You’ve heard time and time again with the whole “World’s fast car,” but this time around, you’re about to meet something truly extraordinary. Meet Battista from Automobili Pininfarina. What makes this car extra special is that it’s all-electric. Yes, you read that correctly.
The Battista does 0-62mph in less than two seconds, 186mph in less than 12 seconds, has a top speed of more than 250mph, and provides 280 miles of range on a charge. The car’s brake horse power )bhp) is equivalent to 1,900, which is twice that of a Formula 1 car. To give you another perspective, the Ford Fiesta has a bhp between around 84 and 138.
Automobili Pininfarina chief Michael Perschke says that the car’s power “is crazy.” He adds that the car is a statement that high performance and electric propulsion are not mutually exclusive.
Automobili Pininfarina history
What’s even more interesting is that Automobili Pininfarina is a little more than a year old. This makes for Battista being one of the highly anticipated reveals at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. In such short amount of time, Automobili Pininfarina skyrocketed past some of the industry’s biggest names, and that’s quite impressive, the say the least.
The company, however, didn’t get a completely new slate. It’s worth mentioning that Automobili Pininfarina is a spon-off of Pininfarina, the legendary Italian design house that helped bring many of Ferrari and Alfa Romeo from the design board into production vehicles you see on the road today. In 2015, the Indian conglomerate Mahindra Group bought a majority stake in Pininfarina, thus having an automotive division, owning South Korean car company SsangYong Motor, and has a team in the Formula E racing series.
Anand Mahindra, the chairman of Mahindra Group, said he wanted to take the company in a whole new direction and prove to everyone that electric cars can be luxurious, collectable and exclusive.
“Why is Mahindra betting on the luxury segment? Because there will also be vehicles that people will want to buy because they are objects of desire and passion,” Mr Mahindra says.
Taking the stage
Paolo Pininfarina, chairman of Pininfarina and the grandson of the company’s founder, said that designing something very beautiful was the key when bringing the Battista to the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. “We are designers, we are Italian. We could not compromise on the car’s beauty,” he said.
“Also, as we are designers, we are not tied to any particular powertrain like Ferrari or Lamborghini. So we could approach the design as a new frontier,” he said.
The T-shaped battery in the center and behind the seats allowed designers to have more space to work with than the internal combustion engines we’re used to. “It created different aerodynamics. We were able to explore and experiment,” Mr Pininfarina said. Due to electric car’s setup, cooling became less of an issue, so having large front grilles wasn’t entirely necessary like you would find on other high-performance cars. “To have been able to design a car with such power, torque and speed, and yet emit zero-emissions, is, we think, truly outstanding,” he said.
