Pagani confirms it is developing an all-electric hypercar

ITALIAN sports car manufacturer Pagani has revealed it is developing an all-electric powertrain for its next generation hypercar, despite company founder Horacio Pagani admitting he’s yet to be convinced about EVs’ environmental benefits.

Speaking at the Aussie launch of the $5.5 million Pagani Huayra Roadster in Melbourne, Pagani said his eponymous company will separately develop an EV model alongside its next generation multi-million dollar fuel-burner.

Pagani said through an interpreter he’s hedging his bets so the company isn’t caught on the back foot, if or when only one of the technologies is left standing.

The Argentinian-born automobile designer believes the pollution produced when making EVs cancels out a lot of their clean-driving benefits and insists we’d all be better off installing more efficient heating systems in our homes. But he conceded it was wrong to base future plans on current technology.

“This is a bit of an uncharted territory for us still. We’re talking about not just the Tesla level of car, but the hypercar level,” he explained.

“But for Pagani it’s something that we cannot be blind to. One or the other would have a future so to that extent we are committed to this project.

“But another question is how many clients would be ready to pay such a big cheque for a full electric hypercar?”

On the bright size, Pagani says it will be much easier to design a car around an electric powertrain (which he compares to a washing machine) than a brutish mid-mounted engine, such as the bespoke 562kW/1000Nm Mercedes-AMG 6.0-litre twin-turbo V12 in the Huayra Roadster.

Not that he intends to stop penning lines around the latter anytime soon, with Pagani and Mercedes-AMG “in discussion for a project after 2025”.