Our EVs will have soul, says Aston Martin

A new generation of all-electric sports cars, limousines and SUVs from Aston Martin and Lagonda will have both character and personality, insists the British car-maker's CEO, Andy Palmer.

Speaking shortly after relaunching Lagonda as the 'world's first pure-electric luxury car maker', Palmer told Australian media that instead of obsessing over 0-100km/h times, he has tasked his engineers with creating powertrains that deliver the character befitting of an Aston.

"We want to try and make character out of the electric motor in the same way we do with the V12," said Palmer, before adding: "Getting character in the car is what no-one has thought about yet, because most buyers just say 'give me ludicrous mode'."

Giving the forthcoming Lagonda limousine due in 2021, as an example, Aston's boss said making it go as fast as possible wouldn't suit the character of the car.

"If you're sat in the back of a luxury car you don't want a 0-60mph 2.8 seconds car … you're going to be puking everywhere.

"What I think you need is smooth and progressive power. Of course, you would tune it completely differently for an Aston Martin," said Palmer.

To help achieve his aim, Aston Martin is gathering real feedback and data from the 155 pure-electric RapidE sedans already sold.

According to Palmer, to engineer-in character could involve artificially managing the torque curve and, if customers want it, piping in an artificial soundtrack.

"What my presumption is you [owners] are looking for silence, something Roll-Royce has been searching for since the beginning of time. We would use synthesised sound if the customer wants it."

The global Aston boss says he hopes RapidE owners will be able to feed back what they want from a pure-electric vehicle.

Despite being far quieter than a traditional internal combustion engine, Palmer says making a pure-electric vehicle completely silent remains a challenge as they suffer from a high-frequency whine that's difficult to block out - but it is possible.

One solution is to use both 'black' and 'white' noise that helps cancel out the unwanted high-pitch sounds. This will most likely rely on using the sound system in the Lagonda and Aston EVs.

To achieve his aim of producing characterful electric vehicles, Palmer says it's crucial to develop the company's own EV powertrains in-house.

"I think we'll buy cells from Samsung or LG or one of those suppliers, but I'd like to do the electric motor and inverter technology ourselves in-house.

"I'm happy to buy V8 powertrains from Daimler but there's two technologies we'd like to keep in house -- the V12 and electric powertrains", said the Aston boss.

According to Palmer, the electric motor itself isn't complex to develop but the battery inverter and controller plus the software needed to manage things like torque curves and distribution is far more difficult.

Despite the challenge, Aston's CEO says it's crucial to keep pure-electric expertise within the company to allow it to realise his goals.

"Many start-ups fall down because they don't understand mass reduction, aerodynamics and drag. Fortunately, those are three things we know a lot about."

According to Palmer, the production version of the all-electric Lagonda limousine will be on sale in 2021 with its full-size SUV sibling following sometime in 2023.