(upbeat music)
- A lot of people have a lot of mixed feelings
about electric cars,
and in the car world a bunch of people love to
hate on them,
they say that they're no fun or
they're just not right,
but if you can't get behind a
nineteen hundred horsepower,
torque vectoring,
four wheeled,
work of art,
that gets to sixty in under two seconds
and tops out at two hundred and fifty
miles per,
well then there's something wrong with you.
Today, we're going bumper to bumper on the
Pininfarina
- [Narrator] Battista!
(upbeat music)
- I am currently in the basement of a
very expensive hotel in
Geneva, Switzerland.
Why you might ask?
Because sitting next to me is a car
that doesn't debut till eight thirty PM tonight.
We are literally hiding from the press down here.
Some of you may have heard of Pininfarina,
they're an automotive design company
out of Italy,
but even if you haven't heard of them,
you've definitely seen or heard of the
cars that they've designed.
Ferrari two twelve.
Ferrari two fifty GT.
Alfa Romeo Guilietta.
Ferrari three sixty five GTC.
Ferrari four five six GT.
Ferrari P four
And the freakin' Testarossa.
Not only is Pininfarina responsible for
literally shaping cars,
but for shaping how the world thinks of them.
They've designed more cars than I can list,
but the Battista is a bold statement
from the company,
because it won't bear the badge of some other
auto pedigree,
there's no prancing pony or
red cross and a snake on this car.
This car says Pininfarina.
The Battista is named after the founder of
the company,
Battista Farina.
He was a little guy which earned him the
Italian nickname Pinin,
and that is where he got the name of his company,
Pininfarina.
But there is nothing little about the Battista,
it is a bold beautiful monster
that promises to own the hyper car world.
Looking at the long list of cars that the
company has designed,
you'll understand that they are the
masters of sleek.
And the Battista takes sleek to a whole new level.
The design director Luca Borgogno said,
We wanted Battista to be very Italian.
With sensual curves to give back a feeling
of the cars of the sixties,
the moment in time when Pininfarina
really became iconic.
The lines and colors evoke the spirit
of historic Pininfarina cars,
like the legendary Ferrari Modulo concept.
And a reminder that Pininfarina produces
understated, elegant, and visually striking automobiles.
Following, this touch of blue will of course
draw you to the beautiful blue Brembo brakes.
Brembo's, they're on everything.
This four thousand pound car,
gets to one hundred and ninety miles an hour
faster than your car gets to sixty.
So, effective braking is maybe more
important than getting going.
Brembo used Formula one technology
to develop these special carbon ceramic brakes.
Those Brembo's fit beneath the stunning
twenty one inch alloy wheels,
designed exclusively for this car.
They're somehow intricate and understated
at the same time,
they are beautiful.
The spokes of this star are so thin and
skillfully designed,
they almost look like they don't exist.
These Pirelli P Zero Trofeo tires
are also designed exclusively for the Battista,
to offer the grip and traction
a nineteen hundred horsepower car demands,
and speaking of getting the power through
the wheels to the road,
the Battista comes with multiple drive modes,
that will control the level of power
and how it's distributed betwixt
these four corners.
This baby uses a massive lithium battery pack,
that was designed by the Croatian boutique
electric hyper car company; Rimac.
The pack has special cylindrical cells,
as opposed to the traditional pouch cells
widely used in EB,
cylindrical cells have a higher density,
good mechanical stability,
and the ability to withstand
higher internal pressure without deforming.
That's what you need in a hyper car.
The battery management system is co developed
by Rimac and Mahindra's Formula E racing team.
This is cutting edge,
race to road stuff.
What wins on Sunday,
sells on Monday,
I just hope you have two point five million dollars
starting price.
- Mc'scuse me bitch.
- That's before any options or anything,
that's the base model.
Two point five milli.
Automobili Pininfarina will be using
former F one and Formula E driver,
Nick Heidfeld to fine tune the
Battista's dynamics over the next year
before it's available to the public.
