Are Electric Hypercars disrupting the luxury performance niche?

Another Italian firm entering the segment is in fact Pininfarina. One of the most recognisable and long-standing names in the luxury performance automotive industry. The iconic Italian coachbuilder and design company, responsible for some of the greatest designs in automotive history, unveiled the Battista.

So it is Lotus. Acquired by Chinese Geely in 2017, last year the manufacturer announced full-electric Evija. There is also the well-known Ariel with the upcoming P40, which could be the only exception price-wise.   

Other big OEMs such as Porsche (which already released the Taycan) and Pagani are allegedly already working on their own interpretation of Electric Hypercar.

WHAT ABOUT THE MARKET?

Except for P40 and Dendrobium D1 that have no official production numbers, all the other models listed sum up to just 541 units.

Their production runs start are all set in a four-year span (2017-2021), with 6 of these 9 models scheduled for a crowded 2020. Part if not all of these will have suffered some form of delay caused by the pandemic.  

While they might seem a lot, the numbers do not seem excessive for the potential market size. After all, since the term hypercar became a thing back in 2013 with the release of 918 Spyder, P1 and LaFerrari the production of these million-dollar cars has been constant on the ICE side. The three were produced between 2013 and 2015/16 in 918, 375, and 500 units respectively, an average of 448 units per year. McLaren later added 58 GTRs and Ferrari 210 LaFerrari Apertas. To these must be counted in also those few manufacturers like Bugatti, Koenigsegg, and Pagani that produce between 20 and 70 vehicles of this range per year.

WHAT IS THE OBJECTIVE OF THESE ELECTRIC HYPERCARS?

Arguably not simply making a sustainable business model out of it. The underlying meaning of such products is about building a market and improving technologies that, as it often happens, can be transported later into the mass market. But some of these companies, even if it might look like it, clearly do not compete with the same objectives.

Generally, it is about innovation excitement, and reputation. But established OEMs build on their own brands to solidify their status in this new niche. Newcomers instead have to prove something first in order to make it as worthy competitors.

Rimac did it by being one of the first entrants and later diversified its model by establishing numerous partnerships. Nio did it by shocking the industry with the EP9 record at the Nürburgring and showing they were not just about numbers and straight-line speed. Then they diversified as well into other services and most of all they introduced SUVs for the mass market (with more to come).

THE BRAND STILL COUNTS BUT…

Even with new and unconventional technology, the brand still plays a key role. Not only as a status but as the expertise behind a vehicle and the trust that it inspires. The confidence that whatever the final product is like, it will have been worth the investment with potential gains in the future is not something that every company can guarantee. But it is what allowed Lotus to quickly sell out all of its 130 $2.6 million Evijas, and Pininfarina, even if just at its first branded model, to sell over two-thirds of its 150 $2.5 million Battistas right after the presentation.

*Pininfarina Battista