In the past 12 months, Zenvo Automotive has ramped up its development program to its most intense levels yet. This has centered around the Aurora, which is progressing to plan, and also includes the acquisition of new team members in engineering, development, purchasing, procurement, production, sales and marketing and aftersales.
The first quarter of 2025 saw a key milestone in the program as the team, together with Mahle Powertrain, fired up Mjølner – the world’s most powerful production V12 engine – for the first time. Since then, technical partnerships with Ricardo and Castrol have been confirmed. The progress across the drivetrain system has seen the integration of the hybrid powertrain, which will eventually deliver up to 1,850hp.
The first validation prototype entered service as summer approached, and global events bookended the biggest brand activations for Zenvo Automotive to-date. The VP0 prototype ran up the hill at Goodwood Festival of Speed. From there, it has been used across the powertrain, electronics, suspension and dynamics testing phases.
The test program has continued at the Præstø factory and at facilities across Europe, with successful crash, dynamics and performance testing completed, both as simulations and real world tests. Further prototypes have also come online as the testing phases spread through different teams and departments, accelerating toward the plans for 2026.
Jens Sverdrup, chairman and CCO of Zenvo Automotive said, “We come to the end of 2025 with the technical and development phases of the Aurora program driving forward with real momentum. It has been a very proud year of firsts, one of real progress, and one which has firmly put Zenvo on the map, with our biggest activations and achievements over Goodwood and Monterey.
“It hasn’t been all plain sailing, by any means – which is expected from a program of this magnitude and when working with the latest advances in technologies and systems that have never been seen or used before. We always set out for Aurora to be something more than had gone before, and we now have the team in place to deliver what we set out to achieve. 2026 will be another year of firsts and of relentless pursuit of improvement as we keep building towards production.”
CTO Jon Gunner said, “It has been a big challenge for every member of the team over this year, working through a long list of firsts. The team is now at its strongest, and Aurora is delivering or overachieving at each phase. We are determined and dedicated to getting the results, and we have put the pieces in place with our team and partners to ensure that Aurora is everything that we have set out for it to be. There is still a job list to be completed, but it is an exciting journey to be on.”
Meet the team behind the Mjølner powertrain in this behind-the-scenes video