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The Pininfarina Battista is more than just face-warping acceleration

 1 year ago
source link: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/08/the-pininfarina-battista-is-more-than-just-face-warping-acceleration/
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500 kW FWD mode? Sure, why not —

The Pininfarina Battista is more than just face-warping acceleration

Four motors, 1.4 megawatts of power, and a kick in the pants like nothing else.

Steven Ewing - 8/15/2023, 3:00 PM

A yellow pininfarina Battista parked with mountains in the background
Enlarge / The Pininfarina Battista looks almost as good as it goes. And boy does this car go.
Pininfarina

There’s quick, and then there’s launching a car with such brutality that you can legitimately feel your cheeks pulling away from your face. It takes the Automobili Pininfarina Battista just 1.8 seconds to accelerate to 60 miles per hour. Yet somehow, that isn’t the most eye-popping detail about this hand-built Italian hypercar. Ditto its $2.5 million asking price.

A quick refresher: Automobili Pininfarina is a spinoff of legendary design house Pininfarina, a company responsible for making some of the automotive world’s most gorgeous cars (and also the VinFast VF8). The Battista—named for company founder Battista “Pinin” Farina—is Automobili Pininfarina’s first product, and it shares its electric underpinnings with the Nevera, a similarly hyperbolic supercar from Croatian brand Rimac.

Those EV guts consist of a T-shaped 120 kWh battery pack and four electric motors, one at each wheel. Max output is a yes-you-read-that-correctly 1,877 hp (1,400 kW) and 1,726 lb-ft (2,340 Nm) of torque, and while the aforementioned 1.8-second 0-to-60-mph sprint is ludicrous in its own right, even more impressive is that the Battista never lets up. It takes less than five seconds to hit 124 mph (200 km/h), and you’ll see 186 mph in just over 10 seconds. The Battista’s top speed? 217 mph (350 km/h). You’ll be there in no time.

To avoid inadvertently launching the Battista out of your driveway, output is restricted to just—just!—670 hp (500 kW) and 863 lb-ft (1,133 NM) of torque in the default Calma drive mode. The Battista uses only its two front motors in this setting, and by the way, how hilarious is the thought of a 670-hp front-wheel-drive car? Exercise some restraint with your right foot and Pininfarina says you can actually see a driving range of 300 miles (482 KM) in Calma mode. But man, good luck not flooring this thing on every stretch of open road.

In the higher power modes, you'll use these brakes.
Enlarge / In the higher power modes, you'll use these brakes.
Pininfarina

Switch over to Pura mode to fire up the two rear motors, at which point output cranks up to 1,000 hp (745 kW) and 1,018 lb-ft (1,380 Nm). One more click of the drive setting dial puts you in Energica, which activates super-noticeable lateral torque vectoring and further boosts power to 1,475 hp (1,100 kW) and 1,357 lb-ft (1,840 Nm). This is also where the Battista’s massive rear wing comes into play, which not only gives you extra downforce over the rear end but also flips up (how profane) to serve as an air brake, slowing this two-door to a halt with sure-footedness.

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On that note, while the Battista has strong enough regenerative braking to operate with one-pedal driving in Calma mode, the electronic assistance lessens in the more hardcore drive settings. When you’re rocking along in Energica, you’ll need to make more liberal use of the stop pedal, where big carbon-ceramic Brembo brakes are powerful enough to rein in the ludicrous velocities the Battista can achieve. This feels more natural and makes your speeds easier to modulate. I wouldn’t want massive regenerative forces pulling me back at Energica speeds.

Furiosa mode is where you completely unlock the full 1,877 hp and 1,726 lb-ft, the Suono Puro electronic powertrain making the Battista sound like a spacecraft ready to launch. That's a bit clichéd, sure, but how the heck else do you describe a vehicle capable of such brutal, instant, and laughably unnecessary acceleration? As you fly by 100, 125, 150 mph, the Battista just hauls.

The rear wing acts as an air brake when necessary.
Enlarge / The rear wing acts as an air brake when necessary.
Pininfarina

Everything the Battista does is immediate. The power delivery, the brake force, the steering response—there’s no delay to any of this hypercar’s actions. Credit goes to the absolutely phenomenal chassis, which allows you to carry absurd speeds through turns with perfect balance and composure. Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires are a boon for traction, but there’s still so much sheer force being sent through the Battista’s quad motors that the car occasionally skips a beat if you floor it while exiting a corner. Everything is controllable, and that playful skittishness is always on the driver’s terms.

The power, the punch—it’s an absolute thrill. The Battista is like nothing I’ve ever driven. And that includes a Bugatti Chiron.

It’s pretty easy to drive in traffic, too, giving a commanding view of the road ahead down the short, raked hood. The Battista’s cowl is pretty low compared to other modern supercars, so you don’t have that claustrophobic sunk-in-the-bathtub feeling, and while not every control inside this Pininfarina is logical, it’s all stuff you’d get used to if you owned one.

Oh, by the way, Pininfarina assures me that its customers do drive their cars. These aren’t just garage queens. Thank heavens.

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