The rumors of a Ferrari hybrid are back, with company boss Amedeo Felisa suggesting such a car could appear by the end of the year, most likely at the Los Angeles Auto Show. Such a car, should it exist, may not be designed to increase fuel efficiency but rather to improve handling.
This is Ferrari, after all.
We've been hearing mumbling about a gas-electric supercar from Maranello for more than a year now, and they started when Felisa told Germany's Auto Motor und Sport "a hybrid solution will come." His lieutenants quickly downplayed the report, saying Felisa didn't mean "hybrid" when he said hybrid.
They may have been right.
Autocar recently got its hands on Ferrari patent drawings of a hybrid all-wheel-drive system that uses an electric motor to drive one set of wheels and a gasoline engine to drive the other. The system, Autocar reports, could be adapted to both front- and mid-engine vehicles. Ferrari says the system is lighter and less complex than a conventional AWD system and it creates less friction. It also allows the driver to choose rear-wheel or all-wheel drive as conditions require.
Although Ferrari doesn't mention anything about the econological benefits such a system might allow, Autocar notes it "almost certainly" would allow engineers to incorporate a start-stop system to cut fuel consumption. It also could allow the creation of a "city mode" for tooling around under electric power and a "sport mode" for tearing up the curves to the beautiful sound of a Ferrari engine.
Now then. Back to Felisa's stoking the flames of this rumor. Ferrari has said it wants to increase the fuel efficiency of its cars by 40 percent and cut emissions by 25 percent. Felisa told Car & Driver the company is looking at several ways of achieving that goal. One is using turbochargers, although Felisa insists the cars would retain their "high-revving feeling." Another is ethanol, which we saw at the Detroit auto show in 2007. The third, according to C&D, is hybrids.
Felisa suggested a hybrid concept wearing the cavalino rampante could appear this year. "Not at Frankfurt," he said, according to Car & Driver, "but shortly thereafter, probably at an American show."
Like C&D, we're betting it will be Los Angeles. The show has long been the place automakers showcase their green(er) technologies, and if there's one place a gas-electric Ferrari would sell, it's Southern California.
Photo of an F430 Spider: Ferrari
