The boss of luxury carmaker Aston Martin has given more details about the company's new luxury car and the reasons the company has chosen to build it at St Athan.
Why Wales?
Chief executive Andrew Palmer said the carmaker had considered offers from more than 20 locations around the world, with the most serious contenders besides Wales being in the West Midlands, Alabama and Macedonia.
But the decision to come to Wales was a unanimous one by the company's executives and shareholders. It followed a long and complex process of assessing the merits of each site.
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"We ranked quality most highly in our decision matrix, quality of the supply base, quality of the craftmanship, quality of the relationship with the national and local governments. Then we looked at timing, obviously it's important for us that we were able to have production in 2019, which means the site needs to be available in 2018. In the case of St Athan we have already levelled ground, and the buildings," said Mr Palmer.
"Then there's cost, which includes the cost of bringing in parts and delivering the finished car to market, it also includes the cost of building and government aid. In Wales' case that includes help to refit the factory, to put in local infrastructure like roads, and for central government to help with some of the R&D hopefully.
"Wales had a very compelling case but it wasn't one single attribute, it was a combination of quality, cost and timing."
How many cars will Aston Martin make at St Athan?
Mr Palmer said the luxury SUV market is a new one and no-one knows yet how large it will be. But he said that the numbers would be in the "low thousands", adding that the target customers are looking for exclusivity in a luxury handcrafted car, rather than mass production.
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Who is that target customer?
Aston Martin thinks there's a growing market around the world for luxury cars among affluent young women, who they have labelled Charlotte.
Mr Palmer said: "Charlotte could just as easily be in a mini because it's cool as she could be in our new car. She's got the wealth but she may decide she doesn't need to spend the money and is quite happy to go for a cheaper car because it's cool. So it's more about the attitude of the customer."
Identifying Charlotte helps the company to decide what features to put in the car, Mr Palmer explained.
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"In this car it's beauty versus utility space, so rather than saying, Mr CEO what do you think, my answer is always what would Charlotte want? And because we know her so well, we say she's a woman who likes cool, she likes elegant, she likes chic, she'd prefer to compromise on utility and have something that has more beauty," he said.
Aston Martin only sells 4% of its cars to women, but it has identified that in 70% of its sales to men their female partners have advocated buying an Aston Martin.
It's also identified that the number of 'Charlottes' is growing in countries like China, where it expects a lot of its future sales to be.
How much will the new car cost?
While the new car is still a few years away from hitting the showrooms, Mr Palmer said the purchase price is likely to be between £150,000 and £200,000.
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When will production start?
Work on developing the site should be completed in 2018, with production beginning in 2019 and full production reached in 2020.
How many people will be employed there?
When full production is reached in 2020 there will 750 highly skilled workers directly employed at St Athan, with around 3,000 more jobs created in the supply chain. Mr Palmer said the skills in the workforce and the quality of the craftsmanship were among the main reasons Aston Martin chose to bring production to South Wales.
He also said the company aimed to source as many components as possible within the local supply chain.
What sort of engines will the new car have?
Initially the new car will have a large petrol burning V-engine, probably suppled by Mercedes Benz, but Aston Martin expects this to change to a hybrid and eventually an electric engine. Mr Palmer said the company had looked at hydrogen engines but chose electric because the charging infrastructure is more widely developed.
