Aston Martin Refines Its Exotic Family Car
4 min
The DBX, in base or 707 form, is certainly practical for everyday activities.
It’s a two-row SUV whose rear passengers enjoy plenty of legroom, separate climate controls, and heated seating. Although the carbon ceramic brakes are standard, lifestyle options include accessories for transporting pets and “event seating” to enjoy tailgate parties. The latter are amenities once seen only in the popular Range Rover—a car that now has a lot of competition.
“The average mileage driven in our SUVs is two to three times that of the sports cars we sell,” says Alex Long, a product and strategy executive at Aston Martin, which was presenting its upgraded 2025 DBX 707 in Edinburgh earlier this month. “It’s a huge ‘conquest’ car, meaning that three-quarters of the initial buyers were new to the brand. Previously they might have said, ‘I love Aston Martin, but the cars aren’t practical for me.’”
Jim Motavalli
The redesigned interior on the test car was a riot of red leather, even on the hand holds. Carbon fibre, in a process co-developed by Aston, is mostly decorative on the interior, though it’s employed for lightness in the tailgate and tailgate surround. The car lacks a head-up display, but it has just about every other modern amenity, including Apple CarPlay and an (optional) 23-speaker, 1,600-watt Bowers & Wilkins sound system that is new in the 2025 model. There is a 12.3-inch instrument cluster and a 10.25-inch central display. The bottom line for the 707 is US$249,000, putting it considerably below Rolls-Royce Cullinan territory (that one starts at US$392,000). Deliveries began in the second quarter of this year.
Aston Martin photo
The power comes from a four-litre, twin-turbo V8 obtained from Mercedes-AMG. The output is 697 horsepower and 663 pound-feet of torque, shifted by an also-Mercedes-derived nine-speed wet-clutch automatic. The bulk of the time you’re in rear-wheel drive, but power is directed to the front axle as needed, and the DBX is a capable off-road performer. Americans will also want to know that despite being derived from a long line of two-seat sports cars, the DBX can haul nearly 6,000 pounds.
Big V8s can move a lot of weight, and despite its 4,949 pounds the DBX 707 can reach 60 miles per hour in 3.1 seconds and attain 193 mph.
More than half of Aston’s current sales are of the DBX SUV, and even in Scotland—where the small car used to reign supreme—it’s apparent that the SUV is taking over the roads, Long says. North America is Aston’s biggest market, accounting for 35% of sales.
Jim Motavalli photo
The DBX was launched in 2020 and the upmarket 707 in 2022. The platform is not used on any other car. Andy Tokley, chief engineer for the DBX, says the chassis layout of the refreshed model has been modestly redefined for better passenger comfort. There’s ample rear legroom, and fully adaptive shock absorbers, air suspension, and active roll bars deliver a smooth ride. But not too smooth. The tweaks to the DBX included exhaust note tuning so that passengers hear more of that distinctive V8 rumble, Tokley says.
The DBX could be seen as Aston Martin’s best bet for an electric drivetrain, although the company is actively working with American brand Lucid on EVs and plans are somewhat delayed. Aston was to have launched an EV in 2025 but chairman Lawrence Stroll recently told Autocar that “consumer demand is not what we thought it was two years ago.” Four EVs have reportedly been designed, but it will likely be at least 2026 before we see one of them.
Jim Motavalli
Aston Martin’s portfolio includes accessible, almost mainstream, models like the DBX and exotics like the US$3 million Valkyrie supercar, of which 150 coupes and 85 Spyders have so far been built. Only 40 are left to be constructed. And in addition to the cars, well, there’s real estate. In the wake of Porsche and Bentley, the company developed the Aston Martin Residences in Miami, which had its grand opening in April.
By that time, 99% of the 391 luxury condominiums, located where the Miami River meets Biscayne Bay, had already been sold. But the US$59 million triplex penthouse with 27,191 square feet of living space is available, an Aston spokeswoman says. The 66-storey building is constantly reminding occupants of the Aston brand, whose cues adorn door handles, room number signs, and door tabs.
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
From making unpopular decisions to learning when to listen, leaders from five businesses reveal what nobody prepared them for — and how running a company has challenged their expectations.
Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
Elon Musk is exploring a potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX, a deal that could reshape the future of AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles and space technology. With a combined valuation potentially reaching $3.5 trillion, the move could bring Musk’s vision of an interconnected technology ecosystem closer to reality, although a deal remains uncertain.
5 min
Elon Musk has engineered ties between Tesla TSLA 3.41%increase; up pointing triangle and SpaceX SPCX 7.79%increase; up pointing triangle that are hard to break, and now he wants to fuse them together permanently.
Musk has run both Tesla and SpaceX concurrently over the past two decades, using a schedule that dictated which days he spent focused on each business.
The companies have often shared resources and personnel, signaling their close ties. Last year, SpaceX looked into creating a spacesuit for Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, a person familiar with the matter said. Tesla last week showed off its new Roadster, a vehicle featuring SpaceX rocket thrusters that it hopes to soon bring to market.
