Italy wants an exception to Europe's gas-engine ban for Ferrari, Lamborghini
driving.ca
driving.ca
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)
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.
EDIT: Lamborghini is not an Italian brand anymore and hasn't been since 1998 when Audi bought it.
The title is misleading.
But
- in Italy workers protection laws are very strong and it is an even stronger political topic, there are entire regions depending on the production chain of luxury Italian brands. Reconversion is not as easy as it looks.
- it is like asking why US can't build an free and public health care system that works for everybody, it should be simple for the richest country in the World. And yet people like Daniel Desnoyers who missed a payment of $20 to the insurance company and had his prescription for depression meds denied, end up committing suicide.
Competitors are doing it, the market trends seem to go towards this direction and the laws are being shaped to force it. And this has been for years now.
I have heard several times that Ferrari was behind with the electric conversion and that was probably a mistake. Not sure if they were waiting for this exception or simply they could or they did not know how to make it.
They are not technically behind, it is a political choice, the mother company (FCA) decided not to pursue that road for the time being (around 2016).
Specifically the CEO Sergio Marchionne who also was CEO of Ferrari S.p.a.
That was probably a wrong bet on his side, but knowing the guy and his talent in business, he would have probably fixed the situation if he had not died suddenly in 2018. Those who took his place are not as good as he was (I'm only referring to the skills as businessmen of course)
The main problem is not workers protection, which are quite stronger in Germany, but historical lack of innovation. The government gifted billions to the Italian automotive industry just to keep factories open, not to innovate or produce good cars. The result is an automotive sector that requires special exemptions otherwise it is at risk of dying.
The expertise required to build a factory of high quality batteries probably doesn’t even exist in Italy and attracting engineers from abroad is extremely hard if the entry level salary of a German engineer is higher than the total compensation or an Italian engineer with 10 years of experience.
As I've said, job retention is an even stronger political topic.
nobody here wants to lose consent over cutting jobs.
Lack of innovation is just the consequence of a very conservative work force.
> and attracting engineers from abroad is extremely hard if the entry level salary
That, exactly.
It's not going to happen soon, even though it is technically feasible, it is hard to put the wheels in motion.
Paraphrasing Charles M. Schulz: I love living in Italy and Italian life style, it's public opinion I can't stand.
I am lucky enough to not have to deal with that daily.
I think there are a lot of misconceptions on workers protection in Italy. While older workers are protected, if they work in companies with more than 15 employees, this is not generally true anymore.
> Lack of innovation is just the consequence of a very conservative work force.
A huge number of people are hired with temporary contracts that are renewed yearly or even more often. Others are hired through body rental agencies, many others are effectively employed "at-will". Unpaid overtime is the norm. To be clear: this is true for engineers as well as for cleaners. These people can't be expected to produce any innovation.
In the meanwhile, in political debates we pretend that Italian companies do not innovate and can't pay Western European salaries because they can't fire people.
Thanks for the comment.
I agree with you completely, worker protection doesn't hurdle innovation.
The trend towards less protections has been going on since the 90s when I entered the active workforce in Italy and personally I've rarely worked under the full protection of the law until recently.
As a freelancer in the tech sector I always had above average salaries, I can't complain, my gripe is the majority of the work force consider a job something that the state must provide indefinitely, even when the financial returns are not there see Alitalia and FIAT as an example.
The solution is not IMO less guarantees for the workers, but incentives for continuing education and subsidies to sustain people that lose their job to help them be back on track.
We have a bit of both, but not enough and not fairly distributed, while guaranteed workers refuse to learn new things because "it's not written in the contract" and there's almost nothing the employer can do to make them.
So we are basically incentivizing people to get a job and never have to grow with the job or hire people in the public as a way to keep unoccupied people as low as possible as a form of subsidy in disguise.
The rest is on its own, especially the younger generations.
But there are many innovative companies in Italy, for example in aerospace or structural engineering (bridges, dams, etc. )
Frankly, even though I'm Italian, I think that there should be no exception.
If that production chain didn't bother with an electric conversion until now it's really their fault.
Well, it's not literal, there are things they have to build using components made by others.
But AFAIK electronic components in Ferrari are made by Magneti Marelli (I briefly worked for them, not in car manufacturing though).
Last I saw one of the Ferrari “Touring” models was hotter, nicer Maserati Levante for like $300,000 more.
Basically the only things unique to supercars, past the body and chassis are the bad parts. The parts the drain the battery constantly and require you to store it with a trickle charger attached. Or have a rep fly out to unlock the battery panel because it refuses to open when completely dead (personal experience with a LaFerrari).
Supercars, are not cars. If you have any experience with them you know what this means. The engineering that goes into a RAV4 is a lot more in hours and dollars.
