![Automobili Pininfarina is selling 1,900 hp electric hypercars inspired by billionaire Bruce Wayne aka Batman [Video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/04/Pininfarina-batman-EV.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Automobili Pininfarina is selling 1,900 hp electric hypercars inspired by billionaire Bruce Wayne aka Batman [Video]
If Batman’s true identity, Bruce Wayne, existed in real life, what car would you think he’d drive? Boutique electric hypercar builder Automobili Pininfarina has teamed up with Wayne Enterprises – a luxury brand based on the Batman franchise developed by Warner Brothers, to create four different bespoke EVs that will be produced in limited quantities and sold to consumers with pockets as deep as master Wayne’s.
Automobili Pininfarina is the all-electric rebirth of the original Pininfarina S.p.A. brand, founded in Italy in 1930. Since its 2018 renaissance, the Italian brand (which now operates out of Germany) has delivered some genuinely one-of-a-kind electric hypercars to gawk at.
Its portfolio began with the 1,877 horsepower Battista hyper GT, which has since seen multiple limited edition variants, including the $2.9 million Battista Anniversario and the Edizione—a special BEV dedicated to the first-ever Formula 1 champion Nino Farina.
Earlier this month, Automobili Pininfarina unveiled a third variant called the Battista Reversario, which can accelerate 0-60 mph in 1.79 seconds. Pininfarina’s BEVs all look like something Batman would drive, or at the very least, something the caped crusader’s true identity, Bruce Wayne, would cruise around Gotham City in.
In addition to the Battista, Automobili Pininfarina has launched another model called the B95 Barchetta—a topless hypercar that currently reigns as the most expensive BEV on the planet. It’s definitely Bruce Wayne material.
DC Comics and Warner Brothers, the companies behind the Batman franchise, feel the same way, so they have recruited Automobili Pininfarina to adapt the two models above into four bespoke EVs that they actually plan to sell to the public. Let’s start with the Battistas.
Automobili Pininfarina channels Batman with 4 new EVs
Automobili Pininfarina shared images and other details of the four Batman-inspired BEV models today, including two Battista hyper GT variants and two versions of the B95 Barchetta, aptly named “Dark Knight” and “Gotham.”
The collection was developed alongside Wayne Enterprises, a luxury brand managed by Warner Brothers that brings products inspired by Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne, to life and sells them to the public—well, the small portion of the public that lives like the fictional billionaire playboy, at least.
Pininfarina’s Chief Design Officer, Dave Amantea, spoke about the opportunity to collaborate with Wayne Enterprises, DC Comics, and Warner Brothers to bring some BEVs worthy of the fictional character’s checkbook to life:
Designing an all-electric hypercar inspired by Bruce Wayne is a dream assignment for our team, giving them creative freedom to place themselves into the imagination of someone as iconic as Bruce Wayne. These two exclusive specifications for our two hypercars represent the ultimate vehicles for the man behind the most famous mask in the world.
All four models feature the same powertrain, battery, and performance specs, including a 120kWh lithium-ion battery and four all-electric motors generating 1,900 horsepower. The result is a bespoke, Batman-inspired Pininfarina hypercar that can accelerate 0-100km/h (0-62mph) in well under two seconds. The automaker says it is faster than any current Formula 1 car.
While the specs closely resemble previous iterations of the Battista and Barchetta hypercars, Pininfarina points out several unique design elements that have been added to give these four models that special Batman treatment. Per the release:
Both Battista and B95 models receive all-new Wayne Enterprises-inspired HMI display enhancements, featuring an instruction voice inspired by Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler and assistant, Alfred Pennyworth. The Battista models also offer entirely new performance-enhancing specifications. These include tailgate shark fins and louver openings in the front and rear carbon fibre wings to improve overall aerodynamic efficiency towards the rear airbrake and vehicle side body. The exterior is completed with Wayne Enterprises logos on the side skirts and roof, and all models display a unique aluminium chassis and door plate, inspired by Bruce Wayne.
To further emphasise the ‘Dream Cars Made Real’ philosophy, the interiors of both the Battista Gotham and Dark Knight cars benefit from a completely new door and roof design where a large portion of the roof is curved glass, to lighten the interior ambience.
To honor the “Dark Knight” theme, Automobili Pininfarina has added dark elements to those two versions of the Battista and Barchetta, including black Alcantara and leather upholstery and a unique black and gold duo-tone contrast stitch detailing a “Wayne Enterprises” logo (seen above). The Dark Knight exteriors feature Nero Profondo gloss paint, a Nero Torino ‘Goccia’ roof, and Glorioso ceramic-polished rims.
