The Monegasque Venturi is a pioneer in electric mobility. After breaking two- and four-wheel world speed records, Venturi has set out to conquer space.
Since it was purchased by the Monegasque businessman Gildo Pallanca Pastor in 2000, Venturi Automobiles has gone decidedly electric, and no longer produces internal combustion vehicles.
The company’s owner teamed up with former Ayrton Senna engineer, Gérard Ducarouge, and launched expeditions such as “Shanghai to Paris” to test its vehicles. The VBB-3 “bullet car” set a world record of 548 km/h on the salt flats of Utah in 2016.
In late 2021, Venturi broke 21 world speed records, this time with an electric motorcycle. On the Space Florida strip at the Kennedy Space Center (United States), the six-time motorcycle world champion Max Biaggi and his Voxan Wattman secured the prestigious speed record in the “partially streamlined electric motorcycle over 300 kg” category, notching up a speed of 455.737 km/h (283.182 mph). The Wattman’s speedometer reached a top instantaneous speed of 470.257 km/h (292.204 mph). With these achievements, Max Biaggi and his bike bettered their performance in 2020, when they broke 11 world records on the runway at France’s Châteauroux airport.
With streamlined bodywork and a permanent magnet motor providing 367 horsepower, the Voxan Wattman is unique in that it was largely designed using digital technology.
The Monaco-based car builder is a pioneer of Formula E and lined up its fully electric single-seater cars on the starting grid for the early e-Prix races. Medal tally: 8 wins, 13 podium finishes and a second-place finish at the 2021-2022 World Championship just prior to withdrawing.
Gildo and his teams are driven by incredible faith and determination. They said to me: ‘we’ve come close to 600 km/h on four wheels, now we want to hit 400 km/h on two wheels, and nothing can stop us!’ I’m proud of the team and delighted to be bringing these titles back to Monaco!
Max Biaggi, Voxan Wattman rider
Venturi has also invented the Antarctica, the first ‘zero-emission’ electric polar exploration vehicle, capable of withstanding temperatures as low as -50°C. In service at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station, it is used by teams of scientists to carry out their work without disrupting the environment.
Venturi has now embarked on a new challenge: the conquest of space. In partnership with Venturi Lab (Switzerland) and Venturi Astrolab (United States), the company is developing mobility technology for the Moon and Mars, including the non-pressurised, interplanetary FLEX rover (Flexible Logistics and Exploration). Thanks to an agreement signed in 2023 with Elon Musk’s Space X company, FLEX will head to space in 2026 using Starship, the spacecraft take-off and landing system. It could possibly become “the biggest and most powerful rover to ever have been sent to the Moon,” said Gildo Pastor. Venturi also aims to take part in Artemis, the human exploration programmes on the Moon and later Mars. “NASA requirements pose a host of challenges. FLEX must be reliable over the very long term, function in temperatures of between -90°C and -230°C, withstand radiation, and be able to operate for two weeks in the dark, at the Moon’s South Pole.
“I want to hoist the Monegasque flag even higher”.
Gildo Pastor, President of Venturi and of Venturi Lab.
FLEX, a, copy of which was presented to Prince Albert, must “be able to traverse semi-autonomously, be piloted by the astronauts on board, be commanded from the future station in lunar orbit, and also from Earth”. “The aim is to build structures on the Moon, inside which it will be possible to build launch vehicles for Mars,” said the Monegasque entrepreneur, who will offer his services to the European Space Agency (ESA) in the shorter term “to build a European vehicle capable of exploring the Moon.”
In the summer of 2025, a temporary exhibition at the Prince’s Car Collection showcased a range of futuristic and unique rover vehicles specially designed for space exploration by Venturi.
In addition to the lunar and Martian FLEX rovers, Astrobotic’s Griffin lander, launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, will deliver Venturi Astrolab’s FLIP rover to the Moon’s South Pole as part of the Griffin-1 mission, scheduled for the first quarter of 2026. Meanwhile, the MONA LUNA rover, designed to support the ambitions of ESAand CNES, will enable Europe to have an operational rover on the Moon before 2030.
