Ferrari Goes Green
Italian supercar maker to improve fuel consumption by 40%
Environ-mental
Well actually no, because Ferrari has come over all ‘Prius’ and announced its plans to reduce fuel consumption of its range by 40% by 2012.
It appears the Italian firm has itself bowed to growing pressure on car makers to reduce CO2 emissions, despite only producing a few thousand vehicles a year.
Amedeo Felisa, general manager of Ferrari, said the company planned to reduce CO2 emissions from 400 grams per kilometre to 280-300 grams per kilometre.
The news could now well create a trend across the supercar industry, with other manufacturers hoping to sell cars on their green credentials.
But it may not be all bad news for Ferrari owners, because the firm expects to improve economy without sacrificing performance.
Mr Felisa said the engineers are looking at lighter materials and ways of ways of burning less fuel but retaining the same performance.
‘We have to face the challenge of reducing consumption but not affecting the performance of the car,’ he told the Reuters Auto Summit in Frankfurt.
‘Otherwise we move (away) from our position in the market and we do not want to do that.’
‘The answer is efficiency,’ he added.
I'm fed up with the idea that a "sportscar" is heading towards being 2 tonnes. Lets get back to the light nimbleness of car that are fun, not just cars that *can* do 200mph but will never be driven at 200mph FFS!
I struggle to believe that anyone would buy a supercar for its "Green credentials".
I would imagine that "Green credentials" are somewhat down the list for supercar buyers behind Performance, Handling, Looks, Sound, Speed, Exclusivity, Smell, Taste, The ability to piss off Eco Mentalists etc etc etc.
This is even more important on cars which may do very low mileage anyway, where operational efficiency is ultimately less important, and production cost more so!
Hey ho, anything to 'appear' green and appeal to idiotic eurocracy targets.
Dave
Carbon Fibre/bonded Aluminium tub. Ferrari engine and technology. Could be good for 30mpg and still go like poo from a well polished digging implement.
So 3000 Ferrari's world-wide will be more economical. What about the 1M US Pickups that get built each and every year? Is it not more important to deal with these polutors first? Or am I missing the political back-story here?
Tax the rich and steal their money? Bloody communists!
Porsche have really improved their consumption, and the new GTR averages well over 30mpg.
This may mean that they will not have to put such large fuel tanks in the cars saving even more weight and room, plus saving on having to fuel up in the morning, again in the afternoon and once more at night... Its ok if you live next to a petrol station, but a pain if not. Plus lighter cars are so much more fun.
I just hope that performance and the character traits that these kind of cars stand for come first, not headline grabbing eco-profiling...
The EU's carbon trading scheme will be replaced with carbon rationing and limits in the medium-term. Basically, if your industry and your products infringe the legal maximum for that year, you'll be fined so heavily you may well go out of business.
Thing is, the high-performance solutions being put together by the world's car industries to get around it are altogether very positive - lots of light weight, aerodynamic efficiency and smaller, revvier engines. Basically, Ferraris will be a lot like Lotuses.
I think this is a great thing. The power game is getting ridiculous these days and Ferrari are concentrating far too hard on driver aids. Time to go back to basics and spend the budget on getting their engines more efficient and chassis lighter. It will benefit us all in the long term.
making it lighter will do wonders in so many, handling, acceration ect
all be better.
According to evo thats how farrari will acheve there target.
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