Aston Martin's electric RapidE debuts

One of the Britain's most-famous sports car makers, Aston Martin, has revealed its first pre-production electric vehicle, dubbed the RapidE.

The fully-electric four-door sports car was shown during a meeting between Prince William, Duchess Catherine and Xi Jinping, the president of China. This will guarantee the vehicle widespread coverage in China, where prestige vehicles are in huge demand – and particularly those that cater for back seat passengers such as the Rapide S, on which the EV concept is based.

Although details of the vehicle's battery pack, electric motors and performance figures have not been officially divulged, the Aston Martin RapidE can be expected to offer Tesla Model S levels of, ahem, rapidity.

Aston Martin CEO, Andy Palmer, let slip in August that it was planning an electric Rapide that would have a range of more than 320km while punching out 600kW. That would make it most the powerful Aston builds, and with an all-wheel drive system could be the fastest accelerating too.

Unlike cars with combustion engines, electric vehicles can generate maximum torque – the force that results in acceleration – instantly, resulting in smooth, linear and ultimately potent performance.

Aston Martin sought out Williams Advanced Engineering to help develop the RapidE concept, the company behind the Williams F1 team.

Although the British company is not yet ready to confirm the RapidE is ready for production the company has confirmed that it has partnered with ChinaEquity (one of China's largest private merchant banks) to explore the concept car's 'production potential'.

If the deal gets the green light, Aston Martin asserts that the new luxury sports car would be built at its in Gaydon, Warwickshire. Aston Martin also says if everything augurs well, it could be on sale by 2017.

Although the RapidE is a good news story for Aston Martin, it comes just one week after the company fired 295 workers as part of a company-wide restructure.

Aston Martin boss Palmer, commented: "We see luxury electric vehicles as an intrinsic part of our future product portfolio and welcome ChinaEquity into the next phase of study for the project development."

"The exciting RapidE concept tangibly demonstrates the capability and ambition of Aston Martin towards developing low- and zero-emission sports cars," said Palmer.

The company also plans to develop an SUV, codenamed the DBX crossover, which was originally shown powered by electric motors.