The Ferrari 599 Hybrid - not by choice, but by regulation.
Ferrari bemoan the fact that they are being forced by regulation to introduce hybrid Ferraris to reduce emissions.
Every time we get a bit of bumph in from a car maker about their latest car, or the latest tweak to their slightly past its sell by date car – and that’s umpteen times a day – there is always a big bit about emissions. On the face of it, it would appear that car makers to a man have come out fully on the side of the Environ-Mentalists and their man made global warming nonsense.
But of course they haven’t. They’re doing what they have to do to comply with the emissions regulations governments around the world have imposed on car makers. But they also have their PR to consider. The perception is that the world and his dog buys the man-made global warming theory. So they don’t want to upset customers by being seen to be ‘uncaring’. Which is all well and good as long as you read between the lines. A bit like reading a newspaper.
Having moaned about the nonsense of CO2 limits we can’t deny that huge progress has been made in car economy without necessarily sacrificing performance. The last few years for car makers have been technologically testing, but many of the advances would have taken a generation to get to the market were it not for the new regulations.
Mind you, there are also big problems with bringing that technology to the market too quickly. Many car makers are having big problems with high-pressure injectors on their ‘Eco’ cars. Mercedes in particular. Be warned.
Ferrari don’t want to play this game. Ferrari boss Amadeo Felisa has been talking to Autocar and said:
Our customers are looking for the essence of Ferrari – the emotion, the performance, the technology and so on. The way in which we fix emissions is not their problem but ours. If we are not able to fix it, only then will it become a problem for them.
The issue of emissions for Ferrari is more a political one than real one. Lowering emissions of every Ferrari will not save the planet, but it will cost us a lot of money.
n the next five to 10 years, hybrid technology will develop and maybe something else will come up. Maybe it’ll be hydrogen, but for our cars only hybrid is ready.
Which makes a refreshing change. A big car maker – at least in reputation if not volume – comes out and says what every sane person knows – these emissions regulations are garbage.
Maybe this is the first. Maybe we’re all going to wake up and stop our politicians using climate change as a revenue gatherer. Maybe we’re going to say we’re not willing to have our future prosperity held hostage by cod science and batty projections from scientists. The same scientists who told us in the ’70s we’d have a new ice age ; in the ’80s that acid rain would destroy us ; in the the ’90s that the hole in the ozone layer would fry us and now that man-made climate change will destroy the planet.
They can’t get the weather forecast right for tomorrow. Much less the climate for the next 50 years.
Well done, Ferrari
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