Aston Martin unveils a high-voltage Rapid (PHOTO)

ASTANA. KAZINFORM - Aston Martin has been anything but coy in announcing its intention to build an electric supercar - several of them, in fact. The surprising DBX electric crossover GT, unveiled earlier this year at the Geneva motor show, is part of the plan, but that one is several years off; the company is even mulling a new factory - in the US, no less - for its production. It makes sense that Aston's first EV would be something a bit more derivative of its current model range - like this, the all-electric RapidE concept, unveiled in London on 21 October.

The British carmaker used a UK state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping as an opportunity to pull the wraps off this battery powered version of its svelte four-door. The car, revealed outside Lancaster House in London, arrived with a big, mysterious black box in place of its 6-litre V12 engine, and precious few technical details. None, actually. The RapidE was built in collaboration with Williams Advanced Engineering, which for the uninitiated is the engineering-services arm of Sir Frank Williams' Formula 1 outfit. The project is proceeding in conjunction with a Chinese investment group, ChinaEquity, with the goal of producing a series production version of this very car in about two years.

"We see luxury electric vehicles as an intrinsic part of our future product portfolio," said Palmer at the RapidE's debut. "It gives more meat to his comments made recently at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit," writes TopGear.com's Vijay Pattni, "where he mentioned a future electric Aston Martin with between 800 and 1,000 horsepower." For more information log on to BBC.com.