Automotive News Europe - Talk From The Top Supplement - December 2019 - 5

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

TALK FROM THE TOP

off the top of that premium SUV sec- announced the Second Century plan
tor. The Cayenne has been an important there were plenty of people speculating
benchmark in the development of the whether we had the capability to do evcar. Our cars don't compete directly, erything we said, but I think we have albut they [Porsche] are a very credible ready exceeded some of those people's
source when it comes to ride and han- expectations. The most difficult car we
dling, and build quality.
did was the DB11 because it was essentially
a new factory, new electrical
The reveal was in Beijing and Los Anarchitecture,
new engine, new platform.
geles. Why those two places?
Nothing that we will do will be as difficult
China and the U.S. are the car's biggest as that. Moving into the SUV format with
markets, but also it's a signal that we are the DBX has also challenged us, but we
a very traditional British car company have delivered everything on time so far.
trying to be more global in our approach.
The DBX has, in particular, been very You have reduced your vehicle sales
much designed with Chinese and Ameri- guidance to 6,500 from 7,000 for
2019. Why?
can customers in mind.
The DBX will be V-8 gasoline only at Our sports cars are growing both in vola time when SUVs have come under ume and in market share, but the Vanattack from environmental activists. tage market is difficult. It borders on premium and that market is more in line with
Will this affect demand?
automotive TIV [total industry volume].
The whole industry is under the spotlight in terms of CO2 so obviously it's The Vantage starts at about 125,000
important to make increasingly efficient pounds, which drags down your averSUVs. Do I think there's a wholesale age selling price. Is it a market you
change from SUVs back to another type need to be in?
of vehicle? I don't see it at the moment. What the Vantage allows us to do is to
If you look at the startup EV makers climb a ladder into luxury. None of the
they are all basically starting with SUVs. other luxury automakers provide that
If you look around the world, the SUV is step, so you go from a high-end Porsche
the preferred body type.
into the luxury arena. Vantage provides a
Aston's first hybrids will be versions platform to do that inside the brand. It's
of the Valkyrie and V6 Valhalla hyper- also a platform on which we build our specars. How quickly will the SUV get a cials and our racecars, so we have creditability when we do stuff like Le Mans.
hybrid variant?

You have recently talked about actions
to improve efficiencies and reduce
costs. What actions have you taken?
The DBX is being developed much more
efficiently than we anticipated and that
impacts capital expenditure. When we
drew the development costs curves we
followed those we experienced with
the DB11, but what we found is that we
have been able to operate much more
efficiently than in the past in terms of
manpower spend or changes to tooling
in the design. That has allowed us to reduce our forecast on capex by quite an
extraordinary amount. In February, we
gave a guidance of 320 to 340 million
pounds, however, in July we revised it to
300 million pounds. The increase in virtual testing is a huge benefit. We operate
in a lean environment where everyone is
looking at places where it's possible to
eke out improvements.
The value of Aston Martin's shares
has fallen about 80 percent since
the company went public in October
2018. Was the IPO a mistake?
There's no point in looking backward.
The share price is obviously a disappointment and I have to acknowledge
my role in that. But we have to get on
and improve it. I think the importance
of the DBX, and whether we can deliver it efficiently, will also affect the
ANE
share price.

We are not yet disclosing our cadence of hybrid rollouts, but by the middle of the 2020s
all of our cars will have a hybrid offering.
Will they be plug-in or full hybrids?
We are looking at both. I'm not a big fan
of the plug-in hybrid because you are
adding weight and complexity. My preferred delivery is a self-charging hybrid.
The only reason for thinking otherwise is
the definition of regulations and getting
the CO2 credit and in some places that
might push us to add a plug.
Some analysts, notably Max Warburton
of Bernstein, are skeptical about the
roll out of the Lagonda luxury electric
brand by 2023. Is that still the plan?
We still work from that basis. Max's
commentary is that it's a lot to do, and
I would be first to acknowledge that, but
we have also achieved a lot. When we

2019

In Partnership with

Palmer says the Aston Martin DBX was designed with Chinese and
American customers in mind.

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Automotive News Europe - Talk From The Top Supplement - December 2019

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