All Aston Martins to be hybrid or electric by 'mid-2020s'

Aston Martin has become the latest manufacturer to announce plans to sell cars with hybrid and fully-electric powertrains by the mid 2020s.

In an interview with the Financial Times, the carmaker's chief executive Andy Palmer said: "We will be 100 per cent hybrid by the middle of the 2020s."

He says that a quarter of the company's vehicles will have fully-electric powertrains, with no internal combustion engine, by 2030.

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While the car firm is known for its V12 and V8-powered grand tourers, the newspaper says the government's push towards banning non-electrified vehicles by 2040 has led manufacturers to develop technologies that conform to the regulations.

Aston Martin's first attempt at an electrified vehicle will be the RapidE, says ArsTechnica. The car is due out in 2019 and is based on the company's Rapide four-seater saloon.

There's also the upcoming Valkyrie hypercar, which is powered by a V12 hybrid engine, the website says. But the Valkyrie's electrified engine is used purely for performance and the car itself will be produced in very low numbers.

Aston Martin's 4.0-litre V8 engine for its yet-to-be-released Vantage is being sourced by Mercedes-AMG, but Palmer told the Financial Times that the company's electric technology would be produced in-house.

"You need to keep core technology inside the company," he said. "That's why we make our own V12 engine. We believe that EVs are a core technology and therefore we want to do them ourselves."

Aston Martin isn't the first carmaker to announce plans to go fully hybrid and electric within the next decade. AutoExpress says Volvo plans for all its cars to feature electrified powertrains from 2019 onwards.