Pininfarina – a Gropup company of India’s diversified Mahindra & MAhindra Group revealed on Tuesday (5 March 2019) Battista, the world’s first luxury electric hyper performance GT. Delivering on a long-held Pininfarina family dream and a new target of zero emissions with extreme power, the Battista is the first solely Pininfarina-badged car and delivers unprecedented performance. The trio of beautiful Battista design models presented as part of the hypercar’s World Premiere in Geneva represent a new pinnacle of desirability for electric cars, stylishly resolving the paradox of beauty and performance in a pure, elegant and timeless Italian design.
When it arrives in 2020, the Battista will be the most powerful car ever designed and built in Italy and it will deliver a level of performance that is unachievable today in any road-legal sports car featuring internal combustion engine technology. Faster than a current Formula 1 race car in its 0 -100 km/h sub-two second sprint, and with 1,900 hp and 2,300 Nm torque on tap, the Battista will combine extreme engineering and technology in a zero emissions package.
The year 2020 is also the 90th anniversary of the legendary Pininfarina SpA design house, which has taken the design brief for the Battista and produced a classic Pininfarina: an elegant form that seamlessly integrates the car’s innovative engineering solutions to deliver unprecedented performance. It is the same design principle of form and function in harmony as seen in classic Pininfarina cars reaching back to the Cisitalia 202 of 1947 and through more than 100 Ferraris, the most recent of which was launched this decade.
The Pininfarina Battista’s place in automotive history is defined by its name. It is the first in a range of purely electric, zero-emissions, luxury cars solely branded Pininfarina, delivering on a long-held family dream that has been carried by founder, Battista, his son Sergio, and his grandson, the current Pininfarina SpA Chairman, Paolo.
Never before has a new brand and its first car been launched with such an emotive past, relevance for the present, and potential for the future – the Battista embodies timeless design as a piece of art.
Automobili Pininfarina CEO, Michael Perschke: “This is the most authentic and exciting automotive story imaginable. The Battista is the hypercar of the future, inspired by a legendary past. It combines true inspiration and innovation in its technical achievement and emotional appeal. Electrification unlocks the door to a new level of performance and a zero-emissions future, whilst a passion and respect for automotive history will define how this landmark car looks and feels. We aim for the Battista to be a future classic and automotive icon, writing its own page in automotive history books.”
The ingredients for success reach further than statistics and history. A group of automotive experts, the like of which have never been assembled before for the launch of a new car company, are working for Automobili Pininfarina and partnering with Pininfarina SpA and an enviable list of technology specialists headed by the likes of Rimac and Pirelli. The result is that the Battista will arrive next year having been developed through the expertise and inspiration of a team that have been integral to the launches of cars such as the Bugatti Veyron and Chiron, Ferrari Sergio, Lamborghini Urus, McLaren P1, Mercedes AMG-Project One, Pagani Zonda and Porsche Mission E.
The resulting hypercar will appeal to the world’s automotive connoisseurs from a technical and aesthetic standpoint, and also because of its rarity. No more than 150 Battistas will be hand-crafted in Italy and allocated equally between the regions of North America, Europe and Middle East/Asia. Exceptional customer service will be delivered through some of the world’s best luxury car retail specialists, from Los Angeles to London to Tokyo. Plans are in place for the opportunity to fully personalise each car at Pininfarina SpA’s Cambiano headquarters.
The Battista will set new standards in performance and desirability for an electric car. It will be the first poster car for the EV-generation and the halo model for a range of luxury electric cars from Automobili Pininfarina. It is more than simply a new car reveal, but a pivotal moment in time for the new automotive environment: the first zero-emissions, Italian luxury car.
