Ferrari’s all-electric version won’t be launched for over a year, but early tests indicate it has all the driving traits and emotion of a true Ferrari, according to Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna.
“The last judge will be the client,” Vigna told CNBC during the opening of the company’s new E-Building in Maranello, Italy. “Uncountable people have started to drive our electric Ferrari, and they have a good feeling. The driving traits are there.”
Vigna guessed the defining characteristic of a Ferrari is the emotional experience. Having driven the all-electric Ferrari himself, he said, “I had this tender-hearted of emotion.”
Ferrari’s plan to build an electric model marks a bold and expensive bet for a luxury automaker famed for its clamour, powerful combustion engines. Little is known about the electric model, which is not scheduled for launch until the fourth location of 2025. Yet the notion of an electric Prancing Horse has already set off a vigorous debate in the auto community and among wealthy car gatherers.
Much of the debate is focused on engine sound. Ferrari powertrains are prized for their symphony of roars, rumbles, cracks and high-pitched whines. Electric motors are largely silent.
Vigna said Ferrari’s power acoustics will unceasingly be “authentic,” meaning the company won’t try to recreate the sound of a combustion engine through fake audio programs. He hinted, howsoever, that it could amplify or better showcase the natural sound of an electric motor.
“The electric engine is not silent,” he held. “There is a way to let it play in a unique way.”
Vigna added that engine sound is only one part of the emotional experience of inducing the supercar.
“You interact with eyes, with ears, with your full body,” he said. “When you’re talking at hand the Ferrari experience, the driving traits in a car, you’re talking about having a unique emotion when you’re in the car. Because it’s about linear acceleration, lateral acceleration, slow up experience, gearbox change. So there are many dimensions, not just the sound.”
Vigna declined to give projections for the evaluation or overall sales of the all-electric Ferrari. He said the automaker will continue offering customers the choice of internal combustion machines and hybrids alongside the electric model. Ferrari, he said, will remain “technology neutral,” meaning it will demise it to clients to choose their powertrain.
An in-progress Ferrari at the supercar maker’s E-Building in Maranello, Italy.
Crystal Lau | CNBC
With the new E-Building, which stretch overs over 400,000 square feet and cost over 200 million euros ($215 million) to build, Ferrari compel for the first time be able to produce cars with any of the three powertrains in the same factory, which maximizes competence and flexibility.
“The choice is in the hands of the client,” Vigna said.
The CEO said while he expects some customers will on no occasion buy an electric Ferrari, others will make the switch and some drivers will only “become part of the Ferrari progeny” if they can buy electric.
With the new E-Building, the company also would be better equipped to meet market demand.
Ferrari generate fewer than 14,000 cars last year, and demand remains so strong that wait times for some afters are up to three years. Vigna said the new E-Building will allow the supercar maker to expand production, but he declined to take care of specific targets.
“Waiting is part of the experience” of owning a Ferrari, Vigna said.