine supercar using a different engine than the hybrid Turbo V – 6 the company is already developing. Speaking at a press conference after the official announcement, he said, “Super car buyers are hoping to have more or less a relationship with F1 but we are waiting. “Project One with a Formula 1 engine was developed during AMG’s Moors’ tenure, and it offers impressive potential for future strategies.

Laurence Strol confirmed that plans to relaunch Lagonda as the only EV brand to be officially discontinued last year are now dead, and that hybrids and finally full EV models can be expected to launch as Aston. He told reporters that Aston wanted to have a portfolio of “front engines, mid-engines and SUV products” and that previous reports had confirmed that Aston would build a wider range of SUVs, which would eventually be “close to the largest piece”. . Looking at the growing interest in the upper end of the market, it seems like a sensible strategy.

This content is created and maintained by a third party and is imported into this page to provide users with their email addresses. You can find more information on similar content at piano.io.