Italy seeks to shield supercars from combustion engine ban | Hacker News Reader

Italy seeks to shield supercars from combustion engine ban

bloombergquint.com

33 pointsaloukissas88 comments

Bad idea from an image perspective, from a statistics perspective it wouldn't matter. But if you want to create buy-in from the population the best way to sink that is to give an exemption to the ultra rich.

The easiest way would be to start enforcing the ban today, but percentage wise, and then over the course of the next 14 years enforce a fixed percentage of the cars produced to be fully electric until the last vehicle to roll off the line with an ICE is made in 2035. That way nobody gets an excuse and the likes of Ferrari can make bank by selling their ICE based vehicles at auction for ever higher prices. Problem elegantly solved.

These companies seem to be a point of pride in Italy so the political effects could go either way.

Yes, absolutely, but Ferrari is simply a part of the Agnelli empire and the other brands are going to have to follow suit anyway. So Ferrari may just as well accept the inevitable, Italy certainly isn't going to drop out of the union on account of a couple of thousand of vehicles, besides, at some point the stigma of buying a new ICE car will be such that it may well be that nobody wants them except for collectors who just want to own the cars and not drive them (which isn't rare with Ferrari's to begin with).

The problem with an exemption from a ban is that once you go down that road there will be plenty of others that will want an exemption as well, so best to leave that door closed. Because all those little exceptions in the end do add up. Why exempt say Ferrari but not MB/AMG or Maybach or Rolls Royce, or even the (currently dormant I believe) Phaeton line.

Instead of mandating particular technologies, a better solution would be to just impose a gradually escalating carbon tax and let the free market sort things out. If gasoline costs €20/l then consumption will be so low as to make the environmental impact minimal.

> tax

> free market

Yes?

I mean, the free market has always operated within the constraints of public policy. Law mandated an end to slavery, the free market adapted. Law mandated a minimum wage, the free market adapted.

I see no reason for why the imposition of yet another tax would make the market any less free then it always have been. It will adapt given the constraints applied.

No, that still sends the wrong signal: that rich people can buy their way out of doing their part. The same already happens to some degree with speed limits, which the owners of fast cars regularly ignore by driving just under the limit at which your car gets impounded. They don't give a damn about the fines. This leads to a class society in all but name. Some countries have the right idea on this front (progressive fines based on either income or value of the vehicle).

If you do that in the UK, you lose your license after doing this a few times. Drive without a license and you'll lose more than your car.

Do other countries not have point-based offenses?

It depends, some countries do, some don't.

So you can destroy the planet, but only if you're rich?

With wealth inequality where it is, trying this would spawn a very quick, very unpleasant revolt.

Strikes me as one of those things —like public health— that's better if we all follow the same rules, all the time.

As a massive gearhead I am absolutely in favor of this exception. Lots of practical and pragmatic arguments are being made here like the fact that very few of these cars are sold and they spend most of their lives in a garage, but allow me to make an emotional argument.

I got to drive a Ferrari a about 2 years ago, and after that drive I am convinced that the only way to understand why these cars is to drive them. Sure the look insane and the spec sheet is equally insane, but the thing I took away most is all the little sensations you get while driving it. The exhaust crackle, the whipping acceleration when the turbo spools, the rev jump when you downshift.

All these little pieces of magic will be lost if supercars have to go electric. Yes they will all retain the same power and handling, but when I drove that Ferrari the most fun I had wasn't when I was flooring it but when I was just putting around town, shifting between 2nd and 3rd gear and hearing the exhaust crackle and engine rev. After my drive I was left with chills down my spine and a determination to one day have one in my garage.

I really really hope Ferrari and Lamborghini get this exception, it will be one of the saddest days in the automotive world when these automakers have to put their V8's and V12's to pasture.

The ones that have been made will remain. And besides that the fuel distribution network will at some point likely diminish to the point that driving one of these will not just be un-economical, it will be impossible. It's a matter of time before there will be environmental zones in between wherever you are and wherever you want to go that make it impossible to use an ICE.

So quite likely, ban or not, the ICE will die out completely. I've re-built a 24 year old car with an ICE and I fully expect it to be my last car, at 56 I see no point in buying something new and if and when I can't/won't drive it we'll have a nice paperweight.

