Pinifarina cancels contract manufacturing to focus on electric vehicles

The only remaining contract manufacturer of Italy in activity, Pininfarina, on Tuesday approved a modified industrial plan which calls for the cancellation of contract manufacturing when present productions will cease and focus solely on making electric vehicles.

The modified plan emerged before creditor banks lately approved a financial aid for the firm that saved it from a bankruptcy filing.

In an announcement, Pininfarina said it would not seek a new contract manufacturing orders after the present contracts terminate at the close of 2011. Currently, Pininfarina is making the Alfa Romeo Brera coupe and Spider and the Ford Focus coupe-cabriolet in numbers that are about a quarter of what was initially intended. Pininfarina will begin pilot production in 2010 and in 2011 the volume manufacture of the B0, an electric vehicle designed and created in joint venture with French industrial group Bollore.

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