And in recent months, Musk has repositioned both companies by expanding beyond their core operations toward a shared mission centered on artificial intelligence.
The world’s richest man on Tuesday signaled his interest in tying up SpaceX and Tesla, marking what would be the biggest corporate merger of all time. Because he serves as chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk said committees of independent directors at both companies are evaluating a possible deal, adding that a transaction might not come to fruition.
The committees will likely evaluate, with lawyers and bankers, how each company would fare in a potential deal and how a deal might best be structured. They then present their conclusions to their respective boards, who typically vote on whether to proceed.
“It’s an odd Kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation,” Musk told SpaceX investors on Tuesday in response to an analyst’s question about a potential deal.
For Musk, the merger supports his vision of a world full of autonomous cars, humanoid robots and weekly rocket launches, as well as the data centers and satellites required to keep the whole thing running.
Some investors and analysts said they expect a transaction would be structured as an all-stock deal, with SpaceX potentially paying a modest premium for Tesla shares.
SpaceX, which has a market value of about $2 trillion, said it is seeing sharp growth in revenue across its businesses, which include operating data centers, launching rockets and operating satellite networks such as the internet service Starlink. Tesla is valued at about $1.5 trillion and is expanding its operations beyond its automotive and energy business. Shares in both companies traded higher following the news Tuesday.
Musk’s substantial ownership stakes in both companies, along with voting control at SpaceX, has enabled him to set the deal in motion. Analysts and investors said the deal will probably face regulatory scrutiny internationally, though some see Musk’s close relationship with the Trump administration as an asset to getting approval.
Blurred lines
The companies haven’t said which directors are on the special committees evaluating a potential deal. Several SpaceX and Tesla board members have either personal or business ties to Musk. And like Musk, venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis sits on both boards.
In a filing this week, Tesla outlined millions of dollars in business agreements with SpaceX and its subsidiaries last year, including $143 million in car sales to SpaceX, $3.3 million in advertising that it bought on the social-media platform X and $430 million in revenue from the sale of Megapack batteries for SpaceX’s data centers.
The companies also split the cost of resources including the use of Musk’s SpaceX jet and the bill for his personal security, which he runs through a private company.
Employees at both companies routinely move between companies to work on special projects, and some executives have dual roles, including Charles Kuehmann, vice president of materials engineering at both SpaceX and Tesla, and Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of AI software at Tesla who runs a joint venture with SpaceX called Digital Optimus.
Over the years, Musk has launched new startups within his empire, including brain-implant company Neuralink, underground-tunnel developer the Boring Company and xAI, the AI startup that merged with SpaceX in February.
It is that AI business that Musk thinks can serve a market worth tens of trillions of dollars, justifying the need for a merger.
The business case goes like this: Tesla is developing robotaxis and robots, which it calls “physical AI.” SpaceX is working on the back end of physical AI: the data-center capacity and internet connection required for those robotaxis and robots to operate continuously.
“I don’t see what the value of Tesla is if it’s not merged with SpaceX,” said investment adviser Ross Gerber, a former Tesla bull turned critic invested in both companies. “If they don’t merge, the brains of everything that runs Tesla is owned by another company.”
On top of it all, both companies face constraints on the supply chains they need to make this world a reality, particularly when it comes to chips. To address this, Musk earlier this year announced a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and Intel to design and manufacture chips in Texas. “The most epic chip-building exercise by far,” he has said.
Musk at the wheel
For Musk, a merger would also solve two problems: demands on his attention and his lack of control at Tesla.
Tesla for years was Musk’s only public company, a status that came with greater scrutiny. There, Musk reports to a public board, as well as individual investors who make up around 30% of Tesla’s voting power, according to FactSet.
The question of Musk’s attention became a particular focus for investors and the board in recent years after he acquired Twitter in 2022 and launched xAI in 2023, and again in 2025 as he spent time in Washington, D.C., running the Department of Government Efficiency in the early months of President Trump’s second term.
As Tesla’s car business suffered in 2025, Musk threatened to take his AI ambitions outside the company if he wasn’t granted 25% voting control. Last November, Tesla shareholders approved a new pay package for Musk, which created a path for him to vastly expand his stake.
As of Sept. 30, Musk owned a roughly 20% stake in Tesla, according to the company’s proxy filing.
The SpaceX IPO gave Musk a different path. When SpaceX went public in June, the deal’s structure enabled him to have more than 80% voting power at the company—so much that he can’t be fired and decisions can’t be made without his support.
If SpaceX acquires Tesla, he will likely stay in control.
A record-breaking $11 million sale at The Centennial Collection has set a new benchmark for luxury apartment living in Bondi Junction.
All three vehicles will form part of a broader charitable initiative benefiting Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the American Red Cross and Starlight Children’s Foundation