> And besides that the fuel distribution network will at some point likely diminish to the point that driving one of these will not just be un-economical, it will be impossible.

I'm very skeptical that the gasoline fuel distribution network is going away in our lifetimes. There's too much of the rest of our lives and infrastructure that depend in some way on the energy density of gasoline.

Europe ban new ICE vehicles in 2030s, so they will disappear completely in 2060s or so. I doubt gas station will still be a thing to the consumers by then, even if industrial use may still exist in some capacity.

These things tend to have economies of scale and tipping points, once you lose the economy of scale and/or reach certain tipping points then suddenly operating a gas station will end up being unprofitable unless you charge a huge amount per liter/gallon and then there are even fewer people that will gas up. Once you get into a feedback loop like that the end can come quite quickly. Ironically, the developing countries will likely reach that point much later than the developed world, so maybe those Ferrari's will have their ultimate destination in unexpected places. That would be kind of funny. More likely though they will just be what they are today as well: signs of conspicuous consumption rather than to be driven. And for that purpose they may as well sit in their heated garages just like they do today. Typically those cars have < 30K on the odometer, it is pretty rare to see one that is in use as a daily driver and when they are the bills to keep them running are quite heavenly.

A friend of mine has an F12, he was very happy with it, right up to his first major service and then he could count out how much that car costs per kilometer driven. That's before you get into little details like depreciation. He's not quite as happy with it today, but likely if he holds on to it for a while he'll sell it with a profit anyway, over the longer term they tend to gain in value.

The problem I see with electric is the energy density, and the difficulties that come with that. Battery tech has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go.

The other trouble is the longevity. I like buying used cars for ~$3k with 100k+ miles on them: pick the right one, and it'll last you another 60k+ miles for the cost of tires and DIY oil changes. From what I understand, current battery tech requires you to buy replacement batteries well before that point, and those batteries are ~$10k. Back of the napkin, that's $1k more than the cost of the ICE car, its maintenance, and the gas to drive it.

It's not just cars, either. Welding - fairly fundamental to construction these days - depends on the availability of cheap power, usually in the form of gas generators. We'll be in a bind of gas isn't available anymore. Not to mention all the other applications for grid-independent electricity generation, which generally depends on gasoline or diesel.

You may be right, and we'll hit that tipping point. If we do, though, I think we'll have a lot of second-order effects that bite us hard.

> used cars [...] with 100k+ miles on them

> it'll last you another 60k+ miles

> current battery tech requires you to buy replacement batteries well before that point

That's not true. After 160k miles, EV batteries still have more than 90% of their original capacity: https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-dat...

The problem is if Tesla and Porsche can rack up noticeably better acceleration and lap times with electric, the masses will no longer equate those nuances with speed and buy the faster car. Much like a roaring Harley or the rumble of a sixties muscle car V8 is cool and all but no longer associated with performance like it once was.

I do see the rich exception causing problems but I also think electric will out perform in the end and the problem is self solving...

> Much like a roaring Harley or the rumble of a sixties muscle car V8 is cool and all but no longer associated with performance like it once was.

They're not even cool, just a nuisance. There's too many of them to be cool. Not that the overgrown toddlers on their Harleys would realize this.

The world changes and evolves, and nothing lasts forever. I have recently been wrestling with wanting a replica Superformance GT40 and also having this nagging feeling that I would be going in the wrong direction due to what is happening in the world, climate wise.

All the super automotive companies will put out incredible electric products eventually, and we will come to marvel at those as well with time.

+100 to all of this

They don't think they can make electric super cars in 14 years? They have plenty of notice. On a side note, John Carmack was on Joe Rogan's podcast and talked about supercharging his Ferraris. In the same podcast, Carmack said he actually prefers his Tesla over the Ferrari. The supercar companies may be in trouble, and extending the life of combustion engines is unlikely to help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM_tqQNJWzc

Around 11:56 he talks about why his Tesla wins in many ways over his Ferraris.

What you are missing is that pure performances are not what make a Ferrari.

For example Tesla brakes are made by Brembo, an Italian company.

