The Luxury EV segment is heating up dramatically. BMW, Tesla and Audi are all working on new EVs to release into the market to gain ultimate EV superiority. Tesla has the Model X on the way, Audi has its Q6 e-tron in the works and BMW is possibly mulling over the idea of some sort of i5. But now there’s a newcomer to challenge the bunch, with its eyes set on the Model S P85D and that newcomer is Aston Martin.

While Aston Martin is a significantly more premium brand than all of the other aforementioned brands, it’s still going to be in the conversation. Confirmed by Aston’s CEO, Andy Palmer, to Automotive News, this EV Aston Martin will be a BEV version of the Rapide saloon car. The BEV Rapide won’t replace the V12 version, but be sold alongside it as a low volume niche vehicle. The BEV Rapide will have a range of somewhere around 200 miles, which is significantly less than the Tesla Model S P85D, but it will also have 800 hp.

The priority for such a car would be performance over efficiency. This BEV Rapide isn’t trying to save the planet, but use electric motors to create a silently powerful Aston Martin saloon. “I think that the fact that you could drive a few laps of a decent race course or race it around the Nordschleife is much more interesting than doing 500 meters in Ludicrous mode,” said Palmer. He also indicated that this move to create an electric Rapide is to help the brand continue to create V12 sports cars, “If you want to keep making V12 engines, then you’ve got to do something at the opposite end of the spectrum.”

Such a BEV Rapide is said to cost between $200,000 and $250,000, which is more than double the most expensive Tesla Model S and the BMW i8. However, the Aston Martin Rapide BEV will most likely be considerably more luxurious, handle better and be far more exclusive. BMW doesn’t really have to worry too much about the BEV Rapide, in terms of competition, but it change the way BMW looks at some sort of future BMW i5.

Aston Martin is a very small brand with very low-volume sales figures that doesn’t really compete with companies like BMW and Tesla. However, if Aston can release a car that sets a new standard for performance EVs, BMW might need to up the bar of its EV performance cars as well as Tesla and its P85D. So while BMW won’t have to worry about losing sales to the British marquee, any Aston Martin EV might change the way the market looks at such things.