Is This The World's First Amped−up Super Limo? We Think So...

The age of the extra-luxe electric vehicle has arrived, and the game-changing Vision concept from Aston Martin Lagonda is leading the charge.

- Jason Barlow

Are the world’s super-rich feeling restless? Aston Martin thinks so. Restless and ready for the next big thing.

In reactivating its ancient and previously fusty Lagonda imprint, the aspiration is no less than to become the world’s first zero-emissions luxury brand, to “confound” and to disrupt traditional luxury tropes in a way that will resonate in Silicon Valley, Shanghai and potentially even Stow-on-the-Wold.

“There’s a very traditional point of view in the luxury segment, but things have changed massively in the past few years,” Aston Martin Lagonda’s director of design, Miles Nurnberger, says. “There’s a much more progressive attitude. The whole world has become more of an early adopter.”

Welcome, then, a fully electric super-limo, with designs on the upper echelons of the luxury car hierarchy. Watch out, Rolls-Royce, whose cars Aston Martin likens to Ancient Greece. The Lagonda brand dates back to 1906, but since only 12,000 cars have worn the badge in the interim, a sly reference to it as a 112-year-old start-up isn’t wide off the mark. It’s authentic, but the history here doesn’t preclude a radical, self-driving, zero-emissions reinvention.