Aston Martin has tapped Lucid to produce key drivetrain and battery elements for its upcoming “ultra-luxury high-performance electrical automobiles.” Lucid confirmed to The Drive that this consists of Aston’s first-ever EV, which is slated to launch in 2025.
Lucid says that the settlement will provide Aston with its “ultra-high efficiency” dual-motor drivetrain and battery know-how as a part of the $450 million deal.
However Lucid is not simply throwing motors at Aston and calling it a day. The partnership consists of entry to Lucid’s tech, the precise provide of {hardware}, and assist for integration throughout Aston’s road-going fleet. The brand new EV producer will even present Aston with “vital software program,” battery administration, and the Wunderbox (which manages all energy flowing into the automobile) as a part of the deal. So whereas the automobile might feel and look like an Aston on the surface, it would drive and cost a bit like a Lucid Air. And based mostly on our experiences, that might be a great factor.
Aston’s transfer to make use of present market tech is sensible. Regardless of the automaker specializing in efficiency luxurious automobiles, the corporate remains to be comparatively small with orders totaling simply 6,400 items in 2022.
A producer growing its personal EV underpinnings would imply taking up plenty of overhead, which Aston seemingly would not need to do. The automaker is known for its on-again, off-again monetary troubles, which means that operating a lean ship is essential to its continued success.
Lucid can be in a little bit of a monetary mess itself. The automaker’s first-quarter earnings report for 2023 confirmed points with manufacturing, deliveries, and extra prices. It additionally revealed a major burning of money, which partly contributed to a 70% inventory dip over the previous yr. In actual fact, Lucid even confirmed that it was in talks with “a number of events” on the thought of leasing or promoting its powertrain tech following the discharge of its earnings report earlier this yr. Aston seems to be a minimum of a kind of events.
That every one being mentioned, a partnership with an automaker that already has the tech developed and vetted like Lucid simply is sensible. Aston has even trialed this methodology earlier than when it tapped Rimac to construct elements of the hybrid system for the Valkyrie. Mercedes-Benz and Geely even have related monetary stakes in Aston as a part of their very own ongoing tech-sharing offers. It is seemingly that the Lucid partnership for road-going automobiles will likely be on a considerably bigger scale than with Rimac, although we cannot know precisely how a lot bigger till the Brits launch extra of their EV technique nearer to 2025.
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