Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart; “… I don’t want to be arrogant and impose a choice on our client …”
Ferrari resists pressure to phase out combustion engine
By Theo Leggett
Business correspondent, BBC News
Ferrari will continue to build cars with internal combustion engines into the late 2030s, despite efforts by governments around the world to phase out the technology.
The boss of the Italian manufacturer said it would be “arrogant” to dictate to customers what they can buy.
For Ferrari, as for many other premium brands, the move towards electric cars presents a steep marketing challenge.
But the company is due to introduce its first electric supercar in 2025.
…
In a BBC interview, Ferarri boss Benedetto Vigna pointed to this decision as a sign that technology was evolving, and denied doing so would undermine the company’s environmental credentials.
“I don’t want to be arrogant and impose a choice on our client,” he said.
“It is the client who must choose if they want an ICE (internal combustion engine), a hybrid or an electric car.”
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/65539880
What can I say – Ferrari we love you. I’d buy one of your cars if I could afford it.
Imagine if other car makers focussed on what customers want, instead of focussing on being woke.
The government 2030s 100% EV target is nonsense, unless there are radical improvements in EV technology, and a complete overhaul of our roads.
For example, my second hand 4WD diesel can easily get 600 miles per tank, “recharges” in minutes, is light enough to climb and descend difficult slopes, and is mechanically good for at least another 100,000 miles. I bought it because I was fed up with my road vehicle being shaken to pieces on our failing roads.
The thought of current generation EVs being driven regularly on such roads is absurd.
Correction (EW): Corrected the quote from Ferrari boss Benedetto Vigna
Full marks to Ferrari, and I’m hopeful that many more will follow if their owners have the courage!
Being technologically illiterate seems to be a benefit for politicians. If you actually know what you are demanding is not currently possible, it tends to limit your claims. Technology is for those geeks, anyway, who we can dismiss. We elites have Vision!
Methinks the Italian PM is about to tell the green blob to F…O
i share your thoughts.
Went to Hollywood with a mate many years ago and bought one of those gorgeous 1947 model Ferrari 125s [1.5 liter V12] as a wreck and brought it back to Aus and restored it. Including those beautiful Borani wheels.
Couldn’t see myself doing all that for an EV.
Geez, we can only dream of roads as good as that in PNG 🙂
These aren’t our worst, I was worried about my tyres 🙂
Yeah. I had to drive out to Canowindra, NSW recently. Couldn’t see the road for potholes. (only slight exaggeration).
(Paraphrasing) “Every time we go out – potholes and more potholes until we can’t bloody get home at all.”
There’s a saying out here in the regions, we mostly drive on the left hand side of the road and if necessary on the right, but these days we drive on what’s left of the road! Had to replace a damaged steering rod a few months ago. They can keep their EV’s!
How nice to see tyres spelled in the ‘original’.
Looksherry! We have to get up at a ‘alf past ten, two hours before we go to bed, an drive to work in a front-end loader to fill in the holes… did I say holes? Chasms is more like it.
Shades of Nye County, Nevada. Some years back it was necessary to turn the headlights on to find a way out of a pothole, at midday.
As governments try to pass mandates requiring the sale of only EVs, it’s up to consumers to take strong stands against such laws by bombarding their elected representatives to withdraw such actions. There’s no way that the public should have these overpriced vehicles shoved down their throats because if they allow it, they’ll stay overpriced, something the manufacturers would love since sales of them have been sluggish for years now, and their producers are losing money on them. In fact, one of the reasons the prices of conventional gas/diesel vehicles has been rising is that money is needed to subsidize the poorly-selling EVs.
Don’t want to be pernickety, but do you really need those words “to withdraw such actions.”?
Reads much nicer without them!
A good thought, either way.
The potholes probably wouldn’t be so bad if you were driving on the correct side of the road.
He is on the correct (left) side. You just can’t tell because so many English roads are just one lane wide.
Those are Aussie roads.
Yep, both sides were equally stuffed. And the bridge towards the end of the video is single lane, a road which is marked on the maps as a “highway”.
The potholes were so bad on the right side that they kept bouncing him over to the side he had left.
Bravo! Bravissimo!
Internal Combustion Engines ROCK!
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biography.com%2F.image%2Ft_share%2FMTM1NzE2NDUyNTQzMDEwMDY2%2Fenzo-ferrari_wikicommonsjpg.jpg
And so does LIBERTY!
Free markets forever!
The only words we need:“I don’t want to be arrogant and impose a choice on our client …”
Think about it – Those words destroy everything that climate science is trying to do/achieve
The problem will start when governments ramp-up the tax on liquid hydrocarbon based fuels.
Free choice? Not so much…
Strange, isn’t it, how governments have convinced themselves that they’re taxing us for our own good?
The furthest into this the world gets will be hybrids. Governments will be dropping the imposition of BEV’s only long before the 2035 (in the UK) deadline.
Enzo is up there somewhere putting a mafia hex on governments around the world.
He once described F1 aerodynamics as only suitable for engineers who couldn’t build decent engines.
The answer to F1’s continuing malaise of vast expense is to eliminate aero altogether, make the cars aero neutral and allow manufacturers to build any engine they want for them.
