The Pininfarina Battista Is a $2.5 Million Hypercar With 2,000 Horsepower

This is a Pininfarina Battista and it's a serious hypercar. In terms of performance it has almost 2,000 horsepower. In terms of pricing it starts around two and a half million dollars and in terms of rarity they're only going to build 150 of these for the entire planet. But the Battista is different from most other hypercars in one key area. It's fully electric. Today I'm going to review the Pininfarina Battista and show you all of its amazing quirks and features. Today's video is sponsored by Cars and Bids which is my online car auction website for modern enthusiast cars. So far Cars and Bids has hosted more than 20,000 car auctions of special cool and interesting cars like this and this and this and this. So if you're looking to buy or sell an enthusiast car do it on Cars and Bids. All right time for the quirks and features of the Pininfarina Battista and let's start with the basics. Pininfarina is of course the famous Italian design studio responsible for creating some of the most famous car designs of all time, specifically best known for their working relationship with Ferrari that lasted for decades. And the Battista is Pininfarina's very first car that's their own with their own branding and badging rather than a design they created for someone else. And I'm very grateful to Pininfarina Newport Beach for letting me come and review the Pininfarina Battista. You can check out Pininfarina Newport Beach on Instagram or their website by clicking the link in the description below. So what exactly is the Battista? Well like I said it's a hypercar and a fully electric one with about 230 miles of fully electric range according to the EPA. Now the Battista shares some of its components battery and structural with the other EV hypercar the Rimac Nivera. Although Pininfarina assures me they've made a lot of changes to the Battista to distinguish it from the Nivera including obviously the design. This car looks quite different but also the chassis tuning, the drive modes, the interior feel and materials layout, the way it steers, handles, accelerates, all of it has been upgraded, updated, and changed by Pininfarina. They just use the same basic kind of underpinnings from the Rimac Nivera. As for pricing deep into hypercar territory like I mentioned starting price around two and a half million dollars. This car has a sticker price of just under three million dollars. It's a massive price tag but then it has massive performance just under 1900 horsepower which is of course insane and that propels this car from 0 to 60 in under 1.9 seconds. Probably the fastest accelerating car on the planet. It also does a top speed of 217 miles an hour so it's deep into ultimate high performance car territory in terms of performance. To me the amazing thing about those performance numbers is that they come in spite of this car's 4,400 pound curb weight which isn't massive but it's not exactly light especially for a performance car. As you can imagine a lot of that curb weight is due to the batteries which take up about a third of it roughly 1,500 pounds of batteries in the Batista. But let's talk quirks and features and we'll start with the key. This is what the key looks like to a Pininfarina Batista. You will never see this key again. I will never see this key again but here's what it looks like. The Pininfarina logo on one side you flip it over and you have your buttons lock unlock the trunk and Pininfarina written in the famous font down the side. That is your Pininfarina Batista key. Next up once you've unlocked the doors it's time to open them and of course they open up. This car has these cool butterfly doors like a supercar, a hypercar should give it the drama that you'd expect from a car like this. And there's more drama when you open the doors to discover little hidden easter eggs on the side. You can see here on the driver's side this is an image of this particular car on the production line and then transferred by hand painting onto the door which looks tremendously cool. Over on the passenger side here's an image of the production line itself where they actually build the Pininfarina grafted onto the inside of the door. You'd only see this little easter egg when you open up the door and you can see here it also says where everything starts because of course that's true of the production line of this car or any car. Now here you can also see Batista sort of signed like a signature and it is indeed a signature because this car is named after a person. Batista Farina was the founder of Pininfarina and of course this car's namesake and so his signature appears in various places on the inside and outside of the car that bears his name. But anyway next we climb inside and discover all of the amazing quirks and features in here starting with the starter button. Although that term really undersells what this is. It's a circular button screen that's mounted on this cool panel it almost looks like a jet engine exhaust. To start the car you push on the button screen that wakes it up and then you twist the outer edge of this screen this circular dial and that changes gear park reverse neutral drive as you can see pretty cool. Now over on the other side mounted on the driver door panel you have another little screen dial and that changes your drive mode and you can adjust between several different drive modes that