An Italian sports car manufacturer has said that supercars such as Ferrari and Lamborghini should be allowed to continue building combustion engine vehicles as turning them to EVs would take the emotion away from a driver.

Horacia Pagani, founder and owner of the Pagani brand, which produced the Huayra, a car that can accelerate from 0-60mph in 3.2 seconds and has a top speed of 235mph, says that the company’s customers have never requested an EV and that generally there is no interest in electric in the supercar market.

Speaking in an interview with Autocar magazine, Pagani said that current EVs are too heavy and lack emotion.

“In 2018, I created a team working on fully electric cars, [but] in four years, we never found interest in the supercar market [for an EV],” he told Autocar.

While a company spokesman later appeared to deny Pagani’s claims that they would never invest in an EV, Pagani’s comments don’t give much hope for development anytime soon. With the company looking at ways that they might make EVs viable in the future.

“The challenge is to make an EV that gives good emotion like a normal ICE. Pagani isn’t going to do something just with good performance, as you can do this [now], but to give emotion to the driver,” he said.

“The idea should be to make a lightweight car, but this is the biggest challenge. The dream would be a 1300kg EV, but this isn’t possible [with current technology].

“At the moment, 90% of energy is produced without renewables. It’s silly to think that only a few supercars [in the world] with ICEs can have a negative impact on the climate when 90% of energy is produced in a bad way.”

Pagani’s philosophy of building cars for ‘gentlemen drivers’ has stood them in good ground so far. They currently only produce limited runs of the Huayra at a cost of £1,000,000 each, while the predecessor the Zonda has impressive resale value.

“Some Zondas are now 10 times the initial price,” he said. “The Cinque is now 20 times.

We’re a success, but a lot can happen suddenly. There’s a difference between success at the moment and foresight of the future.”

“We’re one of the top companies that invests in the future. We usually invest 20%. Last year, it was 14%,” he said. “It’s like a race: you can stop, but when it restarts, you’re at the back. Even if you have no new car, you’re investing.”

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