Pininfarina is not a full-fledged automaker. The company that made its name as one of the premier auto design studios in the world is now called Automobili Pininfarina. It’s expected to launch a fleet of electric SUVs as part of its future offerings, but the first model to come out of the newly-minted automaker will be the furthest thing from an SUV. According to boss Michael Perschke, the first model to carry the Automobili Pininfarina badge will be an electric hypercar.

Pininfarina isn’t messing around, is it? The Mahindra-owned automaker is already aiming high with plans to develop an electric hypercar as its first-ever production model. Speaking with Automotive News Europe, Michael Perschke left no room for interpretation with the company’s first offering. “It will be a true hypercar,” he said. That’s it. No caveats. No conditions. No nothing.

Perschke didn’t dive into any details, but he did confirm a few notable facts about the planned hypercar. Owing to its electric powertrain, the Pininfarina boss indicated that the yet-to-be-named hypercar will have as much as 300 miles of range between charges. He didn’t say how much power it’ll carry, but that didn’t stop him from dropping another bombshell: the hypercar will be able to sprint from 0 to 62 mph in under two seconds, a staggering number that puts it in the ballpark of the second-generation Tesla Roadster’s own hyped acceleration time of just 1.9 seconds. Not surprisingly, the Pininfarina electric hypercar will carry a price tag of around $2.5 million.

Now that we’ve had a few seconds to let this news sink in, the speculation now turns to what kind of model Automobili Pininfarina has in store. Have we seen it before in a concept version before? After all, Pininfarina has debuted a number of hypercar-worthy designs in recent years, most notably the hydrogen-powered H2 Speed that we saw in its evolved form — the first concept was shown in 2016 — at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show. Even if it doesn’t look like the H2 Speed, we can at least expect this future model to look like a legitimate hypercar because, well, this is Pininfarina we’re talking about here.

If everything goes according to plan, we could see the electric hypercar as early as 2020. Since this will be Pininfarina’s first-ever model as a standalone automaker, you can be sure that the company will do everything it can to make a lasting first impression before its fleet of SUVs arrives soon after the hypercar's launch.

References

The Pininfarina H2 Speed Evolves from Simple Concept to Full-Blown, Hydrogen-Powered Racecar

Read our full review on the 2016 Pininfarina H2 Speed.

Read more Pininfarina news.