again Pininfarina developed just for the Batista different from the Rimac Nivera. Now it's at this point that I should mention that the Pininfarina Batista is equipped with various hidden speakers inside and out that project a noise that's intended to match the drive mode that you've chosen. So if you go into the calm drive mode the car is mostly quiet and calm but if you choose the highest performance drive mode Furiosa then the car emanates this sort of hum like it's pulsating even when it's just sitting still from these hidden external mounted speakers. I guess the thinking is it's trying to replicate the sound that an engine would make it idle but instead this car's electric it's futuristic so it has this sort of aggressive hum that gets more aggressive as you get more aggressive through the drive modes which is a pretty interesting idea and of course as you accelerate the hum gets louder to simulate that acceleration more on that later when I get behind the wheel. Now it's also important to point out that these dials to turn on the car and adjust the gear or to adjust the drive mode they're metal not plastic they're metal and they feel fantastic you touch them with your hands the feel the weight is just wonderful and that's also true of a lot of the other controls in this interior for instance in the center control stack all of these are also metal even though they're simple controls for the windshield defroster the power windows driver and passenger side the hazard lights they're all metal controls they look great they feel great I guess they should be on a car this expensive and the metal controls go beyond just that take a look at the door handle on the door panel you lift it to get out it's also metal and it feels great to touch in fact they've even integrated metal controls onto the steering wheel where you have a lot of your driver and vehicle controls your turn signals are mounted here your bluetooth phone operation is here your wipers your high beams your cruise control all mounted on the steering wheel with these metal buttons that feel fantastic to touch it's cool they've integrated the metal even onto the wheel and also on the wheel also on a metal button is your vehicle axle lifter you want to lift to clear something you just press that and the car goes up you don't have to go into any infotainment menu takes a few seconds you're holding up traffic just push the button and you're up right on the steering wheel and speaking of metal in the center in between the seat backs you have a plaque here with some special words on it it tells you that this was made with love in italy where everything starts that comes back again and also reminds you this is one of just 150 units for the entire world this car is tremendously limited production you'll notice this plaque is also screwed in with some special and unusual screws remember those we'll come back to them a little later but next moving on from the plaque let's go to the glove box this car has one you open it up with a little button mounted under the dashboard it automatically pops open and you can see the supports for the glove box are billet aluminum which looks pretty cool it also makes for just about the sturdiest glove box you can imagine if you want more storage go back in between the seats you can see this little pocket here opens up it's not huge but it does deliver some storage capacity in the interior of the batista there's also a little storage compartment here in the center console it's carbon fiber but it's to be a spot where you put your phone you can see this little pad at the bottom keeps it from sliding around and there's a little depression where you could have a cord stuck in if you wanted to do that now speaking of the center console some interesting items worth noting in here for one this car has cup holders although perhaps more appropriately it has cup holder or just one in the back the front one is triangular and really doesn't look large enough for any rational sized cup also here in the center console you have this little toggle switch that allows you to adjust the stereo track and make a few other stereo changes i'll show you that more in a minute and you can twist it to adjust your volume turn it up or down you also have this spot in the center which is designed to hold the key when you climb inside the car you're supposed to stick the key here you can see this piece even says key and it fits snugly right into place right here in the center so it will stay put while you're driving around in your batista even when you're doing pulls with 1900 horsepower now also in the center console and a very unusual control in this car is the switch to adjust the rear wing you can see it right here you can put it up or down and it's almost a handle not even just a switch it's quite large again it's metal it feels good it has a nice way it's it's an unusually large thing for something you're probably not going to do all that often and it's positioned right in the middle in your line of touch i guess they figure you'll be putting the wing up and down a lot and that's how you do it now i'll get to the wing a little bit more in a second because there are some hidden easter eggs back there but first we must discuss the screens there are quite a few in this interior and they have some interesting functions so the left screen to the left of the steering wheel can do a few different things the most