For Ferrari using parts built in another country is unacceptable. That's not how a Ferrari is made, Ferrari has to be 100% produced in Italy.

Brakes: Brembo

Electronics: Magneti Marelli

Tyres: Pirelli

etc. etc.

You are falling for the marketing. For example Ferrari 599 GTB shocks are made in Poland. My favorite is rear shelf stuffed with $5 corrugated plastic starting to creak after 10 years https://youtu.be/GkQdyn6Xz9k?t=499

There’s more to a car than numbers. But for many people who haven’t driven these cars or aren’t into cars - it’s hard to understand. Some people see “better” number and they think the car must be better but that’s not how it is.

I think everybody is getting it wrong.

As Italian (and Ferrari fan, but that's another story) what really matters for Ferrari (and ~~Lamborghini~~ Maserati) is that they aren't mass produced, they are not an industrial product (most of them are assembled by hand) and - most of all - all of the parts are produced in Italy!

What the minister is saying is that if Ferrari can't build autonomously their own batteries - from scratch - they can't produce a real Ferrari.

Of course this is different from buying batteries from a supplier and strapping them in a mass produced car, assembled by machines.

It has nothing to do with rich people or taxes, it's just a matter of bootstrapping an entire industry from the ground up.

Of course Ferrari knows how to build electric engines, it's completely out of touch to think that one of the leading car producer in the World in terms of know how can't do what BYD does (Ferrari is the only F1 team that still manufactures all of the components of their car from the engine to the chassis and everything else)

edit: Maserati, not Lamborghini.

> and Lamborghini

btw Lamborghini is owned by Volkswagen and all new Lambos (like Huracan and successor to Aventador) are designed by Audi because they've better quality than ones created by Italians (like Aventador, which has a lot of issues), Huracan has almost no issues and you can drive it like a daily car. Volkswagen have their own battery source.

Correct.

I wrote Lamborghini, but I was thinking about Maserati.

Also what the Italian minister said has been wrongly translated.

According to Italian sources, minister Cingolani is worried that in Italy what we call "the motor valley" will have to close if forced to rebuilt itself in only 14 years (it's really a short timeframe to reconvert an entire production chain) then he also talks about the niche supercars market, not only of Italian brands like Ferrari and Maserati, but also Lamborghini and McLaren.

Just make the things run on some "renewable" fuel like ethanol or RME and that whole carbon thing can be relegated to the sideline. If/when it comes that far it'll probably be more expensive to run these cars but given that the clientele is not that price-conscious that should not be a problem. While it is not really feasible to produce enough ethanol to run the entire ICE fleet it should not be any problem to produce enough for a limited number of "exemption" vehicles. Included in that list can be classic cars, many of which were built to be able to use multiple fuels anyway - e.g. a Model T or Model A Ford can run on ethanol straight from the factory by adjusting the mixture (which is a standard part of operating such a vehicle anyway).

Ethanol has a high octane number and as such is useable for high-compression engines like those in "supercars". Fuel consumption will go up but the clientele does not care about such trivialities. Converting petrol engines to ethanol is a simple task so Ferrari (et al) should not have any problems doing such.

That’s funny, because I’m Italian and here the chairman of Ferrari already said that they’ll launch an electric Ferrari by 2025

> “If we bring in new technology, then we need to bring something new to the market. That’s how Ferrari has always worked with new technology. The evolution of new technology is 100% in the DNA of Ferrari.” https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/ferrari-launch-f...

Same for Lamborghini

> Lamborghini R&D boss Maurizio Reggiani: “If you look at the timing for a fourth model line, there is the potential that this will be the right time for a full-electric vehicle,” https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/lamborghini-plot...

So I think the Italian politicians are quite dull and short-sighted, as (almost) always.

This seems reasonable to me. The overwhelming majority of cars are not supercars, and most supercars spend their lives sitting in garages, so this will curtail a lot of powerful resistance to the electrification movement despite only negligibly reducing the CO2 savings it will bring.

It would be asking too much require rich people to follow the same rules as everyone else.

From my perspective, "the same rules" would mean having the same legal/financial consequences for each gram of CO2 emitted.

In which case people who don't drive a car much wouldn't be punished as if they do, regardless of wealth or other factors.

