Ferrari will NEVER make an electric car - Chairman Luca di Montezemolo

neither will a lot of other companies, they just won't admit it. bad publicity. credit enzo for honesty.

 

Never say never!

 

nonsense. the future of car racing is with electrics which offer much higher torque at low rpms than ice engines. How about 0-60 in 1.5 secs? Porsche is heavy at work on high performance electrics. CVT will also replace stick shift. It has with me.

That Ferrari chairman won't be chairman for long with that attitude.

 

they would assume they don't want to switch because it's a huge suspension balance and distance game... and changing the balance that much may throw off their ride and potentially tarnish the name...

i would guess this decision wouldn't hurt them in the long run since these will always fill that super nice car gap.. and longer distances than an electric.

 

I wonder how often someone drives long distance (200 + miles) in a Ferrari?
I think it is just fine if Ferrari never builds an electric, I will just never be buying one.
(of course, I probably never would have anyways).

 

Batteries don't really like to just sit around. I think they sell about 7000 cars world wide. I doubt they have the money to really compete with tesla and porsche in the pure electric game.

now hybrids are a different matter

Ferrari Goes Green — Literally — With a Hybrid | Autopia | Wired.com

 

I have also heard the same rumor, but I doubt Ferrari will produce an EV. One one hand, it would make sense because lets face it, how many miles do you really want to tack on a 458 or California? On the other hand, Ferrari is a name synonymous with power, speed and certainly price. If they were to produce a Ferrari EV, what would the costs be? The 458 goes for over 100K, it sounds great, but just not practical.

 

THIS!

Can Ferrari be any more short sighted? In terms of power, EV will absolutely rip the wheels off an ICE powered machine. Why would you limit yourself to slower ICE-powered machines only?

ANSWER: It's foolishness born from Italian tradition.

Me? I'll take the faster (read EV) machine - all else being equal. Like I can afford ANY Ferrari.

-Brad

 

The old school dons at Ferrari probably said they'd never make hybrids, either. Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems are already used in Formula 1, and Ferrari is planning to release road cars with a similar system as early as this Fall. Purely electric vehicles are an evolution of hybrids, so it's only a matter of time.

I think it was Ettore Bugatti who refused to adopt hydraulic brakes when they were first developed, saying "I make my cars to go, not to stop."

It's just the typically Italian machismo talking.

 

Nice fun topic!

I am amazed at the number of comments.

Have a nice day - enjoy life. Drive carefully!

 

Credit Enzo for embarrasement . . . . embarrasement when the 1st Ferarri gets passed by a Nissan Leaf:




Yep - times they're a changin'
Even the good ol' boys of NASCAR now proudly drive Toyotas ... even as GM looked like they'd never be able to sponsor another car in that division, what with their bankruptcy making funds tight. What an irony.

.

 

You guys may be missing the point.
A Ferrari is more than simply a car that goes fast and handles well. It's a symphony of sight, sound, smell, and for those lucky enough to get to drive one...tactile and inner ear inputs. If manage to build (and sell) a credible EV version of this car, you'll be missing the melodious output from their ICEs that are a part of the Ferrari experience.
Yeah...you can have a symphony without the wind section...but something will be missing.

I have 2 motorcycles. One Harley and one Kawasaki. On paper, by almost any measure the Kawi is by faaaar the better of the two bikes. It's half the price, gets better fuel economy, has bullet resistant reliability, and it's an order of magnitude more comfortable to ride.
Hand any motorcycle rider the keys to both, and say "go for a spin!" and 99 out of 100 will go KSU on the Harley.

TIFWIW...

 

I hear there are people that miss the rythmic 'clip-clop' of horse hooves too

 

True. But I expect that very few symphonies have revving engines. In fact, very little music has revving engines. (I'm In Love With My Car being an obvious exception.)

If a sports car without loud sounds isn't exciting then it's really not doing a very good job at the rest of the engineering. The engine noise is only necessary for some because of an historical cultural association because the noise level and power and speed.

Electric gives speed without much noise. A TTXGP Australia biker mentioned that the first time she got on the bike she was going to put her earplugs in and then remembered she wouldn't need them.

Electric also gives speed with much less vibration: race bikers who try demo electrics will remark how smooth the ride is.

Far from making the experience worse it will make it better: engine noise and vibration are flaws of the internal combustion engine and when you switch to electric you will finally get clear sensory input from your environment.

 

at 2:00 AM, melodius doesn't exactly come to mind although even that is drowned out by the "spirited piping" of the squealing tires. Um yeah no

 

It's quite comforting, actually. Especially when they're just ambling along, not in any particular hurry.

I also really like the hum of bicycle tires spinning quickly on smooth pavement.

But a Harley? Over a sport bike? What's the point of a motorcycle that can't corner?

 

Dual clutch transmissions have already displaced most all stick-shifts in high-performance applications (Ferarri were one of the first with this technology).

There are a lot better examples of electric sports cars that can outperform a (historial) Ferarri. That is not one of them.

http://www.torquenews.com/766/nissn...electric-race-car-debuts-run-silent-run-green

 

With supercars, in particular, sound is a crucial piece in the engineering of a sports car. The way it sounds at idle. The way it sounds at max rpm. The way it sounds as it climbs the rpms. It makes the experience seem more visceral.

An enthusiast doesn't need to look when a Lamborghini or Ferrari drives by to know if he's listening to a prancing horse or charging bull run though. They have their own unique, signature sounds. Toyota even brought in Yamaha to help them out with the exhaust note of the Lexus LFA. Some might say the revving of many engines is a symphony itself.

 

I don't need Ferrari to build an electric car. My Tesla Roadster is already faster off the line than a Ferrari. And at half the price! And to those who actually like the contamination of noise pollution, you may enjoy the sound, but loud cars are a public nuisance; the auditory equivalent of dumping a load of pig manure on the driveways and lawns of every house they drive by. I LIKE the quiet whirrrrr of my electric car. The sound of an electric motor generating enough torque to throw your head back is far finer and more "musical" than the obscene racket of a high-compression ICE, and without the filthy gasoline stink.

The Ferrari can go faster than the electronically-limited 125 mph of my car, but I'd never drive a car more than about ten mph over the limit, and then only for passing, which, with this much high-end torque, takes about 3 seconds.