Pagani Will Stick With V-12 Because Its Customer Don’t Want Hybrids

Pagani V-12s aren’t going anywhere.

The boutique supercar maker’s founder and namesake, Horacio Pagani, told The Drive that the company’s customers are the reason the company hasn’t built an electrified model, hybrid or otherwise. They just don’t want one.

The Pagani boss talked to the website during the recent unveiling of the Utopia’s Roadster variant and revealed that the marque’s third hypercar was almost a hybrid. Back in 2017, at the beginning of the vehicle’s development, the was thought that it would feature a hybrid twin-turbo V-8. But it quickly became clear the powertrain would add too much weight to the car, which just wouldn’t do for a Pagani.

“The hybrid V-8 was considered, but the car was just too heavy, 400 or 500 kilos [roughly 900 to 1,100 pounds] more, and our clients didn’t want anything to do with it,” the executive explained. “We have to build what the client is going to buy from us.”

Instead, Pagani and its powertrain partner, Mercedes-AMG, wound up developing a new twin-turbo 6.0-liter V-12. The combustion engine produces 852 horses without the help of any electric motors. It also meets worldwide regulations standards. Because of that last part, Pagani can hold off going hybrid or electric for a while longer. That’s good for the company since it’s a little more reliant on the whims of its customers than some of its bigger peers (although they’re not necessarily immune to the same issue).

“It’s not about being stubborn on whether it’s electric or hybrid—they are all fresh challenges for us,” he told The Drive. “Pagani is a family, we don’t have a massive automaker or conglomerate behind us, we have to build what the customer wants to buy and we have to have lots of technology to rapidly pivot in case we need to change.”

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Pagani’s comments leave room for an eventual electrified Pagani, but for the time being, the company is sticking with traditional internal combustion engines. Pagani models tend to stick around for a while too (the company unveiled the final example of the 25-year-old Zonda earlier this month). That means you should be able to buy a V-12-powered hypercar from the company well into the next decade, if not longer.