Pininfarina And Hybrid Kinetic Ink $80 Million Electric Car Pact

Internationally recognized automotive design firm Pininfarina and Hong Kong based Hybrid Kinetic have signed a contract worth $80 million to jointly develop an electric car. The collaboration is scheduled to last for 46 months. Pininfarina was founded in 1930 and penned many of Enzo Ferraris most beautiful cars before branching out to service other manufacturers. It designed the gorgeous but ill fated Cadillac Allante and recently brought a highly creative (and fabulously expensive) electric bicycle to the Italian motorcycle show in Milan.

The company has been hanging around at the edges of the electric car scene since 2010 and designed the BlueCar that is the centerpiece of the car sharing service operated by Bolloré Group in Paris. It was purchased in 2015 by Indian manufacturer Mahindra Group. Lest you think Mahindra only makes tractors, buses, and trucks, it also owns one of the ten teams that compete in the Formula E electric car racing series.

According to Reuters, “Hybrid Kinetic Group Limited is a Hong Kong-based company principally engaged in the electric motor vehicles business, including electric buses, engines, and related battery cells. The Company is also engaged in the promotion of new energy projects, including the development of key new energy automobile components and the production of single and few-layer graphene. The Company operates through two business segments: the development of advanced batteries materials segment and the development of high-tech electric motor vehicles segment.”

Pininfarina will support Hybrid Kinetic in the development of an electric car from the initial styling concepts through virtual and physical validation for series production. “This agreement confirms the primacy of our company in the world of automotive design, engineering and production of small series at a time of great change in the automotive world. Synergies with a larger group such as Tech Mahindra are strengthening our business opportunities,” Pininfarina Group CEO Silvio Pietro Angori said in a statement.

He added, “To our respective existing customer pools we can offer fully comprehensive design and engineering services. Further, we see synergies with Tech Mahindra enabling us to compete with more traditional players in the domain of electric and hybrid platforms, autonomous driving and connected cars.”

There is no indication that Mahindra has its eye on US sales, but with a Chinese market for automobiles that is now the largest in the world at more than 20 million vehicles, there is more than enough room for the parties to collaborate on electric vehicles designed for the that market and be quite successful selling them there and throughout Asia.

Source: LiveMint

Rimac Concept_One shows up in Monaco with $980k sticker price

It takes a lot to stand apart at an exposition as jam-packed with glitzy treasure as the Frankfurt Motor Show and impress the hordes of automotive journalists there assembled, but we were suitably impressed when we laid eyes upon the Rimac Concept_One at the Messe this past September. The Croatian upstart put together a supercar of (figurative, if not literal) Bugatti proportions, but instead of building it around a fossil-guzzling conventional powerplant, Rimac designed its hypercar with the equivalent of 1,088 horsepower worth of electric motors.

With a 92-kWh battery powering the electric motors at each wheel, the Rimac is said to be capable of rocketing to 62 from a standstill in just 2.8 seconds while traveling as far as 372 miles on a single charge. The team of former Pininfarina designers penned an attractive shape to go with it, the Bulgarian leathercrafters extraordinaires at Vilner were brought in to work on the interior, HRE developed a unique set of monoblock alloys and Vredestein debuted its new Ultrac Vorti tires designed by Giugiaro all for the Concept_One.

Impressive specs, all, but what's most impressive is that the Concept_One is no mere concept – you can actually buy it, assuming you've got the scratch. Upon showcasing the electric supercar at the Top Marques show in Monaco, Rimac announced a limited run of 88 examples will be built, each fetching $980,000 – a price as princely as the regent who was on hand to check it out in Monte Carlo. Which only goes to prove that you can, indeed, have your cake and eat it too, but it'll cost you dearly.


Source: Autoblog Green

Pininfarina Signs Deal For Production Of Bluecar Electric Vehicle

Pininfarina
Pininfarina's Bluecar will be used in Paris.

Published on 3/10/2011

Remember the Pininfarina Bluecar from the 2008 Paris motor show? It's closer to becoming reality.

Pininfarina said on Thursday that it will lease an Italian factory to prototype company Cecomp, which plans to build 4,000 copies of the electric car. They will be used in Autolib, a car-sharing service in France.

French company Bollore Group won the contract to supply the cars.

The Pininfarina agreement includes 57 workers and machinery and it runs through the end of 2013. It's a $19.3 million deal.

Source: Autoweek

Introducing The Nido EV From Pininfarina

The Nido EV. Click to enlarge.

Leading automotive design group Pininfarina unveiled the Nido EV, the first running prototype of the “Nido Development Program”, the project for an electric car conceived, designed and built entirely by the Pininfarina Style and Engineering Centre of Cambiano (Turin). The Nido EV prototype is a designed both to explore the electrification of a small city car and to develop a modular floorpan.

The Nido EV prototype is propelled by a 30 kW, 125 N·m (92 lb-ft) synchronous permanent magnet motor powered by a 21.2 kWh, 278V Zebra Z5 Ni-NaCl battery. When fully charged, it has a range of 140 km (87 miles) and a top speed of 120 km/h (75 mph), limited electronically, and accelerates 0-60 km/h in 6.7 seconds.

Interior of the prototype. Click to enlarge.

Charge time for the battery is 8 hours.

The body structure of this first prototype is a tubular steel frame, while the final version will have an aluminium space frame. The structure was designed to adapt to four different, completely electric or hybrid vehicles: 2-seater, 2+2, pickup and light van.

The Nido Development Program also envisages the development of two more, slightly larger versions: the first will be a hybrid with an engine positioned at the front and a motor at the rear; the second will be electric with a front motor.

The Nido Development Program will use an AC electrical compressor and a high voltage electric heater making it possible to implement automatic control strategies which will help to reduce consumption in most conditions.

The Program will also cover research into solutions and light-weight components with a high mechanical/electrical efficiency, and energy saving solutions (batteries with outstanding charging performance) and braking systems specifically for hybrid/electrical applications.

Pininfarina is also collaborating with the French company Bolloré on the BlueCar EV development.The BlueCar is powered by a BatScap lithium metal polymer pack.

We will continue to ‘dress’ technology, and we will offer even more industrial design services, continuing to play a key role as a design house and an innovative partner with unique skills, able to provide solutions that can translate into competitive advantage for our clients.

Consistent with our industrial plan, we will maintain our commitment to sustainable mobility, in other words both the development and production of electrical vehicles (cars and buses), and research into both alternative components and materials, and aerodynamic shapes that can help to make vehicles lighter and reduce their consumption and emissions.

—Pininfarina CEO Silvio Pietro Angori