Luca di Montezemolo, the head of Ferrari, says no to electric cars for wrong reasons

Luca-di-MontezemoloThe head of Ferrari, Luca di Montezemolo, spoke to Engadget about an electric Ferrari, and he made it very clear that there won’t ever be an electric Ferrari. He explained why. Montezemolo thinks that electric cars aren’t a working solution to global environmental problems, like the rise of CO2 emissions. And it’s very true that in many countries, electricity production is far from from clean. Be it with coal or nuclear energy generating radioactive waste. But how can he ignore the terrible air quality problems that had plagued Milan for years? The situation is only getting better now, after the city put up regulations to prevent dirty old cars to enter its limits. You are encouraged to drive an electric car in Milan, and all Milanese are enjoying the results of this policy.

However, on the Ferrari side, even the most ardent supporters of electric cars should recognize that driving an electric doesn’t give the thrill of a Ferrari. Even with today’s Ferrari. The clanking of the fuel pump just before the engine starts is gone. Ditto the sucking sound of carburetors, and the gear lever that comes straight from a metal grid, but the fantastic exhaust sound remains untouched. It’s even better than in the past. Ferrari’s engineers have become the greatest maestros, and there’s nothing like the sound of a Ferrari engine revving at 7,000-rpm and beyond.

An electric car is miserable compared to this. You turn the key and nothing happens. Who would want a silent Ferrari? Right now in summertime, there are many Ferrari cars in Cannes or Saint Tropez, their drivers very polite. Some pedestrian wants to cross the street, they’ll be happy to stop and give him the way. Only to make a fast start right after, so that all bystanders will turn heads and look at them. M. Montezemolo knows this. The customers want to be seen, they want to be heard. It would be cleaner, but a Ferrari without a loud engine wouldn’t be a Ferrari.

One thought on “Luca di Montezemolo, the head of Ferrari, says no to electric cars for wrong reasons

  1. ChiefHuntingBear

    Luca the Noble of the Marquises of Montezemelo won’t build an electric Ferrari because without a combustion engine it wouldn’t be thrilling? How about installing a soundtrack? An electric Tesla Model S will accelerate from zero to sixty faster than a Ferrari, doesn’t require 8,000.00 Euros to tune, and with a Li-On baterry runs on free electricity from solar panels and windmills. It can also be powered with paper batteries that recharge themselves through exposure to air, like those used in laser weapons since the 1970s and fighter jets since the 1990s, but the descendants of the Egyptian Pharos who rule the Earth, including american president O’Bomba who is descended from the English King John Lackland Plantagenet, have threatened to put bullets into the heads of anyone like the engineers at CENIMAT if they produce this technology for sale to consumers. The Center For Materials Research in Portugal has already demonstrated that it can produce capacity for 1.5 volts of electricity per .05 x3 x 5 millimeters volume of carbon nanotubes grown on a paper substrate, at a cost of one american penny. You can confirm that I directed a shadow Strategic Defense Initiative for President Reagan by looking up HuntingBear, PaulTerrenceWiggins on the website http://www.inTeLiGaTor.com . The only reason for atomic power plants is to have access to plutonium that can be refined through centrifuges into nuclear weapons. I will never sell Ferrari the logo that its president Mr. Luca has begged me to give him a charity rate on, instead of my ironclad 250,000,000.00 Euros per year price.