TURIN – Some measurements have been revised, the heights cut, so as to meet the taste of the public, and a GT version has been added that recalls the shapes of the first Smart. Now the Mole Urbana, the electric quadricycle that came out of Umberto Palermo’s pencil, is on the launching pad for production. At the end of 2022.
Time to refurbish the factory, the former Stola di Orbassano, on the outskirts of Turin, which had ended up in the Blutec group and in the bankruptcy of the world that was headed by the entrepreneur Roberto Ginatta. After months of discussion and negotiation, Mise authorized the sale of the business branch to the Up company, the group to which all the Palermo brands belong. “For us Mole Urbana is not just an electric car. It is not enough to take an electric motor and mount it instead of a traditional one. The whole project must be ecological and oriented towards the energy transition. This is why I have always thought about the recovery of an existing space, such as the old Stola factory, to create our nanofactory “.
The new acquisition will allow the Mole Urbana company to acquire a production site of 8,500 square meters covered with a yard of 5,000 square meters. In the first phase there will be 25 employees, a number that will grow according to the market response to cars designed to move or to work in a city context.
“Our company is based on two supply chains, the Piedmontese one for cars and the Marche one for household appliances”, says Palermo who for decades, in addition to designing cars and commercial vehicles, has been involved in the household appliances sector from which he took inspiration to study the innovations by Mole Urbana which will be one of the protagonists of the MiMo, the Milano Monza Open Air, from 16 to 19 June. The range presents some novelties. The Sport Gt version can be in both light and heavy quadricycle versions with an engine power of 6 to 17 kw and a speed of 45 to 90 km / h. Two places, 150 km. Of autonomy and a recharge in 3-4 hours to a standard socket. Then there are the comfort models, from the small to the pick-up, passing through the convertible and the roadster. Performance? Identical engine powers, but different performances depending on weights and spaces: speed from 45 to 85 km / h, range from 80 to 250 km, and from 2 to 4 seats. On the work versions only the 17 kw battery is mounted. The range is from 150 to 370 kg, range from 80 to 300 km, speed 70 km, from 1 to 2 seats, while the layouts are different depending on the use. The new plant will have a production capacity of between 5 and 7 thousand vehicles. Price? The base is around 10 thousand euros.
[[ge:rep-locali:repubblica:353361085]]A presence that is not only physical because the new car maker, after Lamborghini, McLaren and Alfa Romeo, has decided to throw himself, thanks to the technology of the Turin-based Onevo Group, into the world of Blockchain, Nft and Metaverso. And on the occasion of the MiMo in Milan, two Nft limited edition collections will be presented (digital contracts able to guarantee the authenticity of each single file), which can be purchased on the OpenSea platform. The Nft of Mole Urbana consist both in the guarantee of an option to purchase a special edition of the physical car and in a unique work of art. At MiMo Palermo will also bring the Mole Construction Artigianale brand and will present a world preview of its latest creation: Franca, one-off roadster with heat engine dedicated to the world of dreams and passion, as well as to the mother, from which it takes its name, after models dedicated to his wife and daughter. The world premiere will take place, for the first time in the car sector, inside the Metaverse, where its digital version will accompany the only physical model that will be presented provocatively disguised at the MiMo.
The custom-built is 4.68 m long – 1.94 m wide – 1.2 m high, designed with a tubular steel frame and 8-cylinder thermal engine propulsion, it will be finished and delivered to the client in February 2023. Project purpose is to satisfy the passions and needs related to the emotional sphere. “We have the duty to create the future but without erasing the past, in life and on our planet there is room for everything, just finding the right kindness – underlines Umberto Palermo – would be an unforgivable mistake, at least for a market niche, to ban more than one hundred years of motoring culture “. And in Turin we are already working on the next one-off. It will be called Caina and it will be a cross-over.