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Horacio Pagani Does Not Shy Away From Saying His Family's Tesla Is a Problem

Horacio Pagani spent quite an interesting time in a Zoom chat on March 29. The “Disegño y Ingeniería” (Design and Engineering) group from Santa Fe, Argentina gets people like Walter de Silva, Frank Stephenson, and several other great automotive characters to talk to students and engineers about the industry. In his chat with them, Pagani was candid about BEVs: he and his family own one Tesla and consider it a problem.
Horacio Pagani has a Tesla and he considers it a problem 22 photos
Photo: Disegno y Ingenieria
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“We have a Tesla in the family, and we use it only to drive around our neighborhood. We often have to make business trips to Milan, which is 200 kilometers (124 miles) from our factory, but we never go with the Tesla. If you get to Milan and do not find a free charger, you have to sleep there. Our Tesla is very interesting, but it is a problem. In the three or four years that we have had it, we have never used it to travel more than 200 km.”

Tesla advocates will bash Pagani for saying that. They will accuse him of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), working to keep the oil industry alive, and the same sort of nonsense anyone sharing anything critical about battery electric vehicles (BEV) usually hears. The more rational ones among them will argue that there must be Superchargers on the way from San Cesario Sul Panaro – where the factory is – to Milan. There are indeed four of these Tesla fast-charging stations: close to San Damaso, in Parma, Piacenza, and Melegnano.

There are four Supercharging stations between Pagani's factory and Milan
Photo: Tesla
That means Pagani could easily plan his trips with his Tesla from the factory to Milan and back. I strongly doubt he is not aware of that after three or four years with his BEV. The deal is that only local Tesla owners like him may be able to say how it is to use these Superchargers. Can they cope with the demand they have in the region, or are they frequently crowded? If they are not, perhaps Pagani and his family just prefer not to spend half an hour or more waiting for a fast charge in these Tesla stations.

Although many BEV advocates put up with that, it is not surprising that other people are not willing to do so. Most combustion-engined vehicles can go from San Cesario Sul Panaro to Milan and get back on a single full fuel tank. Another possibility is that Pagani is not fond of fast charging because he knows that using it frequently will shorten the battery pack’s lifespan. In the end, only the CEO can explain why he does not use the Superchargers between Milan and Pagani’s factory.

Horacio Pagani has a Tesla and he considers it a problem
Photo: Disegno y Ingenieria
Instead of buying and using a BEV on road trips, Pagani could be wondering about selling them, but he clarified it was not the case.

“Today, there are many carmakers working with the concept of an electric supercar. Rimac is a company from Croatia that is doing an impressive job. Despite that, this is a market segment in which our customers are not very interested. No Pagani customer asked me for an electric car. Luckily, we supercar companies are not having problems because we can keep selling vehicles with gas engines beyond 2035.”

That does not mean Pagani does not have a plan B in case electric vehicles become inevitable.

“We have a team working on a possible Pagani electric supercar for five years already. We may never put it for sale, but we have Mercedes-Benz technology, and it is a very interesting project. I just must make it very clear: if we ever launch an electric car, do not expect it to solve any problem on the planet. It will not benefit little birds or solve issues for anyone. It will not contribute to mankind, only satisfy a wish from our customers.”

Pagani Utopia
Photo: Pagani Automobili
It is obvious Pagani is not fond of greenwashing. More than that: he is worried about other carmakers and the way they are approaching the EV shift.

“I think the automotive industry worldwide is exaggerating a bit in forcing the electric car when we do not have the infrastructure to support charging or the capacity to produce such a quantity of batteries. It is an exaggeration that may hurt the industry.”

As one of the few people who managed to establish a new car brand, Pagani knows what he is talking about. His company just celebrated 25 years of presenting its first car, the Zonda, and he had to work hard to prove his brand was a credible competitor among the likes of Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini, and McLaren. Bugatti’s first attempt to get back to life failed when Pagani Automobili was in its first years. So did Cizeta Moroder and Isotta Fraschini. Apart from Pagani, only a handful of supercar companies managed to survive, such as Koenigsegg and Rimac.

The deal is that electric cars are a different game in which car companies are still learning the rules. In a way, everybody is trying to establish themselves in a scenario they do not fully understand. That’s as much a problem as the lack of range in Pagani’s Tesla.

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About the author: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
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Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.
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