Aston Martin enlists the help of another luxury carmaker to develop electric vehicles. The British manufacturer announced on Monday that it would be purchasing selected drive components from the Lucid Group in the future.
Under the terms of the agreement, Aston Martin will issue approximately 28.4 million new shares of common stock and make incremental cash payments to Lucid totaling $232 million. The US automaker will also receive a 3.7 percent stake in Aston Martin.
“In conjunction with our internal development, this agreement will allow us to create a single, bespoke BEV platform suitable for all future Aston Martin products,” said Roberto Fedeli, Aston Martin Chief Technology Officer.
The British luxury brand is currently purchasing its engines from the Mercedes tuning company AMG. Despite the cooperation with Lucid, Aston Martin wants to continue working with the Swabians in the future. However, from now on Mercedes technologies will be paid for in cash and no longer by stock options. However, Mercedes remains a shareholder in Aston Martin with around 9 percent and also retains a seat on the board.
Aston Martin is late when it comes to electric mobility. A first plug-in hybrid called Valhalla was presented in 2021, but it is not expected to go into series production until 2024. A year later, Aston Martin promises its first purely battery-powered car. The manufacturer intends to invest more than two billion British pounds (a good 2.3 billion euros) in electrification over the next five years.
Aston Martin is chronically clammy
However, there is hardly any other brand with so much skepticism as to whether it can manage the transformation. As the car supplier of the British film secret agent James Bond, Aston Martin is a myth – and yet chronically clammy. The company has gone bankrupt seven times. Most recently, the British were once again heading for disaster. In 2022, the bottom line was a net loss of 529 million British pounds (almost 620 million euros).
The need of the brand made itself the “vacuum cleaners in the industry
Benefit: Li Shufu (60). The owner of the Chinese auto giant Geely already holds a majority stake in Volvo and is also a major investor in Mercedes. He massively expanded his influence at Aston Martin. Li recently increased his stake from 7.6 to 17 percent – and thus became the third largest investor in Aston Martin after the Yaw Tree Consortium around the Canadian entrepreneur Lawrence Stroll (63) with 21 percent and the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund with 18 percent.
Saudi Arabia, in turn, is expanding its influence practically through the back door via the deal between Aston Martin and Lucid. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund holds more than 60 percent of Lucid. But the British do not only have the strong shareholder in common: Also at Lucid it was devastating recently, the e-car newcomer around CEO Peter Rawlinson (65) is struggling with difficulties in production. Demand is also weakening.