Pininfarina’s Battista electric hypercar has been busy using its quad-motor sledgehammer to smash even more speed records.
The $2.2 million EV had already proved itself the fastest accelerating production car when it rocketed from zero to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 1.79 seconds, to 62 mph (100 km/h) in 1.86 seconds, 120 mph (193 km/h) in 4.49 seconds and to 124 mph (200 km/h) in 4.75 seconds at the Nardo test track in Italy last year. But now it’s added quarter-mile and half-mile records to that tally.
Pininfarina teamed up with Autocar India to time the Battista at India’s Natrax test facility earlier this month, using VBOX equipment to log the acceleration and top speed. The 1,874 hp (1,900 PS) machine deployed its 1,726 lb-ft (2,340 Nm) of torque through Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R rubber to hit the quarter-mile mark in 8.55 seconds and the half-mile mark in 13.38 seconds. Maybe I’m just old, but it doesn’t seem that long ago that 13.38 seconds was a respectable number for the quarter mile.
That 8.55-second quarter put the Battista only fractionally ahead of the Rimac Nevera, which recorded 8.58 seconds in 2021. But it shouldn’t come as too much of a shock that the two electric hypercars are so closely matched. The Battista is built around the same EV platform as the Nevera and uses a Rimac quad-motor drivetrain.
Related: Pininfarina Battista Sets New 0-60 And 0-120 MPH Records During UAE Debut
The team also teased the Battista up to its top speed, achieving 222.5 mph (358.03 km/h), though for these runs the hypercar was running on less extreme Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires. That was nowhere near fast enough to make Pininfarina’s first EV the world’s fastest production car, but it does make the Battista the fastest car ever driven on Indian soil. And the crew also notched up another local record when Autocar India’s Renuka Kirpalani took the wheel and clocked up 221.9 mph (357.10 km/h), becoming the world’s fastest Indian woman driver.
Don’t expect to find any of these records in next year’s edition of Guinness’s famous book, though. They weren’t ratified by Guinness World Records, but by the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India (FMSCI). But regardless of who was doing the counting, the Battista is one seriously rapid car.