2025 Aehra EV SUV, All you want to know & watch about a Great Car
2025 Aehra EV SUV First Look Review: World Class Designers Just Need a Factory
Italian EV startup plans to make cars the way Apple makes iPhones.
Another week, another new EV from a company no-one’s ever heard of. The twist this time is it’s not from China. Aehra Automobili is based in Milan, the city in northern Italy that gave the world carmakers like Alfa Romeo and carozzeria like Touring, each responsible for some of the most beautiful and desirable automobiles ever built. And one look at the 2025 Aehra 01 all-electric SUV reveals an EV with more than a dash of Milanese flair.
The SUV – it has no model name, but since we know more vehicles are coming, we’ll label it “01” for now – has a cab-forward profile that’s even more extreme than that of the Mercedes-Benz EQS and EQE, a profile defined by a clean arc that stretches from the leading edge of the hood to the tip of the trunk. But unlike both Benzes, the pugnacious Aehra doesn’t resemble an aero blob; there’s a tension in its surfacing and stance that makes it look much more muscular and athletic. From the (awkwardly apparent) B-pillar forward it’s pure supercar; towards the rear it swoops like a GT.
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A Mix Of Alfa, Lambo, ItalDesign, And Genesis
That’s no surprise, perhaps, given the Aehra – it’s pronounced air-rah – design team is headed by Italians Filippo Perini and Alessandro Serra, who both worked at Alfa Romeo and Lamborghini (Serra designed the Reventon) before moving to ItalDesign and then to the European design studio for Genesis.
The SUV is the first of two EVs under development at Aehra. A sedan will be unveiled in February next year, and the company says first deliveries of both models will begin in the second half of 2025, less than three years from now. That sounds an impossible timeline given that at this stage the Aehra SUV exists only as the full-scale model seen here. There are no running prototypes, and no look at the interior just yet.
The company doesn’t have a chief engineer and hasn’t even decided on the suppliers of key components such as e-motors and battery packs, nor even where its vehicles will be built.
Like An IPhone
Company founder Hazim Nada remains unfazed. He says the auto industry’s rapidly accelerating switch to electrification means there’s an opportunity for a startup automaker unburdened by OEM legacy costs and investments to change the way cars are built. Aehra will not construct a factory. It will not make any of the parts used in its vehicles and plans to outsource even the final assembly process to a third party, much like Fisker has done with its Ocean EV, which is being assembled alongside a bevy of other vehicle lines by Magna Steyr in Austria.
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It’s the Apple model of outsourcing production. Like Apple, which has all its products made by third parties, Aehra will own the intellectual property behind its vehicles, not the means to produce them or their key components. “We think that the electric powertrain is leading into that direction,” says Nada. “What categorizes or characterizes a vehicle is the design, the way the user interfaces with it, the emotions it expresses, and the functionalities it allows the end user. The other elements come from components that are becoming commodities.”
Nada, an Italian-born mathematician and physicist turned commodities trader, knows the traditional auto industry model requires eye-watering capital investments. Aside from the costs of designing, engineering and developing a new vehicle, establishing a car factory from the ground up easily costs at least $1.3 billion if not far more, and it take two to three years before it’s ready to produce a single vehicle.
But Nada believes the Apple model will enable his auto company to put two vehicles on the market by late 2025 for a total capital expenditure of just $750 million, including all development costs.
Stamped Carbon And Aluminum
Both the Aehra SUV and sedan will be built around a carbon fiber monocoque with aluminum subframes bolted front and rear to support the e-motors and suspension, and to act as crash structures. That’s standard practice among supercars these days, but the key difference here is the Aehra’s monocoque will be made from sheet molded carbon-fiber (SMC) – basically carbon fiber that is shaped under pressure, like stamped steel or aluminum, rather than laid by hand over a form and cured in an autoclave. The body panels will also be SMC.
The SUV’s body-in-white will thus weigh less than 400 pounds, says Nada, which will be instrumental in getting the vehicle to meeting its target weight of less than 4400 pounds. As the exterior panels will arrive from suppliers fully painted, Nada says the total investment in the SUV’s body-in-white – for tooling and painting – will be just $60 million. And the same goes for the sedan.
