After acquiring Pininfarina at the end of last year, Indian conglomerate Mahindra is looking to invest in an Italian-styled electric supercar.
Pininfarina has so far worked on interiors for its new owner’s Indian-market SUVs, but it seems like they’re aspiring to building their own car and become more than just a design studio.
As reported by Autoexpress, Mahindra chairman Anand Mahindra was recently quoted as saying that in their view “Pininfarina is a brand in and of itself. You don’t mess with something that’s working. Among Pininfarina’s aspirations now that it’s part of our group is not simply to design for other brands, but to design their own car, which is something they never had until now.”
However, the Italian company recently designed the H2 Speed hydrogen-powered concept car (pictured in this article), which they brought to this year’s Geneva Motor Show a few months back.
A report also surfaced last month about Pininfarina looking to aid its parent company’s “electric agenda” by putting an attractive design around an all-electric drivetrain.
Mahindra, that launched their e2o electric car in the UK, is also in control of South Korean brand SsangYong, which may not be getting any EV tech in the near future, but according to Mahindra’s Dr Pawan Goenka, the interest is already there.
“We’ll have a new platform in 14 or 15 months and a second new platform a year after that,” said Dr Goenka. “Our focus will remain on SUVs. We also want to develop our presence in western Europe and the UK and a big way. At the moment SsangYong is making around 150,000 cars a year, which is not sufficient. We want to be building 250-300,000 units within five years.”
As for SsangYong getting anywhere close to using an EV drivetrain, Goenka stated that they’re definitely interested “but we’re still discussing it.”
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