So this topic is a bit silly to me, they’re extremely niche machines. I wouldn’t classify them as transportation even if they fit all the checkboxes.
The Toyota as you've cited, or a similar Hyundai?
Where the sheer volume and implicit agreement with the customer is predicated on the fact every single part is engineered for reliability, and the automobile wins the "total cost of ownership over 10 years" prize in Choice magazine for its segment?
I’m pessimistic about the industry from the moment that OTA updates were possible. Everything has gotten worse with that. “We’ll fix it before Dealers get them!” (No, you won’t). But for the most part, car engineering is a really unique thing. Tons of time, tons of money, because there are tons of them. How many people have private jets? How many people have boats? Trains? Etc. but everyone has a car, and they basically all have to work all the time in any condition with a flat out assumption you aren’t going to take care of it.
I think it’s really funny that if I walk into a building with supercars, and I mean Bugatti, Koenigsegg, the rare Porches, the million dollar plus crew, that they ALL have to sit with trickle chargers on them. Because otherwise they would ALL run their batteries dead in two weeks or less.
The LaFerarri issue I mentioned was the batteries were all dead, the ebrake was on. So it couldn’t be loaded on a trailer. The access to the ebrake release is behind a door you can’t get to without power. No one designed this as a car for humans. To this day the only person I’ve seen actually drive one like a car was a guy in Taiwan that was definitely some gang or cartel executive. Nice guy though. He didn’t care it isn’t a real car.
I think it’s funny because people who dream of these things, have no idea what a pain in the ass they are to even get in and out of.
Porsche makes some higher end ones that still feel like cars, and the Ferrari touring aren’t bad, big though. IDK. I’m probably just jaded on vehicles.
I do think that there is a sloppyness that develops in thinking when using a medium that allows for free infinite continuous modification. Having a design be final has a certain foundational quality to it.
I can understand their position of wanting to remain 100% local but they're a private company, it's on them to adapt to the world and not the other way around.
Volume and demand for electric vehicles has not quite hit a tipping point, but just at the right time they've come out with the i3, which has really beaten Tesla in quite a few different aspects. Ditto the Ford Lightning or what have you.
IMO the car companies are actually not quite as naive as we've come to think. They robably have internal roadmaps ready for the next 10+ years of electric releases.
I expect they will ramp up to a "Tesla killer" at just the right time.
> 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.
Why is this the case? Why batteries and not, says, computer or sensors, or for that matter tires? All of them have huge impact on vehicle's performance and characteristics.
> 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)
VW is in on tract to produce half a million electric vehicles this year, despite producing literally none a decade ago. Why can't Italian brands with deep automobile expertise and history?
> Lamborghini is not an Italian brand anymore and hasn't been since 1998 when Audi bought it.
Roma football club is owned by an American billionaire, as is Fiorentina. Nobody calls them American clubs. As for carmakers, Volvo is not a Chinese brand despite being owned by Geely. Land Rover and Jaguar are still prestige British brands even under Indian ownership.
True, but Ferruccio Lamborghini sold the company in 1972 (100% of the shares) and it's since 1998 a VolksWagen's company through Audi.
Lamborghini hasn't been an Italian company for the past 50 years even though the brand is considered Italian.
You literally have no idea what Ferarri is and what they do and where they do it and how they hire their employees. Their cars are almost exclusively hand-made and everybody who works at Ferrari is proud to do so, yes, even the dude mowing the grass - this is not cheap to maintain. There are people there whose skills can't be translated to building electric cars - which are really just oversized RC cars. There are people there who are experts in engines - and those will be laid off. In fact, everybody working on engines at Ferrari would be laid off. And those are a lot of people.
The ICE is something that deserves to go on in something special like a Ferrari. This whole electric cars debacle makes me wish the planet would be blown up by aliens sooner before we all roll around in crappy BMW i3 lookalikes because there's nothing else available and there is no choice albeit industry is polluting several degrees of magnitude more than just ICE cars[1]. And certainly so in the case of a small italian sports cars manufacturer that yields true works of art, poetry on wheels.
By comparison, VW is a tech giant who can afford to mass produce their stuff and will not suffer nor will they have to lay off a significant percentage of their staff.
Video reference [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc
That's what I was trying to talk about.
There are things that deserve to be preserved, like we do with our artistic heritage, Ferrari's ICEs are one of them.
Preserving the ICE is like preserving the cigarette. The cigarette's place in classic culture, in classic movies and nightlife, is profound.
Doesn't make me sympathetic one little bit. Petrol engines, cigarettes, it's fundamentally unhealthy, get rid of it.
If Ferrari is unwilling to convert to electric automobiles, then Ferrari can go the way of Marlborough.
That's a silly comparison IMO
Ferrari engines are not dangerous for anybody
Anyway, human life is unhealthy for the rest of the World, would you get rid of that too?