It's like the classic question about which is heavier, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?

Is it impossible to agree that a kilo of CO2 is the same whether it's emitted by a Prius or an SUV or a Ferrari?

Indeed, despite the poor fuel economy of many of them, most rarely hit mileage in their lifetimes that most cars would hit in their first year or two. The main inefficiency is really just the building of them in the first place- but they don’t have much impact in only driving 10k miles compared to most vehicles

Yep, let's continue to shield the ultra-rich from the consequences of the laws they have their pet MPs write for them. As in, "climate czar" John Kerry for example, who seems to be physically unable to fly commercial or live in a reasonably sized house. I'm sure people like that exist in Italy as well.

So my ordinary sedan (a Honda Accord) would be banned but luxury cars get an exemption? The middle class will not tolerate that.

The ban is on new engines

Speciality cars are also extempt form some safety requirements, also older ‘classic’ cars as well, today.

The reason: They are not used for every day commuting, and preserving history is worth the exemptions

Luxury cars and supercars are not equivalent terms; the latter is about speed and power (and so, carbon). Example; a Rolls-Royce is a luxury car, where a Lamborghini Veneno is a supercar.

They are different terms, but I don't think the difference has much to do with power or CO2 emissions.

An entry level Rolls-Royce has emissions of about 343g/km, and the Veneno supposedly 499g/km.

They both have V-12 engines of broadly similar size and power.

For comparison one of the most efficient hybrids (I looked up my car) with a gas engine emits about 115 g/km.

It's not really about rich vs middle class, it really comes down to the cars and why you buy those cars. You buy a Honda Accord for what it "does", you buy a Ferrari for what it "is".

If the Honda Accord went electric, people would still buy it because it fundamentally "does" the same thing.

However if Ferrari switched out their V8 or V12 for an electric powertrain, people would likely not buy it because changing the powertrain changes what the car "is"

“Terrorists are rare, and get mad, so we are exempting them from security screenings at the airport.”

Come on. If you can afford a super car you can afford the tax.

Afford the tax? Isn't this article about a ban, as in, you won't be allowed the cars at any price?

But when you violate a ban, you get fined...

Kinda the same thing..

I don't know about Italy, but in the US, driving an illegal car can end up with it getting sent to an impound lot and then a crusher, and you getting sent to prison.

You can't drive illegal cars in Italy.

Each model needs to be approved and the spec cannot be changed (you can't even mount tyres not approved by the authorities for that model) otherwise the owner would be heavily fined and the car would be confiscated

On the other hand tacking on a $10,000 carbon surcharge on a car that costs $1.5m doesn’t seem likely to hurt sales.

I agree with that, but isn't this article about an exemption from a ban, not from a surcharge?

It's always relevant to ask: what problem are we trying to solve?

The ban is meant to bring EU closer to the 2050 zero-CO2 emission goal. This will be achieved by shrinking current emissions while increasing CO2 removal ( see https://assets.weforum.org/editor/responsive_large_webp_XR_q... ).

If someone brings in the discussion the ability to have 10'000 extra for the co2-net-zero goal, let's think -- it is helping the goal? Can we remove with this money more CO2 than the super-car would be producing over its lifetime?

Bringing out the stick to keep the discussion on topic must be traded-off carefully against the danger of killing relevant novel ideas and different ways to look at the problem.

However, by that argument, we should just impose a high tax on all combustion engine cars, or perhaps simply introduce an appropriate carbon tax, instead of banning the combustion engine.

Some of the reasons we don't want to do that are:

1. A carbon tax is regressive and might result in the middle class still being just about able to afford cars, but the lower class completely unable to, which would be unfair.

2. By forcing the shift away from the combustion engine with a ban, rather than just nudging away from it with a tax, we're providing a stronger spur to innovation.

Both of these reasons apply to supercars to a large extent:

1. Elites being able to buy combustion engine (super)cars, while the rest of society cannot, would be unfair.

2. Forcing companies to innovate in the case of supercars, which provide a greater engineering challenge, increases the chance that the all the relevant engineering obstacles are solved for "normal" cars.

IMO the two end-points:

1. We just introduce a sufficiently high carbon tax, together with appropriate redistribution to make up for its regressiveness, and let the free market decide whether combustion engines are still affordable after internalising the externality.