important is it controls your basic vehicle function so you use this screen to for example turn on the headlights if you want to turn them on but also to adjust the brightness of the screens inside or to adjust the mirrors there's no power mirror control switch it's all done in the screens in fact you even fold the mirrors in the screens you just swipe the mirror closed and then the folds which i find to be absolutely lovely and amazingly you even control the seats here you can move the seats forward backward up down and not just the driver's seat but the passenger seat in fact the passenger has no seat controls for their seat it's all adjusted through the driver's screen so if you're the passenger in a batista you have to ask the driver very nicely to adjust your seat up down forward or backwards until you're comfortable because you can't do it yourself now also found in this screen you can personalize how the car responds in each drive mode so each drive mode has a screen within the screen and when you go into the mode there is a default setting for that drive mode but then you can make personalization changes to for example tighten up the steering firm up the suspension increase the region braking within that drive mode and you can make these changes for every drive mode it's quite a bit of vehicle personalization in here this screen also gives you some general vehicle information like for example your tire pressures and even your tire temperatures which is pretty cool and also other stuff like your range battery usage that sort of thing all in your driver side screen next we move to the center screen which almost looks like a vertically placed smartphone just sitting there above the steering wheel now this screen only has your basics as you might expect it's right in your line of sight so it tells you what gear you're in how fast you're going how much charge you have left what drive mode you're in again only your very basics right below where you're looking while you drive and then your final major screen is to the right of the steering wheel and this functions sort of like a fairly basic infotainment system it doesn't have all the cool fixins you might get from some automakers but you get a stereo system in this car of course you use this to play music and select media you also have a navigation system so you have a map here that's fairly responsive and of course input a destination and it'll tell you how to get where you're going there's bluetooth so you can control your phone in here and you use this screen to adjust your climate controls so you tap on the temperature and it pulls up the whole climate control panel and you can change the temperature the airflow where the air is coming out etc now this car even for almost three million dollars does not have dual zone climate control it's just one zone for the whole interior but you do have heated seats driver and passenger heated seats which is a nice luxury touch for the batista now you also have one other screen in addition to those three plus the screen buttons to start the car and change the drive mode you also have a screen for the rear view mirror you can see the mirror is just a mirror right now but if you flip the center switch it becomes a screen that's showing you an image from a camera mounted on the outside of the car having a rear view mirror camera i think it's a great feature for all cars but it's especially great for a hyper car with compromised rear visibility like the batista so you might be wondering what exactly is compromising the rear visibility since there's no big engine back there what's taking up the rear window space let's check it out the answer is that it's a cargo area a small one but a cargo area nonetheless and you can see that it fits two important bags that come with the car at the top in the front you have this bag which contains your charging cables obviously you need those to charge it below that you have another bag also tailor-made for this car to fit into this spot that contains some important items you might need to operate the car for instance you can see there's a trickle charger in here to keep the secondary battery charged you also have an air compressor to pump up a tire in case you have a tire issue while you're driving around in your batista in this little batista bag you have a road safety vest and there's some miscellaneous tools in here also including the center lock for the wheels in the upper part of this bag you have the towing eye a road triangle and this little pen and farina key remember earlier when i told you to keep in mind those unusual screws on the plaque in the interior well this key can release those screws and take off the plaque why would you ever want to do that well you wouldn't it doesn't make any sense but you can with this specialized key now of course you could also take these two bags out of the cargo area completely and then you have the cargo area for whatever you might want to put back here probably the most interesting thing though about this cargo area is accessing it you can't just push a button in back and it opens right up instead you gotta touch this little switch in the interior and hold it in place and the cargo area door automatically opens itself up when you want to close it same deal touch the switch and hold it in place until the cargo area door is closed if you just tap the switch the door will close a little bit but