Pictures: Lagonda's 'private jet' 400-mile electric SUV

We take a look at the marque's electric SUV revealed in Geneva

Mark Tisshaw

by Mark Tisshaw

5 March 2019

Follow @mtisshaw

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The Lagonda All-Terrain Concept is the second Lagonda concept car unveiled by Aston after the Vision Concept saloon at last year’s Geneva show.

Unveiled on Tuesday morning at the Geneva motor show, it previews a new Lagonda SUV that will go into production in St Athan, Wales in 2022.
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Vision Concept saloon is closely related

Like the Vision Concept, the All-Terrain Concept is all-electric. The two are closely related, sharing an architecture and key components as part of Aston boss Andy Palmer’s desire for Aston to have greater efficiencies between its models.
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Forget Rolls-Royce and Bentley

The production version of the All-Terrain Concept will line up alongside the likes of the Rolls-Royce Cullinan and Bentley Bentayga when it makes production. However, CEO Andy Palmer, reckons the models won’t be competing for buyers due to their wildly different briefs.
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Tesla is the real competition

“This is a car for tech entrepreneurs, the guys who drive Teslas, not Bentleys and Rolls-Royces” he said. “It’s in the same high-net worth market but not aimed at the same customer.”
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Styling

The All-Terrain’s styling is instantly recognisable from the Vision Concept, including the windscreen and side glass that carry over to further improve efficiencies between the two models.

That sleek profile translates here onto an SUV that should have a presence like nothing else on the road, with futuristic styling that Reichman said “challenges but it works”. He added: “It has to be unearthly and different.” At the Geneva unveiling, Dr Palmer likened travelling in the car to taking a journey in a private jet.
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Derives from a saloon body

In migrating from saloon to SUV, the Lagonda has been designed from the roof down rather than the floor up to stop the usual slab-sidedness you get from large SUVs, and to keep the body sleek but also benefit from the raised driving position and greater cabin space and height being an SUV brings.

The Lagonda SUV is around 200mm taller than the saloon.
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Electric power makes it spacious

Aston believes that electric power and its packaging benefits is also ideally suited to luxury cars, as it can liberate so much space within the cabin. “No-one has taken advantage of the fact that there is no internal combustion engine,” said Reichman of the electric cars so far. “There’s oodles of space in here.”

To that end, the Lagonda SUV concept has an ultra-long wheelbase with batteries mounted in the floor. This liberates a huge part of the car’s footprint for cabin space.
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Fully charged in 15 minutes...

As with its mid-engined models at Geneva, Aston has not confirmed technical specifics of the Lagonda All-Terrain Concept. However, Autocar understands Aston is hoping for an all-electric range of around 400 miles for the production version, with a wireless rapid-charging technology fully replenishing the batteries in 15 minutes.
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Powertrain

The model is so to be all-wheel drive, powering coming from two electric motors, one on each axle. Aston hopes solid-state battery technology has matured to production readiness by that point to help with that big range figure in what will be by its very nature a large, heavy car, needing a sizable battery pack to propel it.
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Not a 4x4

The Lagonda SUV won’t be a proper 4x4 off-road, but instead will have what Palmer describes as “off-track potential rather than off-road”.
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Interior

The vast four-seat interior is largely shared with the Lagonda saloon concept but trimmed differently with luxurious materials including Cashmere and crystal rather than more traditional materials to show the different ambience that can be created.

The SUV also shares the dramatic rear-hinged rear door openings with the saloon to help access to the interior.
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Shared components

The two Lagonda concepts also share their suspension systems with the upcoming DBX SUV, which will also be built at St Athan from early next year as Aston’s first SUV.
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All models are linked, but far from the same

To that end, Palmer describes Aston as ultimately making “seven models from three Mecanno sets”. That means close relationships between the front-engined DB11, Vantage and DBS Superleggera, the DBX, Lagonda SUV and Lagonda saloon, and then the Vanquish and any other mid-engined specials Aston makes on top of its core range of seven models.

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