Ask mega fauna if you disagree.
> then Ferrari can go the way of Marlborough.
So much nonsensical bitterness...
You know that every car is made of toxic products and they can't stop using them, in your opinion is it more unhealthy 2 thousands Ferrari every year or millions of Volkswagen, their tires and motor/brake oil (which are highly toxic)
Should we get rid of VolksWagen too?
Dogmas are stupid.
But constantly improving, in many small ways, and chipping away at issues is how we make the world a better place.
Certainly I think phasing out ICEs, especially on public roads, is essential.
The Ferrari business model of producing highly polluting sports cars, when there are far more efficient electric models that can run on wind power, is not a positive direction to be traveling in.
Note that they didn't simply dump money in Europe, the amount refers to goods and services (including shipping those goods to Europe and shipping exports back to the US). The US effectively provided European governments with goods that those governments could then sell to local companies. In Germany this was done under the presumption that the revenue would later have to be repaid to the US, though the share to be repaid was later drastically cut by the US.
The biggest reason Germany benefited more from the Marshall plan than other European countries is that they expected having to repay it fully and thus were able to pay off the loans that were part of the Marshall Plan decades before other countries. But even so the overall effect has been overstated in the past and is not considered to be crucial to the economic development of Germany or Europe in general after WW2.
Most of the "aid" after the Marshall Plan ended (because the US got involved in the Korean War and thus not interested in extending the program) went towards building European militaries and suppressing communism.
While I think it's an exaggeration, there's some truth to modern critics of the plan saying that it mostly served for the US to get rid of excess production (as the US government paid its local companies in US dollars the treasury generated as part of the Plan) and stabilizing its currency (because the goods were then bought by European companies in their local currency from their own governments rather than in US dollars from the US companies directly) while also combatting the potential for a rise of communism and unifying Western Europe as an ally to the US in the Cold War.
"SK Innovation to Supply Batteries for Ferrari Electric Vehicles"
http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=3...
So the SF90 Stradale is not a real Ferrari?
But the SF90 stradale is a plugin hybrid, made for the 90th anniversary of the scuderia.
They simply had no other choice.
Don't take everything literally, you can have a Franciacorta or a Parmigiano that is produced with raw materials that sometimes are not exactly from the Franciacorta or Parma-Reggio area, but that's the exception, not the rule.
Why give them a choice now? They will still be able to stay in business and make great cars. They will be called Ferrari by them and the rest of the world. Some whining over them no longer being "real" Ferrari or Italian can be and has been ignored.
Job loss over no longer being competitive with current / coming tech is a real problem. But I feel politics should not step in to protect obsolete tech, rather they should help stear away from it and support innovation.
Ferrari making all of the parts of the car they can is not about nationalistic pride, it's about control.
They make a luxury product and want to control everything about it.
Ferrari's pride has always been engines and an electric engine is made by motor+batteries.
Of course compromises are made, of course they don't manufactur absolutely everything, but Ferrari batteries are a plus for premium customers, just like Tesla batteries are what people buying Teslas want in their cars
People owning Ferrari also own the leather bag set specifically made to fit that model.
An example
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174824008379
of course made in Italy, Schedoni is based in Modena, where Maranello is.
It's part of the experience.
Apple is considered the Ferrari of computing because the majority of their customers only own Apple devices and accessories and wouldn't want anything else, especially if they are cheap off the shelf alternatives.
They live the Apple experience in full.
And Apple can offer it because of vertical integration, they are making their own CPUs for the same reason.
How long did it take to Apple to make it happen?
If Ferrari starts assembling core components from multiple retailers, it's not a unique custom made piece of ego anymore (and a show off of incredible crafting abilities if you ask me, a piece of art some would say), it's "just a fast car"
I hope I've explained myself better.
Anyway, I also think that the argument is somewhat silly from Italian politicians, but I can understand why they are pushing for it.
Nothing says made in Italy more than a Ferrari.
It's the most popular Italian brand in the whole World.
and yet even this explanation contains loaded phrasing suggesting excactly that
> Ferrari's pride has always been engines > Nothing says made in Italy more than a Ferrari
There is some value in the quality argument, but surely they can check incoming parts? Hand check everything, do the luxury quality thing etc.
I think the argument is not that they cannot get their hands on batteries up to their performance standard, rather it is they cannot make "unique, hand-crafted batteries lovingly labored over by the best people in the industry doing nothing but supplying Ferrari and looking back at X years of tradition". And honestly, it just sounds like pride to me (not that pride is always a bad thing).
> They live the Apple experience in full.
And the Apple experience worked just fine during the Intel MacBook phase.
Ferrari could do the same and try to come back with their M1 equivalent for electric driving later.
