A green hybrid from an Italian icon? It seems a bit ludicrous, but the question of whether Ferrari is going to start building hybrids is not a joke. Ferrari may have no choice.
The joke about high end sports cars is that if you have to ask how many miles to the galloon they get, you can’t afford them. Put more directly, the top end performers are designed from performance. Fuel efficiency and emissions are not just downplayed, they are utterly irrelevant. At least they were.
Ferrari is the classic high end sports car builder. It builds beautiful cars that simply blaze along the road. Of course, the cost of that is horrifically bad mileage and terrible emissions. Neither Ferrari nor the people buying the car really cared. Now they have no choice thanks to the new emission rules coming into place in the European Union.
The EU is taking pollution seriously as part of its efforts to curb global warming. The practical effect on cars is the emissions being produced by them are being cut by law. The EU is demanding a cut to rough 130 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer driven. Most Ferrari models produce about four times that amount, so you can see the problem.
The question for Ferrari is how it can continue to produce high performance cars and yet still comply with the EU emission requirements. This is particularly an issue since the requirements are expected to become even more stringent in the future. The answer by the company seems to be rooted in its F1 team.
The Scuderia, the Ferrari Formula One team, is well versed in making cars as light as possible while producing massive power and performance. The technology used there is being transferred to future Ferrari designs. The company seems bent on meeting the new standards by making the cars much lighter, more aerodynamic and even returning to a turbocharged engine. This will account for huge improvements in fuel efficiency, particularly the light cars, but a hybrid electric engine is going to be an inevitable result.
Perhaps most interesting is the potential use of the KERS system in street cars. Ferrari uses the system in F1 to some effect. KERS stands for Kinetic Energy Recovery System. It essentially produces electricity from the braking system and stores it. The driver can then push a button to add the power to the drive system when needed. It produces an additional 80 odd horsepower in the F1 cars, which is a nice jolt when needed.
Ferrari is nothing if not very inventive. The future is clearly a challenging place for low mileage sports cars. Given the prowess of Ferrari in Formula One, expect it to come out with some amazing green vehicles in the future. Prius beware!