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The SUV will be all-wheel drive, with either two or three e-motors, and a total system output of 750 to 800 horsepower. No decision has yet been made on who will supply the e-motors, inverters, and other pieces of the electric powertrain. However, Aehra’s purchasing chief, former Ferrari exec Stefano Mazzetti, confirms the electrical architecture will be 800 volts, and that the battery pack is likely to be a 120 kWh unit from a Chinese supplier. Low weight, good aerodynamics and a big battery should deliver a near 500-mile range, Mazzetti says.
The SUV has a 120.8-inch wheelbase, and the extreme cab-forward design means room aboard for four NBA players, says design chief Filippo Perini. Details of the interior are being kept under wraps until the new year, however.
First Fisker, Now The Future?
From Preston Tucker to John DeLorean to Malcolm Bricklin, the history of the automobile is littered with entrepreneurs who dreamed of making it big in the auto business. “This project is not a dreamer’s project,” insists Hazim Nada, even though he’s basically writing the checks to pay the bills.
He’s convinced there’s an opportunity for a luxury EV with Italian design flair to grab a piece of the market before the traditional European luxury brands – British, German and Italian – complete their transition to EV powertrains. Is the iPhone model—farming out production to a third party—the future of the auto industry?
Nada says Aehra plans to sell up to 25,000 SUVs and 25,000 sedans a year, each priced between $160,000 and $180,000, and that investors are showing interest in the idea with a recently-opened initial funding round expected to raise $50 million by January. Beyond that, there’s plans for a second round of funding to be opened in late 2023 followed by an IPO in late 2024.
Aehra previews electric SUV on track for 2025 delivery
Aehra has revealed preview images of its SUV model ahead of unveiling the final vehicle design and name next month.
The images offer a glimpse of Aehra SUV’s low front end, expanded cabin size, profile and rear. Aehra will follow the SUV with the reveal of a sedan model in February 2023. Deliveries to customers of both models are expected to commence in 2025.
The company says a strategic model rollout is planned for key markets in 2025, including North America, Europe, China, and the Gulf States.
Italian EV Startup Aehra Joins Luxury Party With $160,000 SUV In 2025
China and the US have given birth to around a thousand EV start-ups in the last decade, but the traditional automotive creative powerhouse of Italy has been moribund – until now.
Aehra made its brand debut in Milan last night with a large sporting SUV weighing less than 4000lb, despite all-wheel drive from a full battery-electric powertrain.
It is designed to give a European start-up alternative the Lucid Air, as well as the top end of the Tesla range and will be positioned above machinery like the Mercedes-Benz EQS and the BMW i7.
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Designed by ex-Lamborghini design boss Filippo Perini, the Aehra SUV (it doesn’t have its final name yet) will be accompanied by a similarly sized sedan when planned production arrives in 2025.
Aehra plans to build between 20,000 and 25,000 SUVs and sedans a year, priced between US$160,000 and US$180,000 at their entry points. Sales are planned to start in the US and Europe before expanding to China.
Mostly built from forged carbon-fiber, the Aehra SUV will be big enough inside to accommodate four NBA-sized occupants in a machine with promised supercar performance.
With a three-meter wheelbase, the Aehra is slated for global deliveries in a package that will “break the mould” for SUVs and for EVs.
“The Aehra SUV represents a radical combination of cutting-edge sustainable materials, ultra-advanced EV technology, smart manufacturing technologies, pure Italian design, and of course, a seminal moment in our company’s history,” Aehra founder and CEO Hazim Nada said.
“We are not in the business of doing what Lamborghini or Ferrari are doing, but we have the price target of ultra premium.
“We don’t see anybody in the market doing what we are doing. We see something that nobody else is doing so we are doing it.”
Nada said he and others in related industries saw Italian engineering, design and BEV consultancies selling their wares to companies the world over, including the US and China, without directly driving the Italian EV industry forward.
“Electric vehicles are seen as being boring by the general public,” Nada said.
“It is very easy to build an very powerful electric vehicle. It is not so easy to build an electric vehicle that has its own character. And I think that’s one of the elements that Italian design and expertise has to express.”