2. We ban the combustion engine on the basis that we're all in this together and we want to make sure that the transition definitely does occur.

are defensible. The middle-ground where we tax supercars, but ban all other combustion engine cars is far less so.

> 1. A carbon tax is regressive and might result in the middle class still being just about able to afford cars, but the lower class completely unable to, which would be unfair.

I hear similar things to this a lot. Doesn't every good have some level of money required to be able to afford it? Are you saying that it's unfair that some people have more money than others?

> Doesn't every good have some level of money required to be able to afford it?

Yes, of course. The point here is that a carbon tax further skews the situation in favour of the rich. We, as a society, accept the current situation as a compromise between fairness and "market efficiency", and hence are worried by shifts away from it.

To a large extent this is a "status quo bias", but it is natural — if people could afford something until now, but are suddenly being told that they won't be able to, they'll be, rightly or wrongly, unhappy.

Not even 25% tax. There’s an insanse number of super and hypercars in Norway.

Yes, and the ultra wealthy will keep flying private jets too while the brunt of the sacrifice will be done by the plebs. They should also be allowed to own mega yachts while we try to limit the effects of sea freight and cruise ships on the atmosphere.

Sorry, some things matter for what they symbolize more than their absolute effect. It's easy to say that the sum total of all carbon emissions by the wealthy are a drop in the bucket compared to the sum total of all the plebs, but if the plutocracy has no skin in the game then I won't reduce my consumption lifestyle for their benefit.

You're reducing it for the benefit of all - which is not even relevant here because it's only about new engines.

This crab bucket mentality needs to end. The atmosphere doesn't care about where the carbon comes from, only its presence. Refusing to do your part because someone else isn't doing theirs is not a sustainable, or moral, mindset.

If you’re an average American then you already pollute many times what an average global world person does. Perhaps it’s better to focus on the essence and not on the optics.

Am on the same page here, setting up lenient rules for the rich sends the wrong signal.

There should be no exception to the rule and Italian carmakers should get started on the transition away from combustion engine today.

We're all in this together, you don't get to opt out just because you are wealthy.

Fiat (also to a large extent an Exor (Agnelli) property will definitely make that move and is by far the largest Italian car maker. This won't move the needle from a pollution perspective but an exemption simply sends the wrong signal. What's good enough for the swine should be good enough for Jupiter as well in this case, to turn a nice proverb upside down.

But their mega yachts are subject to the same rules and regulations as regular yachts no? As long as they pay for their resource consumption just like the rest of us, I don't see why we need different rules for them.

Yachts, mega or not, are an insulting waste of resources. Here I am, paying near 2€ per litre of gas, subject to a Pigovian tax, which imposes real hardships on people who earn poor wages and rely on their car for commuting. Yet no such sacrifices are demanded of the super-rich, which consume as many resources as 100s of "plebs". Sorry, that doesn't sit well with me.

Everyone, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, in your country is paying €2 per litre though? Unless you have tanking cards as a tax benefit so that your gas can be free as some countries have but that's just pure madness imo :P Resource consumption is highly correlated to disposable income, so the only way to fix this as I see it would be to impose ever higher taxes on higher incomes to even out the differences? Do you have a different solution to this problem?

This reminds me of one of Peter F Hamilton's book series, set in a world ruined by climate change with a strict ban on fossil fuel use. One of the characters is a billionaire who is still being driven around in a Rolls Royce with a combustion engine, since he likes the sound of them or something equally banal. But since he is a good guy billionaire, he gets around the ban by installing a carbon capture system on the car.

I wonder whether that would actually be a viable real world solution, or if the weight and performance problems would from it.

(Oh, who am I kidding. In the real world the Ferrari owning jerks would just disable any such system except for inspections.)

There are solutions to electrochemically produce gasoline in a carbon neutral way for cheaper pump prices than you get today from digging up & refining oil.

https://www.science.org/news/2019/07/former-playwright-aims-...

Currently being commercialized by Prometheus Fuels. So not crazy.