Conversely, the “Gotham” versions of the Pininfarina hypercars were designed to reflect Bruce Wayne’s more gentle, domesticated side when he’s not crusading through the night as Batman. The Gotham exteriors feature Argento Vittorio gloss paint, a Nero Torino gloss paint Goccia roof, and a backlit version of the automaker’s “F” logo made of brushed and polished anodized aluminum.
The vehicles feature 20-inch alloy wheels up front and 21-inch wheels in the rear, all finished with a Prezioso Evoluzione gloss black face and a matte black channel rim. Inside the Gotham versions of the Battista and B95 Barchetta, you’ll find tan leather, bespoke quilting in the center panels, and tan stitching.
In true Automobili Pininfarina fashion, these four Batman-inspired hypercars will see a limited production run; we just don’t know how many will be built. The automaker told Electrek it will produce as many as are ordered, which truthfully shouldn’t be many.
As for pricing, here’s what the hypercar maker is charging per BruceWayneX.com:
- Battista Dark Knight: €3,400,000 ($3,631,438)
- Battista Gotham: €3,400,000 (3,631,438)
- B95 Dark Knight: €4,900,000 (5,234,596)
- B95 Gotham: €4,900,000 (5,234,596)
Those are MSRPs only worthy of Bruce Wayne-like billionaires. You can take a closer look at the bespoke Batman hypercars in the video shared by Automobili Pininfarina below:
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Metro Detroit is about to get a big boost of fast EV chargers, with more than 40 new ChargePoint ports set to come online across multiple sites owned by the Dabaja Brothers Development Group.
The first ultra-fast charging site just opened in Canton, Michigan. It’s owned and operated by Dabaja Brothers, who plan to follow it with additional ChargePoint-equipped locations in Dearborn and Livonia.
“We started this project because we saw a gap in our community – there was almost nowhere to charge an EV in Canton, and a similar lack of charging across metro Detroit,” said Yousef Dabaja, owner/operator at Dabaja Brothers.
Each metro Detroit site will feature ChargePoint Express Plus fast charging stations, which can deliver up to 500 kW to a single port, can fast-charge two vehicles at the same time, and are compatible with all EVs. The stations feature a proprietary cooling system to deliver peak charging speeds for sustained periods, ensuring that charging speed remains consistent.
The stations operate on the new ChargePoint Platform, which enables operators to monitor performance, adjust pricing, troubleshoot issues, and gain real-time insights to keep chargers running smoothly.
Rick Wilmer, CEO at ChargePoint, said, “This initiative will rapidly infill the ‘fast charging deserts’ across the Detroit area, allowing drivers to quickly recharge their vehicles when and where they need to.”
Read more: ChargePoint just gave its EV charging software a major AI upgrade
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Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging and Starbucks have officially opened their first DC fast charging hub together, off the I-5 in Red Bluff, California.
The 400 kW Mercedes-Benz chargers are capable of adding up to 300 miles in 10 minutes, depending on the EV, and every stall has both NACS and CCS cables – they’re fully open DC fast chargers.
Mercedes-Benz HPC North America, a joint venture between subsidiaries of Mercedes-Benz Group and renewable energy producer MN8 Energy, first announced in July 2024 that it would install DC fast chargers at Starbucks stores along Interstate 5, the main 1,400-mile north-south interstate highway on the US West Coast from Canada to Mexico. Ultimately, Mercedes plans to install fast chargers at 100 Starbucks stores across the US.
Mercedes-Benz HPC opened its first North American charging site at Mercedes-Benz USA’s headquarters in Sandy Springs, Georgia, in November 2023 as part of an initial $1 billion charging network investment. As of the end of 2024, Mercedes had deployed over 150 operational fast chargers in the US, but it hasn’t disclosed an official number of how many chargers are currently online.
Andrew Cornelia, CEO of Mercedes-Benz HPC North America, is leaving the company at the end of the month to become global head of electrification & sustainability at Uber.
Read more: Mercedes-Benz is deploying 400 kW US-made EV fast chargers with CCS and NACS cables
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The race for autonomous driving has three fronts: software, hardware, and regulatory. For years, we’ve watched Tesla try to brute-force its way to “Full Self-Driving (FSD)” with its own custom hardware, while the rest of the automotive industry is increasingly lining up behind NVIDIA.
Now that we know Tesla’s new AI5 chip is delayed and won’t be in vehicles until 2027, it’s worth comparing the two most dominant “self-driving” chips today: Tesla’s latest Hardware 4 (AI4) and NVIDIA’s Drive Thor.
