Pininfarina Battista hypercar teased

Most car makers are panicking right up to the last moment to pull a concept car together for a motor show. Next week, though, Italian design house Pininfarina will place three of its all-new Battista EV hypercars on the Geneva show stands.

Now owned by Formula E contenders Mahindra & Mahindra, Automobili Pininfarina claims its Battista is the most powerful road car ever built. Although that’s the sort of thing you hear about a lot at the Geneva show, they may be on the money, with a claimed 1420kW of power and an astonishing 2300Nm of torque from its electric powertrain.

Code-named PF0 during its development, the Battista is claimed to punch to 100km/h in less than two seconds and Pininfarina insists its top speed will be beyond 400km/h.

Battista is the actual name of Pininfarina founder Pinin Farina (Pinin was his nickname) and the Geneva debutant is planned to sit at the top of an upcoming Automobilit Pininfarina range of luxury and super-sports EVs.

Pininfarina claims it will stretch to 500km on a single charge of its battery pack, though not at 400km/h.

Some of the key EV technologies inside the Battista come from Croatian enterprise Rimac, in which Porsche holds a 10 per cent interest.

There are plans for a production run of 150 Battistas (or, in the correct Italian, Battiste), priced between £1.5 and £2 million depending on the specifications.

Automobili Pininfarina’s EV credentials have been built, in part, by Mahindra’s history as a founding contender in Formula E and it has poached ex-Volkswagen Group executive Michael Perschke to run the day-to-day operations.

It has pieced together three of the hypercars for Geneva, with a grey one and a blue one on its own Automobili Pininfarina stand and a white one on its Pinfinarina AG stand in another hall.

“We wanted Battista to be very Italian, with sensual curves to give back a feeling of the cars of the ’60s and the moment in time when sensual design in cars was to the fore and when Pininfarina really became iconic,” Automobili Pininfarina’s Design Director, Luca Borgogno, said.

“The body form speaks this Italian language, with the details developed in collaboration with each car’s owner adding the accents and personality.”

The Battista name, in Farina’s own hand-writing, will also debut on the sidepods of the championship-leading Mahindra Racing Formula E car in Geneva.

“The world premiere of the Battista hypercar is a pivotal moment in the evolution of performance cars driven by EV technology,” CEO and Team Principal, Mahindra Racing Formula E Team, Dilbagh Gill, said.

“I am delighted that our championship-leading team, Mahindra Racing, and drivers are here with Automobili Pininfarina to celebrate this moment with a bespoke version of our race car dedicated to Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina.”