not all the way you gotta keep holding it down now thankfully there is a second way to operate this cargo door on the key fob you can press and hold this button and it'll pop open automatically or pop closed but you don't manually open or close anything the car does it automatically for you now back here are some other interesting items worth noting something else that opens is this little flap which contains the charge port that's where the charge port is located open that up that's where you plug the car in and when you have it plugged in a very cool feature this little window with the pin inferino logo inside it pulses it sort of lights up to let you know that the car is charging which is cool now back here you also have a few other interesting quirks and features starting with the rear way you can see it's big and extended right now because i've pulled the lever in the interior to open it up and the reason i've done that is so you can see the designs underneath the way this car has custom hand-painted designs that show the car on one side as you can see pretty cool and over on the other side it shows sort of an image of the area where the car is built again hand-painted special custom and you wouldn't see them unless the wing was up but when it is up there they are adding kind of a cool little special quirk to this car and obviously pin inferino will work with customers to put other special designs of their own liking onto the rear wing to add some personalization and customization to their car now back here you can also see the taillights of course which almost look like they're floating in place the taillights have a cool purpose they actually are part of an aerodynamic component you can see they're lifted up above this panel and air flows all the way through it from the side of the car not just under bodywork but under the taillight itself which is part of this aero panel it's a pretty cool feature now as for the general look of this car i gotta say i think it's beautiful it's a really attractive well proportioned nicely styled and designed car no surprise pin inferino knows what they're doing in this area especially and they've done a great job this car the exterior styling is not too fussy not overdone but it's also not so simple that it's generic frankly i think it looks really good from basically every angle a very nice attractive well proportioned car if anything i think it looks a little like modern ferrari design language which started off with the 458 but then that makes sense because pin inferino designed that car too it's always been beautiful and ferrari's been using that design language ever since in all of their cars and it makes sense that pin inferino would have sort of a similar look since it was originally their design but overall i think a very beautiful car and a few interesting quirks and features to note up here for one you walk up to the car and there's no immediately visible door handle it's located in here inside this giant intake you tap on a rubber pad and then it electronically pops the door open and you can open it the rest of the way yourself another item worth noting on the side of the car you can see the tires these are michelin pilot sport cup 2r tires basically racing tires for the road as close as you can get to a racing tire and still keep them street legal apparently it's the only tire they could find that could handle the massive amount of power that this car puts down one interesting thing speaking of the wheels and tires is that the windshield washer fluid reservoir is located here inside the wheel well on the passenger side and if you want to add washer fluid you'd get in the car turn the wheel all the way to the left and then it just kind of pops open and you add washer fluid it's a different spot than anywhere i've seen it before but the reason they do that is this front compartment remains closed it's for servicing only there's no front trunk in this car storage space of any kind this part is fixed in place so the washer fluid's got to go somewhere and it's there the other thing worth noting about the front probably the only design element of this car that i don't like is this led light bar that goes across the front end i'm a fan of led light bars but this one looks almost a little cheap and almost a little aftermarket it's not exactly my favorite look on the car again i think the general design is overall beautiful but i would say that that's one little area where it fell short i'm sure they were going for distinctive but to me it just doesn't really look that great but with all of the quirks and features displayed and shown now it's time to get behind the wheel and see what it's like to drive a 1900 horsepower hypercar that does 0 to 60 in 1.8 something seconds let's see all right driving the batista now this thing has a surprising amount of a sense of occasion to it i think one of the things that people are concerned about with ev supercars sports cars hypercars is that they don't sort of have that feel that like a you know exotic car the big old v10 or v12 has but this car just getting in it looking around it climbing in the door is so cool the drive modes the push button starter and then the sounds that it makes when you're driving there's sounds that come in they're obviously you know not engine sounds from an engine but they really all sort of enhance your experience to give you some of the drama back that