In Formula E,
you need a lot of performance
with a defined range,
you know how long the race is,
but things are a little different on the road.
To give the driver both good
performance and range,
the company adjusts the battery
management system,
according to the driver modes.
The Battista has an estimated range
of about three hundred miles,
It can charge to eighty percent capacity
in twenty five to forty minutes.
The cars targeted curb weight
is about forty four hundred lbs.
In a lot of gas cars the weight of
the engine has to be considered when
designing the car.
V eights weigh in at about five hundred pounds,
the battery in this car tips the scale
at almost three times that,
but because they can spread it out
Pininfarina uses those fifteen hundred pounds
to improve weight distribution
and handling.
The batteries are placed low to the ground and
run along a central tunnel and
behind the cockpit.
This provides a super low center of gravity,
this placement is so crucial to its handling
that the Battista's dimensions and
overall packaging have been designed
around the battery.
Does that sound familiar?
That's what they did the Miura,
built the motor,
then they built the body around it.
Because the battery is so heavy,
Pininfarina uses as many lightweight components
as they can.
The Battista has a full carbon fiber monocoque,
a carbon roof,
a carbon battery pack housing,
and rear carbon subframe.
The only way there could be more carbon in this
thing is if it were a friggin' diamond.
And it costs as much as a bunch of diamonds.
Under the car,
it's as smooth as my skinny little
bald butt after a wax.
(ripping)
No weird exhaust routing to worry about here,
the streamlined undercarriage lets the air that
gets under the Battista pass effortlessly
to the tail,
just like my butt.
Increasing down force and decreasing drag,
the interior,
is pure sex.
It's sleek AF,
everything's covered in leather.
The cabin is a combination of
high tech and classical styling.
CEO Michael Perschke said,
they didn't want the interiors to be
too technical and they tried to
find a nice balance between design,
functionality,
and technology.
I am one of the first people in the world
to sit in this car.
One huge complaint that EV trolls love
to harp on is,
oh electric vehicles don't sound as good as
them big ol' V eights,
so what's even the point?
I only drive cars for the sound.
The point is,
mind boggling performance homie!
And with new performance benchmarks,
comes a new performance sound.
(engine roaring)
Company engineers tried to
amplify the natural sound
of an electric motor that grows with speed,
and they even tuned a bodywork
to use a combination of wind noise and
air flow to compliment the motor.
They want you to hear the sound and think,
holy crap,
that's a Battista.
(hip hop music)
So when can you get one?
Well, first you have to apply.
Not just anybody gets to drive this thing.
Fifty units each of the hyper car have
been allocated for North America,
Europe,
and the Middle East slash Asia.
Pininfarina will be spending the next
fifteen to eighteen months,
performing further tests,
fine tuning the vehicle dynamics,
and completing all the validation required
before the market launch in twenty twenty.
And Pininfarina says that the Battista is
just the first of many electric cars
from the iconic design studio turned manufacturer.
Their next project,
and I love to hear this
is an electric SUV.
You know big bro loves a luxury SUV.
And they hope it will rival the Urus.
Check out this episode where we
go over the Urus, I am a big fan of it.
Electric vehicles have arrived.
This can be no more clear than when standing
in front of the Battista,
it's a pure performance car,
designed and assembled by the most iconic
automotive design company ever.
This is full circle stuff,
if you still think an
electric power train disqualifies a
machine from being a hyper car,
well congratulations,
you just played yourself.
Big, big, big thanks
Pininfarina for flying us out to Geneva,
I feel fancy, fancy, fancy.
To say I feel out of place is an understatement.
But we're very grateful to have this
experience and to see this
amazing car at its debut.
Follow me on Instagram,
at James Pumphrey.
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at Donut Media.
Thank you guys so much for watching,
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let us know by clicking that like button down there.
I think I'm gonna cry,
I'm at the Geneva Auto Show for work.
I love you,
thank you guys so much.