One thing a lot of the comments here are missing is that EVs are already very close to matching the performance of ICE supercars. The Tesla Model S Plaid has the fastest quarter mile time for a mass production car, and it's not a sports car, it's a family car. Just wait until Ferrari or Lamborghini bring out a real supercar EV. Nobody will want to buy ICE after that...

My first car was a 1968 Camaro SS. I've been to the 12 hours of Sebring a half dozen times. My dad has owned a lot of cars over the years with a lot of different motors.

I used to think I'd really miss the sound of an internal combustion engine[1].

Then we got a Chevy Volt which compared to a Tesla is nothing. That smooth, quiet, constant acceleration. It kicks the shit out an ICE.

It turns out, I don't miss the sound of an ICE at all[2].

[1] The horrible screech of Wankel engines excluded.

[2] I recently switched to an electric mower. I hate my neighbor's ICE mower so much now I may buy him an electric one too. :-)

Rotaries are something special, it's such an elegant design, pity it never really worked well enough to warrant mass adoption.

My recollection is that besides sounding like a very loud beehive[1], they never held up very well in endurance racing, or on the street for that matter.

1. https://youtu.be/WoA-ujI9HW0

Yes, the geometry of the engine dictates large areas to seal and that problem was never properly solved.

Is there even an agreed upon definition for a "hypercar", what whould stop say Tesla from calling their model s one?

Why did you phrase your question in a way that implies it'd be ridiculous to call the Model S a hypercar? The Plaid edition set new world records for both 0-60 and 1/4 mile times among production cars.

This wasn't meant to be an attack to Tesla, it was just a random car model I chose. And in terms of price the plaid is far off from the other commonly accepted hypercars.

A rocket sled accelerates very quickly too; that doesn't make it a competitor to Ferrari and Lamborghini.

The Model S seems analogous to quartz watches, that meant expensive watches couldn't compete on accuracy any more, but that doesn't make it a hypercar even if it were to make them obsolete.

I believe hypercars are typically much more limited in supply than even supercars. With respects to the timeline that they get developed in, the technology in them is so bonkers that it basically makes them modern marvels. I doubt there is anything stopping Tesla calling the Model S a hypercar, but I don't even know if they would want to be in that 'market'.

I have no hard stats on who buys supercars but I have a feeling a significant number of them don't like the idea of cars not running on oil.

Just imagine a nice and quiet street/neighborhood with EVs only, and then someone passes by every morning with a roar of a super car…

then you are living in a super rich area.

because nobody, with the money to buy one, drives a supercar everyday, let alone every morning.

I would be more worried about those extra loud american choppers...

That's mostly because they don't have 1 car, they have five or more so the mileage gets spread out over a much larger number of cars. I just checked the second hand Ferrari's for sale through the Dutch dealer network, a single car with > 70K km on the clock the bulk a small fraction of that.

That's because they're not a day by day car.

They are not built for that task.

Just like you wouldn't ride a BETA EVO 300 to go to work.

This is essentially to protect Ferrari and maybe Lamborghini...can you name any other italian supercars?

I don't really count Maserati.

Lamborghini also makes an SUV

https://www.lamborghini.com/en-en/models/urus

Lamborghini already makes an SUV and Ferrari is working on one. The only reason Porsche still exists today is because the Cayenne was/is such a profitable car that it carried them through a rough financial patch.

SUVs make money so that they can spend that on developing other cars (in the case of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, etc it will go towards developing supercars). It's an economic reality in the automotive industry.

EDIT: Originally OP made a comment about not caring about car companies that make SUVs, but he since removed that from his comment.

The thing that sucks about the Urus, Cayenne, RSQ5 and other performance SUV's under VW Group is they are all the same car underneath and use the same engine. Like I get why they do that sure, but in another way I feel like it cheapens the Lamborghini brand in particular.

So get an LM002.

https://www.classicdriver.com/en/car/lamborghini/lm-002/1987...

And Huracan is basically an R8, but it's still an AMAZING car.

Nah, it upgrades the other brands ;)

Pagani. Pininfarina. Technically Bugatti. Alfa Romeo.

> I don't really count Maserati, they make SUVs and stuff.

Uh, so does Lamborghini.

This is crazy. Lightweight low emission cars are banned for strict limits, but supercars get exception?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com