you would have had in a you know real normal supercar with a with a big engine behind you this actually feels surprisingly comfortable considering what it is now i'm only in the energica mode um obviously there's there's a furiosa mode that i could get into that would probably beat me up a little bit more but it feels surprisingly nice and comfortable in here for a car like this it's definitely not really what i was expecting all right i'm going to step on it here oh that was about a quarter throttle it still feels like the fastest thing i've ever been in oh my god wow this is unbelievably fast i'm i i'm like afraid to give it full throttle we're on cup twos we're on a surface street and i know if i give it full throttle for even a second on a surface street we're going to be twice the legal speed limit there is some tire noise from those cup two rs uh which is not really a surprise considering they're sort of like a racing tire for the road oh man this car has so much power it's absolutely crazy oh it is just so incredibly i'm terrified to floor it completely i really don't think i'm a qualified individual to do that it is just so incredibly fast now it's hard to get a real feel for handling a car like this unless you're out there on the racetrack like going really hard but i will say the steering is quite quite direct and very very quick it has the feel of a true sports car to it in the way that it instantly changes directions much like some of the very best other modern supercars 488 pista is sort of my benchmark for really quick steering changes uh direction changes and this car can can do just that it feels similar all right here we go oh my god that is the fastest thing i have ever experienced in my entire life i think i we have room to do it one more time i'm going to try the speed is unbelievable it is impossible to explain or describe how fast it feels wow that is absolutely wild what an unbelievable party trick every electric car feels fast because of the instant power and torque this one feels on a totally different level honestly it feels faster than plaid they claim the 0 to 60 is a little quicker than plaid it's 0.1 seconds imperceptible but because you're lower and because they type in the sound and you hear the tires it gives you kind of the this this special supercar feel that you can't get in a car like that oh my god oh i have never experienced this in all the crazy supercars i have never driven i have never experienced anything like this level of acceleration that is totally totally crazy and it's not just a party trick for uh acceleration you know this car is a top speed of like almost 220 miles an hour this is a serious serious supercar it's also really amazing to me truthfully just how like nice it feels in here this car delivers an unbelievable amount of acceleration while also still giving you a pretty nice interior and a nice driving experience and driving feel like this car is actually reasonably luxurious and calm dare i say despite the performance level and it's only when you really get on it and you really start to hear the the rocket ship sound spool up that you really feel like you're in something absolutely crazy hard to believe but you could almost make the point that this car is daily drivable or at least frequently usable just given how relatively comfortable high-tech and rational it almost isn't here despite the crazy speed this car really is amazing and i understand the complaints regarding the you know the engine sound and it doesn't have a v12 or a w16 or whatever but it really delivers an amazing amount of drama and almost like a similar experience to a car with a true engine given all the sounds that it makes and how incredible the drama is plus it just is so incredibly unbelievably fast in a way that gas cars just aren't right now and it also feels surprisingly you feel surprisingly confident when you're going that fast the car feels very planted very solid it feels like a very well-built car you'd expect that given the price tag over two million dollars but it really does deliver sort of a nice luxury experience like a bugatti and like a solid car that doesn't leave you feeling like it's a kit car like some of these cars can but with the unbelievable acceleration match i'm very impressed with this car it really has a lot of amazing traits and it is quite a thing to drive this car and feel this acceleration and yet still feel like you're in a pretty competent modern well executed sports car and so that's the pininfarina batista one of the craziest hyper cars around with amazing performance tremendous acceleration and some wonderful quirks and features and now it's time to give the batista a dug score and the dug score is here 69 out of 100 which places the batista here against rivals it's a respectable showing and the batista really is a thrill despite complaints from a lot of people that an ev hyper car can't be one it can the batista is legitimately fun engaging exciting amazing and beautiful and yet it's just not the same not quite the same and i think people at this price point really want an engine something truly special a quad turbo w16 or a naturally aspirated v12 or a v8 from a race car the batista delivers a lot of the goods but at this price point where there are many options it's a bit of a tough sell if it looked like that with a smooth well-designed v12 and three pedals we'd be having a different conversation