It wouldn’t stop the cyclical dominance of manufacturers but it sure would sound better with howling V12’s and rumbling V8’s again. Ban turbo’s altogether, they’re like silencers on a shotgun.
i just returned from a vacation in italy and sicily. Both sets of grand parent’s were born in sicily. sicilian blood is thick in my family. this is a bold and brilliant statement by ferrari with the true impact yet to unfold.
when ford beat ferrari at lamans, a grudge developed that lasts to today. ford is bleeding money right now, not because of ferrari, rather because ford and many other car manufactures are gambling that the climate hoax will be a big payoff.
battery powered cars a disposable items by design. as i write, car enthusiasts are finding 100 rear old cars of all makes and restoring them. 100 years form now no one will be looking to restore a battery powered car.
and now for you viewing pleasure.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=goodyear+ferrari+commercial&&view=detail&mid=F735836EE6C50D2174ECF735836EE6C50D2174EC&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dgoodyear%2Bferrari%2Bcommercial%26qpvt%3Dgoodyear%2Bferrari%2Bcommercial%26FORM%3DVDRE
joex
The grudge between Ford and Ferrari began when Henry Ford Jr. tried to buy Ferrari so Ford could use their technology especially to win the Le Mans 24 hours.
When Henry thought he had Enzo on the ropes, Enzo turned down the offer in favour of Fiat. Henry realised he had been played by Enzo to jack up Fiat’s offer which he was always going to accept.
By way of revenge Henry commissioned the GT40, so named because it’s total height off the ground was 40 inches, specifically to beat the Ferraris at Le Mans, which he did.
The problem all these manufacture’s of cars and motorcycles have is that one electric motor sounds and performs just like any other electric motor. So the myriad of straight 6’s, V8’s V10’s etc etc cannot be replicated. You end up with a box on 4 wheels or a frame on 2 that all sound the same. Want more power, fit a bigger or extra electric motors but it will still sound the same. Brands like Ferrari will hang on to ICE for as long as possible for the very good reason it keeps them apart from the rabble and worth paying the premium for. Lose that and lose the point of buying a Ferrari.
Every manufacturer should hang on to ICEs with a death grip because not many actually want worse-than-useless BEVs. BEV range is too short, recharge time too long, and have a propensity to self ignite into fires that cannot be extinguished.
Insurance companies tend to total them after collisions because the repair costs (mainly due to batteries) are so high. This will translate into much higher, ultimately unaffordable premiums (on top of the already unaffordable prices that will only climb as demand for “rare Earth metals” and other materials (copper for example) is artificially inflated by idiotic government attempts to mandate BEVs.
There’s probably little hope for Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep/Ram (French ownership), and GM has been mismanaged for decades (bean counters, now making noises about “going all electric” regularly). Don’t know about Ford other than the fact that they are (already) losing the price of a modern sedan on every BEV they sell.
BEVs = Death of the Auto industry.
I’m guessing if we voted in Western/industrialized countries to ban ICE cars it would fail and in less developed countries it would pass. They way governments are allowing WEF/ESG/Marxists to control their politics and laws I’m again guessing if we don’t have a vote in the matter.
If the other “woke” auto makers have swallowed the Green Kool-Aid and go all EV, it might be wise for Ferrari to design and be prepared to produce an economy version of their cars?
Laughably, one of the most frequent concerns about EV’s was that pedestrians wouldn’t hear them coming.
I have stood on the kerb several time as Tesla’s have passed and the tyre roar from them is louder than the combined engine and tyre noise from even Range Rovers.
Ferrari might just be one of the very few auto makers who won’t have to file for bankruptcy in a decade or so…..good for them!
And besides, I just can’t see anything cool about an electric Ferrari. Imagine old 80’s detective and cop shows Magnum P.I. and Miami Vice with boring electric “sports” cars…..well, I guess they would make for some epic pyrotechnics when wrecked!
Every ICE vehicle that is sold today or within the next fifteen years is on the road for at least a further fifteen years, maybe twenty.
Therefore, 2050 will still see large numbers of ICE vehicles being used.
Ferraris are not for me, as I HATE buying $20,000 windshields and paying $10,000 for routine brake jobs. However, I stand and salute their resistance to the EV idiocy. They are not alone. Porsche is pushing carbon-neutral syn fuels and intends to keep many of their IC powerplants. Ditto Lamborghini, Volkswagen, Mercedes and more. And once the makers that promised full conversion to voltage see their sales figures slide, many more will follow. IMO full conversion to electric cars is about as inevitable as my winning the Powerball lottery, because nearly none of it makes sense. Not enough grid including massive deficiencies of powerplants, lines and transformers; Insufficient quantities of the required raw materials for EV batteries; Inadequate recyclability of retired EV’s; Excessive total writeoffs of EV’s for minor battery damage; Excessive recharge times; Inadequate inventories of charging stations; Wholly inadequate driving ranges, especially in snow, rain, hot or cold circumstances; Inadequate total service lifetimes (about half the 200,000 to 300,000 miles expected from IC cars); Onerous fire hazards (the lithium battery of a a garden tractor exploded and burned down my neighbor’s lakefront home, nearly killing the family); The high purchase cost and high depreciation of EV’s; Environmental damage from excavating the average 250 tons of crust required to source the rare earths for just a single EV battery – and this is a PARTIAL list! Side note: In order to solve all these problems, we will be required to bankrupt nations and destroy the middle class – a small price to pay to insure socialist world control!