Here’s a table comparing the two chips with the best possible specs I could find. greentheonly’s teardown was particularly useful. If you find things you think are not accurate, please don’t hesitate to reach out:
| Feature / Specification | Tesla AI4 (Hardware 4.0) | NVIDIA Drive Thor (AGX / Jetson) |
|---|---|---|
| Developer / Architect | Tesla (in-house) | NVIDIA |
| Manufacturing Process | Samsung 7nm (7LPP class) | TSMC 4N (custom 5nm class) |
| Release Status | In production (shipping since 2023) | In production since 2025 |
| CPU Architecture | ARM Cortex-A72 (legacy) | ARM Neoverse V3AE (server-grade) |
| CPU Core Count | 20 cores (5× clusters of 4 cores) | 14 cores (Jetson T5000 configuration) |
| AI Performance (INT8) | ~100–150 TOPS (dual-SoC system) | 1,000 TOPS (per chip) |
| AI Performance (FP4) | Not supported / not disclosed | 2,000 TFLOPS (per chip) |
| Neural Processing Unit | 3× custom NPU cores per SoC | Blackwell Tensor Cores + Transformer Engine |
| Memory Type | GDDR6 | LPDDR5X |
| Memory Bus Width | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | ~384 GB/s | ~273 GB/s |
| Memory Capacity | ~16 GB typical system | Up to 128 GB (Jetson Thor) |
| Power Consumption | Est. 80–100 W (system) | 40 W – 130 W (configurable) |
| Camera Support | 5 MP proprietary Tesla cameras | Scalable, supports 8MP+ and GMSL3 |
| Special Features | Dual-SoC redundancy on one board | Native Transformer Engine, NVLink-C2C |
The most striking difference right off the bat is the manufacturing process. NVIDIA is throwing everything at Drive Thor, using TSMC’s cutting-edge 4N process (a custom 5nm-class node). This allows them to pack in the new Blackwell architecture, which is essentially the same tech powering the world’s most advanced AI data centers.
Tesla, on the other hand, pulled a move that might surprise spec-sheet warriors. Teardowns confirm that AI4 is built on Samsung’s 7nm process. This is mature, reliable, and much cheaper than TSMC’s bleeding-edge nodes.
When you look at the compute power, NVIDIA claims a staggering 2,000 TFLOPS for Thor. But there’s a catch. That number uses FP4 (4-bit floating point) precision, a new format designed specifically for the Transformer models used in generative AI.
Tesla’s AI4 is estimated to hit around 100-150 TOPS (INT8) across its dual-SoC redundant system. On paper, it looks like a slaughter, but Tesla made a very specific engineering trade-off that tells us exactly what was bottling up their software: memory bandwidth.
Tesla switched from LPDDR4 in HW3 to GDDR6 in HW4, the same power-hungry memory you find in gaming graphics cards (GPUs). This gives AI4 a massive memory bandwidth of approximately 384 GB/s, compared to Thor’s 273 GB/s (on the single-chip Jetson config) using LPDDR5X.
This suggests Tesla’s vision-only approach, which ingests massive amounts of raw video from high-res cameras, was starving for data.
Based on Elon Musk’s comments that Tesla’s AI5 chip will have 5x the memory bandwidth, it sounds like it might still be Tesla’s bottleneck.
Here is where Tesla’s cost-cutting really shows. AI4 is still running on ARM Cortex-A72 cores, an architecture that is nearly a decade old. They bumped the core count to 20, but it’s still old tech.
NVIDIA Thor, meanwhile, uses the ARM Neoverse V3AE, a server-grade CPU explicitly designed for the modern software-defined vehicle. This allows Thor to run not just the autonomous driving stack, but the entire infotainment system, dashboard, and potentially even an in-car AI assistant, all on one chip.
Thor has found many takers, especially among Tesla EV competitors such as BYD, Zeekr, Lucid, Xiaomi, and many more.
Electrek’s Take
There’s one thing that is not in there: price. I would assume that Tesla wins on that front, and that’s a big part of the project. Tesla developed a chip that didn’t exist, and that it needed.
It was an impressive feat, but it doesn’t make Tesla an incredible leader in silicon for self-driving.
Tesla is maxing out AI4. It now uses both chips, making it less likely to achieve the redundancy levels you need to deliver level 4-5 autonomy.
Meanwhile, we don’t have a solution for HW3 yet and AI5 is apparently not coming to save the day until 2027.
By then, there will likely be millions of vehicles on the road with NVIDIA Thor processors.
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