V8 petrol power to live on: Aston Martin pulls the plug on electric cars as it develops Ferrari and McLaren rivals

Rumours of the demise of petrol engines may have been premature.

Aston Martin is the latest brand to walk back its pure electric car range plans according to a report from Autocar.

The swanky British brand’s boss Lawrence Stroll has pledged to keep selling petrol-powered cars for as long as he can.

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Stroll said the brand’s customers want “sounds and smells” from their vehicles and the preference was for internal-combustion power over electric only.

"For as long as we're allowed to make ICE cars, we'll make them. I think there will always be demand, even if it's small,” Stroll told Autocar.

Aston Martin has put its plans to launch its first electric car on ice until 2025 and instead is pouring its resources into developing plug-in hybrids.

Top-tier supercar makers such as Ferrari and McLaren are already selling plug-in hybrid machines.

Aston Martin is concentrating on plug-in hybrids instead of electric cars.

Those machines provide immense performance. The Ferrari 296 GTB and McLaren Artura make more than 500kW from their petrol-electric hardware and can sprint to 100km/h from a stand still in well under three seconds.

Aston Martin had previously targeted 2030 for its range to go all electric but now it has no deadline to phase out petrol-propulsion.

Stroll confirmed V8 grunt would live on, pairing it with plug-in hybrid tech and V12 engines were in for the same treatment.

Aston Martin customers want “sounds and smells” from their cars.

Plug-in hybrids haven’t found success in Australia with sales of the petrol-electric technology counting for a little more than one per cent of sales through the first three months of this year.

Plug-in hybrid technology blends a petrol engine with an electric motor and a sizeable battery that can deliver a driving range of more than 50km.

In theory it allows the car to run mostly on electric power around town and use the petrol engine for longer drives.

Carmakers often claim plug-in hybrids use less than two litres per 100km of fuel, but recent findings out of Europe suggest they use about three and a half times more than the claimed figures.