Lancia Pu+Ra HPE Points the Way to EV Future

• Lancia collaborates with luxury furniture maker Cassina for an EV concept that previews the underpinnings of the New Ypsilon.

• The Pu+Ra HPE concept—which stands for High Performance Electric—previews Lancia's turn to electrification, with plans to sell only EVs starting in 2028.

• The innovative concept remixes classic Lancia design details with an interior inspired by Italian luxury furniture, along with using sustainable and recyclable materials.

Lancia may have committed to launching only new electric cars starting in 2026, but until now we've rarely seen just how the storied marque imagines the turn to electrification. The 116-year-old Italian luxury brand, under the Stellantis umbrella for a few years now, obliged this week with an adventurous concept inspired by Italian furniture design.

Lancia teamed up with luxury furniture maker Cassina for an EV concept based on the upcoming New Ypsilon, slated to arrive in 2024. But while the New Ypsilon will be a small crossover, the Pu+Ra HPE concept is an avant-garde coupe expected to preview some of the styling cues of the 2024 concept, while borrowing the planned production model's battery, electric motor, and other components.

First, the name itself requires a short expository monologue, even though diehard Lancia fans may remember what car first bore the HPE acronym, with the Lancia Beta using it to denote High Performance Estate.

"The concept car is named Lancia Pu+Ra HPE: 'Pu+Ra' refers to the brand's new, pure, and radical design language, while HPE stands for High Performance Electric, for a car that is Eco-sustainable, Exciting and Evolved, all at the same time," the automaker says.

The concept's rear glass is a direct nod to the Beta HPE, while the roof itself features a circular window inspired by architectural elements.

The concept—finished in a color Lancia calls Progressive Green—relies on large glass all around to fill the interior with natural light, intended to give it the feeling of a warm living space. The exterior of the concept was designed with aerodynamics in mind, with Lancia designers even taking the efficiency of the wheels into account.

When it comes to the electric drivetrain, the automaker says that the concept's battery is good for a range of over 700 kms, or 435 miles, but boasts a charging time of just over 10 minutes (with the needed charging hardware, we might add).

The interior, including the entire rear and lower parts, are finished in a velvety nubuck produced in Italy by Poltrona Frau, while the floor is covered with a natural wool carpet, designed to reinforce the feeling of a home's interior.

Elsewhere, the EV relies on sustainable and recyclable materials in an effort to revisit the concept of tradition. The interior of the electric coupe achieves this by using panno Lancia wool cloth upholstery for the seats, crafted in a partnership with Cassina, which also uses a new ocher velvet material. The rear shelf, meanwhile, features wood marquetry that uses an upcycled raw material crafted with the expertise of Tabu, which offers a "biodiversity" collection of inlaid wood elements.

"An innovative and circular product that uses processing waste from a range of high-quality woods veneer, recovering and skillfully reforming them in the hands of expert cabinetmakers, to become an original and eclectic new material," the automaker notes.

While the overall shape of this concept will be quite different from the 2024 New Ypsilon we'll see in Europe next year, it's safe to say at this point that we're living through the last few years of internal combustion Lancia vehicles. Starting in 2026 the marque will launch only new electric models, and two years later it plans to only sell EVs.

How can Lancia pull this off on just a short time scale?

The answers to both questions rely heavily on the fact that Lancia's lineup has been quite small over the past two decades, and also far more upmarket than it used to be just a short time ago, when Lancia sold a Chrysler 300 sedan in Europe with a different grille and Thema badging.

The technical backing of Stellantis EV platforms, meanwhile, will allow Lancia to offer nothing but EVs in just a few short years without having to develop much from scratch, aside from vehicle bodies and interiors. This concept, therefore, is a fairly good preview of the role that Lancia the brand will play in crafting cars from now on, relying on EV platforms of its corporate parent.

Should Fiat dealerships offer Lancia EV models stateside once they arrive, or is the brand not well known enough at this point or too upmarket to work here? Let us know what you think.