Aston Martin DBX crossover to be manufactured at new plant in Wales

British luxury car-maker Aston Martin has confirmed its upcoming DBX crossover will be manufactured in the second plant at St Athan in Glamorgan, Wales. The company finalised the location for the new plant Wednesday, Feb. 24.

Occupying close to 90 acres, the new Aston Martin facility at St Athan will repurpose some of the facilities currently in use at the site by the Ministry of Defence. The construction work is planned to commence in 2017 with full vehicle production commencing in 2020.

St Athan will be the sole production facility for the DBX crossover first shown at the 85th Geneva International Motor Show. The crossover showcased was powered by electric motors powered by lithium sulphur cells. The crossover features Drive-by-wire electric steering and bespoke driver and passenger head-up displays. Additionally, it featured LED exterior lights, carbon ceramic brakes with a kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) and rear view cameras in place of conventional mirrors.

It is expected that over 90 percent of the production from St Athan will be exported outside of the United Kingdom.

With the decision to build the new crossover vehicle in Wales, the company additionally confirmed that production of next-generation sports cars would be focused at its headquarters and main manufacturing centre in Gaydon, Warwickshire. Production of the recently announced all-electric RapidE is also to be located at Gaydon, starting in 2018.

Aston Martin will commence production of the new DB11 at Gaydon soon. The Gaydon facility will also increase the production to a planned maximum volume of 7,000 sports cars a year by 2020.