Pininfarina, the Mahindra Group-owned global design house, has revealed a range of environment-friendly vehicles developed for its customer, the Hybrid Kinetic Group. While the five-seater K550 and seven-seater K750 SUVs see their global debut, the H600 luxury sedan makes its Asian debut at the Shanghai Motor Show.

On the heels of the world debut of the H600 hybrid sedan at the Geneva motor show in March, the unveiling of two electric-drive SUV concept cars highlights the Hybrid Kinetic Group’s drive towards clean energy vehicle development.

All the three cars are equipped with micro-turbine generator range extenders and super batteries, along with highly efficient, energy conserving and eco-friendly electric drivetrain systems.

"We are very proud to present in Shanghai a new family of cars born from the collaboration between Pininfarina and Hybrid Kinetic Group,” said Pininfarina CEO, Silvio Pietro Angori. “These three cars express the Pininfarina know-how and skills which are perfect for the Chinese market: style research and development aimed at defining a timeless beauty in the best tradition of Italian style. Moreover, we give shape to HK technology combining design with environmental sustainability”.

“The Hybrid Kinetic Group recognises the needs for energy security, environmental protection, and the massive development potential of clean energy cars. We are dedicated to the development of luxury clean energy vehicles with full intellectual property rights. Our endeavour pushes the development of the Chinese automobile industry, benefits the people, ushers in a sustainable future, and helps create a more harmonious society,” said Xu Jianguo, president and CEO of the Hybrid Kinetic Group, a Hong Kong-listed company which aims to become the world’s leading clean energy automobile company.

Leveraging aerospace tech

The micro-turbine generator range extenders employ the latest aerospace technology, a precision industrial design that helps in reducing environment impact.

The Hybrid Kinetic Group’s self-developed high-energy and high-density super battery enables a unique energy recovery ability. Compared with conventional new-energy vehicles, HK new-energy vehicles boast energy recovery rate of over 30 percent, and a range of over 1,000km.
Micro-turbine generator range extenders can provide clean electricity to vehicles and can charge the batteries anywhere and at any time, freeing the vehicles from charging facilities. This will fundamentally change the status quo of reliance of new energy vehicles on charging infrastructure and the need for grid support, thus removing the development bottleneck of new-energy vehicle industry.

These micro-turbine generators have an estimated lifespan of 50,000 hours with maintenance every 10,000 hours; the super batteries have a lifespan of 50,000 DOD charging cycles.
The Shanghai Auto Show comes a few weeks after the announcement of the signing of a trade agreement between Pininfarina and Hybrid Kinetic Group. As per this pact, Pininfarina will support Hybrid Kinetic in the turnkey development of an electric car from the styling concept and development stage through to the engineering development and virtual and physical validation for series production. The collaboration agreement, worth about 65 million Euros, will have a total duration of 46 months.

"Hybrid Kinetic,” said Angori, “has chosen to cooperate with the Pininfarina Group, thanks to the set of skills and technologies in the field of sustainable mobility that we have developed over several years. This agreement confirms the primacy of our company in the world of automotive design, engineering and production of small series at a time of great change in the automotive world”.

Pininfarina takes to China in a big way

Pininfarina was the first Italian design house to provide styling and engineering services to Chinese carmakers since 1996. Since then, it has expanded its range of activities by developing partnerships with manufacturers like AviChina (Hafei), Chery, Changfeng, Brilliance, BAIC, JAC and others, for which commercially successful vehicles have been designed, such as the DX7, the first product of the collaboration between Pininfarina and South East Motor (SEM). The DX7 was followed in 2016 by the DX3 concept, a compact SUV that anticipates the upcoming production car, also developed by Pininfarina in Italy.

In 2010 Pininfarina Automotive Engineering Shanghai (PAES) was established with the aim of locating a satellite design development in Shanghai, the strategic automotive hub in Asia. PAES is today an established outpost of commercial development and design creation.