(JW Insights) Apr 23 -- Silvio Pietro Angori, CEO of Italian car design company Pininfarina, said the Chinese electric vehicle market has undergone “epochal changes” in the past decade, especially since his last visit to China before the Covid-19 pandemic, Yicai Global reported on April 20.

Source: Pininfarina

“China has become the most advanced and most competitive EV market in the world,” Angori, who is also managing director of Pininfarina, told Yicai Global at the 20th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition on April 19.

Pininfarina has more than 90 years of experience in designing fuel-powered cars. It created its first EV in 1977 and has since designed a wide range of electric models, including small city auto Nido EV, hydrogen-powered high-performance sports car Sintesi, and the Apricale, the world’s first hypercar to achieve zero-emission performance.

Pinninfarina set up an office in China in 2010, but had partnered with Chinese companies since the 1990s, including SAIC Motors, Chery Automobile, and FAW Group.

“The local market has developed a high capability level, so Pininfarina’s main focus is on offering Chinese partners the most efficient solutions possible, both in terms of cost and consumer needs,” Angori added.

Pininfarina’s electric truck designed for DeepWay, a smart heavy truck joint venture of Chinese search engine giant Baidu and commercial vehicle logistics firm Lionbridge Financial Leasing, is on display at this year’s Shanghai Auto Show. “We are very proud of this truck,” Angori noted.

“We’re working on other projects with Chinese partners, but they’ll be completed in the next 12 months, so they could not appear at the Shanghai Auto Show,” Angori said.

The auto market is experiencing a digital transformation like that of the smartphone market after the launch of the iPhone in 2007, according to Angori. To stand out among competitors, Pininfarina always needs to be able to integrate the latest technologies, he noted.

Richard Yu, the head of the smart cars unit of Huawei Technologies and chief executive of Huawei Consumer Group, also compared the auto and phone industries at a recent event, identifying 2025 as going to be the watershed year, according to the Yicai Global report.