Nada is not a regular car company founder, having come from a background in investing, oil trading and aerodynamic research, and plans to invest €700 million to deliver the Aehra to production.
“I never thought about making a car company. It was never an aspiration of mine. I am not a car freak or fan.
“EVs were looking too alike. I come from an aerodynamics background and I know that’s not necessary.
“It was a series of observations with an inevitable conclusion – we should do it ourselves.”
Even so, starting a car company, even in the EV sphere, has proven too much for companies all over China, and Nada is light on detail about where Aehra’s backing is coming from.
Nada made his bankroll by trading oil, gas, grain and cement out of London through his Lord Energy company, then added to it by pursing his passion for physics with AeroGravity, the world’s largest vertical wind tunnel near Milan.
“We are not spending as much as you might think,” Nada insisted.
“The way we’re evolving the materials that we are using and the way the chain of production looks for us, it is very asset-light compared to conventional automotive production.”
More than 120 people are developing the Aehra production cars as of today, plus an external Italian-based engineering consultancy, in the expectation of beginning global deliveries after the European summer in 2025.
“With all the engineering research and universities, there was a significant amount of battery-research power working for foreign companies and there was not a single Italian start-up taking advantage of the Italian know-how,” Nada explained.
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“As we were doing this project we were talking to people on the challenge of electrification in Italy and they were just following what the others were doing.
“I was convinced that companies had to change. There needed to be a focus on more aero, more Italian design for Italian companies and more good deployment of the Italian technology, so the more it made sense to turn our research into a car company.
“The moment we saw we could pursue it, was when Filippo Perini got involved.”
One reason the Aehra development is asset-light in investment is that it plans to buy in everything from multimedia systems and software to battery packs to electric motors and even autonomous-driving technologies, rather than develop it themselves.
By 2025, Nada explained, all of these technologies will be commodities and companies like his will be able to pick and choose from suppliers, without having to invest in re-inventing existing technologies.
It will, though, develop its own chassis and body and interiors, and will make a final call on the battery and EV powertrain suppliers by next year.
“The SUV does not look like an SUV. It looks like a sports car,” Perini said.
“It is a sportscar in terms of what it expresses.”
The two main engineering differences between Aehra’s cars and what the rest of the world is doing will be aerodynamics and weight, Perini said, all wrapped up in an SUV that looks like a supercar.
“With the Aehra SUV, we have shunned the conservative constraints that have encumbered all other car manufacturers in their approach to designing EV vehicles to date,” Perini said.
“Instead, we have taken a highly courageous approach. And at Aehra, this mindset drives not just the design of our vehicles, but every aspect, including engineering, the layout of the interior, the state-of-the-art sustainable materials we use and how we are redefining the entire customer journey.
“With the SUV, we have created a vehicle that goes far beyond the conventional standards set by the automotive industry for an SUV, and sets new benchmarks for style and comfort.
“We have used a monobody construction, which, while used widely in Italy in the past, is now normally reserved for supercars only.
“We have taken an equally radical approach to aerodynamics, which play a central role in the design, driving characteristics and efficiency of the SUV.”
While Aehra will buy in the powertrain, it insists the chassis and platform will be all its own work, because it doesn’t see any other premium brand attacking weight in the way it wants to, and it needs its active aerodynamics to work to deliver range and efficiency.
“We explored taking ready-platforms from others, but decided against it,” Nada said.
“A big part of what we are doing is carbon-fibre materials for main crash elements of the vehicle, so the car will be less than two tonnes.
“The number we are targeting is exactly the right volume for that kind of carbon-fibre production.”
The sedan and SUV will be modular, sharing the same chassis platform and 70 percent of their production components, including the three-meter wheelbase and the promise of a luxury space for “four NBA player-sized occupants”.
“To do something in the electric segment, the established OEMs are falling behind, Nada insisted.
“There is still a significant lag compared to Tesla and Lucid and we can get much lighter cars and performance that these vehicles could reach, and their range.
“We are very identifiable as an Italian brand and that always was a goal to put ourselves in that niche.
“The only high premium brand is Lucid, and that does not attach itself to anything we have in Europe.”
2025 Aehra EV SUV Videos