During the Lancaster House event, Aston Martin and Chinese investment group, ChinaEquity, announced an agreement to explore the development of a production version of the RapidE concept. If successful, the new luxury sports car was intended to be constructed at Aston Martin’s global HQ in Gaydon, Warwickshire, with plans to be brought to market in around two years (call it 2017). It went on to be displayed in support of a creative summit organised by the British government’s successful GREAT campaign to showcase the best of what the UK has to offer and encourage people to visit, do business, invest and study in the UK.

Aston Martin CEO, Dr Andy Palmer, said at the time: “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.”

The original RapidE concept was developed by AML in collaboration with Williams Advanced Engineering, an off shoot of Williams F1 at its facility in Grove, Oxfordshire. 

No technical details of the RapidE were given but a video released on the companies YouTube channel demonstrates the near silent running qualities of the concept. I did read of 800 bhp, all wheel drive and 200 mile range but I suspect that was mere speculation or wishful thinking or maybe both.

The virtually finished car, renamed the Rapide E was finally shown at various key motorsports events during the summer of 2019.