Aston Martin CEO Adrian Hallmark shares his vision for the future of the British automaker, emphasizing a continued focus on sports cars and a cautious approach to electrification. Hallmark aims to make Aston Martin profitable while leveraging upgrades to existing models, exploring new variants, and partnering with Lucid and Mercedes-Benz for powertrain components.
It will stay partnered with Lucid and Mercedes-Benz for powertrain piecesDBX will remain the only Aston SUV ; Lagonda project's a no-go Five months after taking the top job at Aston Martin , CEO Adrian Hallmark sat down with Motor Authority and other media outlets for an update on where he plans to take the British automaker, and how he hopes to buck over 100 years of tradition by making it profitable.
With Aston having just updated most of its lineup, the plan is to build on what’s already here by offering more model variants, special editions like the Valiant, and a wider range of options—standard procedure at most of Aston’s rivals. And Aston will remain primarily a sports-car maker, one with a rising F1 team that will soon have “There’s no question that, at some point in the future, electrification will be a solution,” Hallmark said, but he sees less enthusiasm for it now. “Two years ago, it was like a one-track-minded approach towards a given set of deadlines, and it was all within a five-year window,” Hallmark said, but noted that things have changed. “Over the past two years, that hasThe first Aston Martin electric car will arrive “within the next five years,” Hallmark said, but it will be the only one launched during that period. Additional electric models will arrive between 2030 and 2035 “and maybe a touch later,” Hallmark said. The CEO expects that pure internal-combustion and plug-in hybrid powertrains will still make up 85% of Aston’s sales in 2030, with a greater share of EVs after that (Hallmark declined to give a specific number) as more models arrive. That will lessen what Hallmark sees as the “gamble” of electrifying a brand known mostly for characterful combustion engines.announced in 2023. Aston will use batteries, drive units, and powertrain control units from the U.S. automaker, and they will represent the next generation of Lucid’s tech, Hallmark said.because it needs greater control over packaging and battery size, Hallmark said. Those batteries will come from a different supplier than Aston’s EV batteries, he added.Aston’s current V-8 and V-12 engines around as long as possible, even in the face of European regulations that aim to end sales of new combustion-engine cars by 2035, Hallmark said. “We will keep the 12-cylinder running as long as possible, even as a niche model,” he confirmed, noting that this will likely take the form of exploiting “certain dispensations for very low-volume cars” allowing for a few hundred units per year as regulations tighten. Stricter emissions rules will likely end volume production of V-12 cars by 2030, Hallmark said, with V-8s lasting until 2035. Other low-volume, high-end automakers have championed synthetic fuels, also known as e-fuels, as a way to keep internal-combustion cars on the road. Hallmark sees these fuels as “valuable, and part of the solution,” but said they likely won’t be produced in large enough quantities to serve as a like-for-like replacement for fossil fuels.They may represent a much larger market than Aston’s two-door models, but Hallmark said “we have no plans for two SUVs.”, which has been around since the 2021 model year and received a refresh for 2025, before redesigning it. That redesign will likely hew close to the ethos of theSUVs remain big sellers, so Aston may have to add a second one eventually. But it won’t build a Mercedes G-Class rival, Hallmark said, as a 2024 report suggested. Nor is downsizing being considered., definitely isn’t happening, Hallmark confirmed. “It’s hard enough managing one brand,” he said, adding that the name could resurface at some point in a niche application, but it’s not currently planned as a separate brand. Nor is Aston considering any new models that would fit the Lagonda mold. “It wouldn’t be a core product,” Hallmark said of a new sedan akin to the previous Aston Martin Lagonda or Lagonda Taraf, because Aston’s niche is sports cars and performance. And the potential sales of a new sedan wouldn’t be enough to justify development costs, he believes.Hallmark pointed to the “lack of follow-up post-launch” of new models as one area where Aston can improve. Each new generation of Porsche 911 is followed by a number of variants to keep customers coming back, and that’s the example Hallmark, who previously worked at Porsche, wants to follow. For the DBX, there’s room for a less-adrenal variant that works better as a daily driver, Hallmark said, but added that “we wouldn’t make Vantage more luxurious” (referring to Aston's just-refreshed “We’ve got some really good ideas,” Hallmark said, “like bringing an existing race car back to the road.” And at least some of these sportier variants will featureHallmark said optional add-ons were “like a gold mine” and that thickening the catalog of them would bring Aston “into the regular behavior of other luxury brand
Aston Martin Adrian Hallmark Electrification Sports Cars SUV Lucid Mercedes-Benz
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