In quest for electric supercars, engineers head to startups

FRANKFURT: Rene-Christopher Wollmann, head of Mercedes-AMG’s €2.75mil Project One supercar programme, has moved to a job at Automobili Pininfarina in a sign that innovation in high end electric sportscars is shifting toward small startups.

Wollman’s move, which has not been made public, comes at a time when big carmakers, like Volkswagen and Mercedes , have been blindsided by stricter and costly emissions tests, forcing them to focus resources on mainstream electric models and on cleaning up their combustion engines.