Yahoo Autos Pininfarina Is Developing Electric Drivetrains and Self-Driving Cars
Italian design house Pininfarina is a relic of a bygone era. Pininfarina and other companies like it sprung up in the early days of the automobile, when the automaker provided a chassis and design houses clothed them, often with gorgeous shapes. After the war, Pininfarina switched to design and manufacturing, helping birth some of the 20th century's most beautiful road cars.
Ferrari P4-5 by Pininfarina pictured.
Things are different today, though. Automakers rarely outsource design and manufacturing, and the market for customized one-off cars is very small, making things difficult for Pininfarina and the like. That's why it's now pivoting towards developing the future of cars, with the help of its new parent company Mahindra.
Automotive News caught up with Pininfarina CEO Silvio Angori to get the lowdown on what's next for the company. While it looks to maintain its coach building heritage, Pininfarina's future looks quite different than its past.
"The OEMs are facing a different world, a world of providing mobility services, transportation services where the fun-to-drive car is secondary or doesn't exist because you have a driverless vehicle," Angori told Automotive News. "That is a major opportunity for us."
Angori says that Pininfarina can put its knowledge of aesthetics towards the interiors of self-driving cars, which become increasingly important as the roles of drivers and passengers change.
"In a driverless car, you need to provide something for the person spending all their time [not driving] inside the car, and it is design that makes the difference," said Angori. "Even if you're reading your emails or doing whatever, do you want to be in an ugly place or an attractive place?"
In addition, Angori told Automotive News that Pininfarina is working on at least ten different powertrain programs, a majority of them involving electrification of some sort. Even as Pininfarina looks to the future, though, it will still do what it's best known for–one-offs.
"There are studies showing about 300-ish customers that per year would be inclined to buy a one-off," said Angori. "Who can provide that kind of exclusivity if not Pininfarina?"
Pininfarina has a lot of aesthetic expertise to work with, but it will be interesting to see how it applies that to a very different sort of car.
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