The fires of hell cooled last month when Ferrari announced it will build cleaner, more fuel efficient cars, and now they've frozen over entirely - the company's general director says we may soon see the *cavallino rampante *on a hybrid.
We've been hearing these rumors of a hybrid Ferrari for a couple of months now, and it seemed but Ferrari boss Amedeo Felisa confirmed them when he told Germany's Auto Motor and Sport quoted him saying, "a hybrid solution will come."
But Ferrari tells us in no uncertain terms that Auto Motor & Sport got it all wrong. The official word from Ferrari North America is that their colleagues in Maranello are trying to figure out what happened, and he promised to get back to us.
"It's incorrect," a spokesperson said of the report. "It's absolutely incorrect. It's not something we're looking at at this time."
For what it's worth, we've had the Auto Motor story translated by someone who speaks German, and it plainly quotes Felisa saying "a hybrid solution will come" and promised promising that every new Ferrari will be more economical - which we take to mean more fuel efficient, not cheaper - than its predecessor. What it doesn't say, however, is when that solution may come.
As we reported two weeks ago in "Ferrari's Going Green(ish)", Felisa has said the company will cut the fuel consumption of its gas-guzzling cars by 40 percent and slash CO2 emissions by 25 percent within four years. The challenge will be figuring out how to do that without sacrificing the performance of cars long renowned for their speed and handling.
With the European Union cracking down on CO2 emissions, Ferrari's going to have to solve that riddle, and soon. Sardi gave us some insight into what Ferrari is exploring, and there are other areas that bear watching...
The European Commission wants to limit carbon dioxide emissions to 120 grams per kilometer by 2012. Just eight percent of the continent's cars meet that benchmark, and the average vehicle emits 160 grams per kilometer. The European Automobile Manufacturers Association, which represents 13 automakers (including Fiat, which holds 85 percent of Ferrari), supports the limit but says the commission's proposal for reaching it will not work.
"Ferrari's in a tough spot, like all of the low-volume automakers with high-performance, high-emission vehicles," said Aaron Bragman, an auto industry analyst with Global Insight. "It's putting Ferrari and these other automakers in the difficult position of having to reduce emissions without reducing the performance and cachet consumers expect from them."
Boosting fuel efficiency cuts emissions, and to that end Felisa has said Ferrari will improve the fuel economy of its cars 40 percent by 2012. That's a significant challenge for a company that produces cars that get 12 to 13 miles per gallon. Maranello also plans to reduce CO2 emissions from 400 grams per kilometer to 280-300 grams.
The Auto Motor & Sport piece quotes Felisa saying supercharged V-8 engines could help reach those goals but Ferrari will not consider diesel technology because of its poor power-to-weight ratio. Sardi said he could not comment on those points, but he said the Millechili concept is a guidepost to Ferrari's future - smaller, lighter and quicker cars.
"We're working on weight reduction and several other things," he said.
Ferrari unveiled a cardboard and plastic mock-up of the Millechili ("one thousand kilos" in Italian) concept during its 60th anniversary bash earlier this year. It looks a lot like an Enzo in seven-eighths scale and it would weigh 567 pounds less. That would allow the Millechili to have a smaller, and therefore more fuel-efficient, engine while retaining the performance of Ferrari's larger cars.
Kinetic energy recovery systems are something else we might see in a Ferrari before long. Such systems use energy recovered during braking to help propel the car. Formula 1 regulations require the use of such systems in 2009, and at least two major teams have development deals for the technology with Torotrak. No one's identifying the teams, but if Ferrari isn't among them, it almost certainly is developing its own system in-house.
"A lot of (Ferrari's) research is done in the Formula 1 side, and if they're developing KERS, I could see it being applied to road cars," Bragman told us, noting that paddle shifting and other technology found in Ferrari's production vehicles first appeared in its F1 cars.
F1's rulemakers are determined to make the sport more eco-friendly and its technology more relevant to production cars. Where that may lead remains anyone's guess, but if there are hybrids in Formula 1's future, there are probably hybrids in Ferrari's too.
