Skip to main content

Sporty electrified Infiniti Prototype 10 concept headed to Pebble Beach

Infiniti Prototype 10 conceptThe annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the signature event of California’s sprawling Monterey Car Week, has traditionally been the place where the finest vintage cars are paraded around alongside their wealthy owners. But Pebble Beach is also turning into a show for new cars; it’s typical for at least one automaker to unveil a concept car at Pebble each year. This year, it’s Infiniti.

Called the Prototype 10, the car has a sleek, roofless, “speedster” body with a cut-down windshield, making it look a bit like a vintage race car. The only other details Infiniti would provide were that the design was a collaboration between teams in Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and that the concept will have an electrified powertrain, meaning hybrid or all-electric.

“Our new concept provides clues to where the Infiniti brand is heading,” Infiniti design boss Karim Habib said in a statement.” For us, electrification means performance — our electrified cars will be powerful, efficient, and a joy to drive, and the new concept is a physical representation of our electrified performance future.” Habib said that by combining a modern electrified powertrain with a retro body, Infiniti sought to find “inspiration in an optimistic bygone era in which cars were characterized by the simple love of driving.

Infiniti Pebble Beach 2018 teaserIt’s something Infiniti has tried before. In 2017, the automaker created waves at Pebble Beach when it unveiled the Prototype 9, which had a design inspired by classic race cars from the 1940s and 1950s, but featured a modern electric powertrain based on Nissan Leaf components. It was a bit odd since Infiniti’s history doesn’t stretch as far back as the era the Prototype 9 referenced (Infiniti was launched in 1989). Still, the Prototype 9 proved popular, and will be a tough act to follow.

Infiniti’s focus on electrified concept cars will soon translate to its production cars. The automaker plans to offer a hybrid or all-electric powertrain in every model by 2021, and will launch its first all-electric production car that same year. Infiniti expects hybrids and electric cars to comprise more than half its global sales by 2025.

Infiniti parent Nissan plans to sell 1 million electric cars and hybrids by 2022, and many other automakers have announced ambitious electrification plans of their own. It’s a response to stricter emissions standards. While the current presidential administration has cast the future of U.S. emissions standards into doubt, China and the European Union will likely move ahead with tougher rules, possibly including outright bans on sales of new internal-combustion cars in some European countries.

Updated: Added full rendering and confirmation of the Prototype 10 name

Editors' Recommendations

Lincoln Star concept previews upcoming EVs
Front three quarter view of the Lincoln Star concept.

Following the lead of parent Ford, Lincoln is getting serious about electric vehicles. The Lincoln Star concept previews a line of EVs the luxury brand plans to launch over the next few years.

As expected, the Star concept is an SUV. Lincoln has been an all-SUV brand since the Continental was discontinued after the 2020 model year. The exterior vaguely follows the profile of the current Lincoln Aviator, with the passenger compartment pushed far to the back. But in place of the Aviator's blunt front end, the Star has a streamlined prow that's probably more aerodynamic.

Read more
Jeep built a monster electric prototype to show what EVs can really do off-road
Front three quarter view of the Jeep Magneto 2.0 EV concept

Few cars live in the past like the Jeep Wrangler, which exists to carry on the spirit of the original military Jeep that debuted 81 years ago. So you know Jeep is serious about electrification when it rolls out a Wrangler EV concept.

Unveiled at the 2022 Easter Jeep Safari, a massive annual gathering of off-road enthusiasts held in Moab, Utah, the blue and white Magneto 2.0 concept is, as the name suggests, Jeep’s second attempt at an electric Wrangler. The original Magneto concept was just a way to test the waters -- now Jeep is diving in.

Read more
Volkswagen ID. Buzz prototype first drive: Here comes your van
2022 Volkswagen ID.Buzz prototype

This is it -- this is the EV that we've been waiting for. It's the production version of the Volkswagen ID.Buzz concept, which is called ID. Buzz (mind the gap, as the Brits say), and it's a modern spin on the emblematic, rear-engined Bus that zig-zagged across America for decades. This 21st-century hippie van hasn't been fully unveiled yet, we won't see it without the psychedelic camouflage until March 9, but I traveled to England to spend time behind the wheel of a pre-production model and get a better idea of whether the wait and the hype were worth it.

Years in the making
Volkswagen presented the ID.Buzz as a concept at the 2017 edition of the Detroit auto show. Futuristic-looking and decked out with LEDs, the retro-inspired van was part of an ongoing series of design studies created to preview the different directions that the Wolfsburg-based firm can take its modular MEB platform in. Among others, we saw the 2016 ID. concept, which became the ID.3 hatchback, the ID.Buggy that I drove in California, and, more recently, the ID.Life built to preview an electric, city-friendly crossover tentatively due out in 2025.

Read more