Absolutely!
But branded parts are more valuable for customers (I mean that type of customers).
Especially if it's the core of the product and unlike Apple that sells billions of devices, Ferraris are produced in the thousands and there's a waiting list to buy one.
> And the Apple experience worked just fine during the Intel MacBook phase.
That was the compromise they made to transition to a fully owned pipeline.
But as a soon as they were ready to do the switch, they did it.
Exactly what Ferrari has done with the SF90 stradale.
> "unique, hand-crafted batteries lovingly labored over by the best people in the industry doing nothing but supplying Ferrari and looking back at X years of tradition". And honestly, it just sounds like pride to me (not that pride is always a bad thing).
You are absolutely right.
Pride is not a bad thing and that's their main selling point.
The two things are are not mutually exclusive.
I specifically said they are not doing it because they believe Italy is the best place in the World, but because by controlling their core components, they can kepp the "Ferrari pride" (TM by me) alive and consequentially the made in Italy brand something to pay premium prices for.
The fact that I, as an Italian and a Ferrari fan think that Ferrari is something to be proud of, is tangential.
They are most of all Emiliano Romagnoli, that has more in common with Switzerland and Germany than Italy economically wise, but has the heart of Italian people (and great food).
That's what you are buying when you buy a Ferrari, together with the car.
And this right here is why it would have been so important for the EU to announce an EU-wide EV ban 20 years ago and provide research incentives for electric and hydrogen. That would have given everyone ample time to change course, to retrain workers and avoid building investment ruins. But unfortunately, the German car lobby was extremely influential, up until Dieselgate when even the EU Parliament wasn't amenable to bribery any more. Now, climate change is forcing everyone's hand and everyone is off worse as a result of that inaction.
This!
"climate change is forcing everyone's hand"
Everyone should see it this way. Like, there's no leeway, just do whatever it takes to tame climate change.
Tesla has nothing to do with it.
So at the moment it is the regular people are driving around in electic cars and the rich in the gas cars ... no and if there is a class war at work it is the other way round.
At this moment the ev revolution is being driven by the rich, this will trickle down over time naturally, but the choice to go electric means paying more. Tesla dont have a comparable product but VW do, pretty consistntly $10,000 more for electric. If 'regular' people are making sacrifices as the previous person suggested it is by spending so much more on a car (or lease) and not eating or being broke, because it is the only way they are participating at the moment.
if your uncle can keep driving old, low efficient, highly polluting vehicles why can't a rich person buy a ICE ferrari?
Makes much more sense to charge on "pollution/gas usage"
Kind of wealthy tax but without intervening in the market and picking winners or the "right solution"
I'd compare it to old houses which are often designated as landmarks. We don't demolish them just because they are not energy efficient by modern standards.
Why are you trying to position high end sports car owners as oppressed?
That will continue to be the case for old cheap and expensive cars, and we justify it to preserve industrial history. There's no reason to introduce a similar exemption for certain new cars.
Which is realistically a reason fairly poor folks can have an old car.
But.. common... everybody knows oldtimers cars aren't really on the road. Most collectible cars belong to people who own several cars and they very rarely hit the road.
That is precisely why the insurance is so cheap. I've got both an old Porsche and an old Ferrari and I pay 160 EUR a year to insure them both (100 for the first one, and 60 for the second one, as I've got a "fleet": two is a fleet, that's kinda funny).
People not only never drive these cars, they're also ultra cautious with them when they take them out. It's because they do so little kilometers/miles yearly and because people are so cautious that the insurance costs next to nothing.
They're more art pieces / garage queens than cars: remnants of a less civilized era.
Also... My insurance is ultra cheap but there's a gotcha: I need to have an insured daily less than 15 years old, otherwise I need to pay the regular insurance price for my two oldtimers. So it's not really true that people pay less: they pay less but only because they need to have a "real" car to benefit from the cheaper insurance.
These old cars are also typically huge gaz guzzlers, doing easily 3x to 4x the fuel consumption of a modern car: so using it on a daily basis would, in the end, cost you much much more than using a modern car.
I hope these exceptions for oldtimers will stay and that, at least once in a while, they'll be authorized on the road: say maybe allowed on the roads one saturday every month or something like that.
P.S: btw it's not just the insurance that is cheaper: oldtimers are typically exempt from the yearly road tax (in the countries where such a tax exists).
That's true. And I actually think that maybe the issue isn't that we drive around in ICE cars, but rather that we drive around.
Sure, there are people with mobility issues, delivery, etc. I'm not talking about those, since I think they're not the majority of traffic, so likely not a huge problem. I'm talking about "regular people". I think the issue is that the vast majority of traffic is people commuting to work, so instead of trying to build a faster horse (use cars that pollute less) there should be more emphasis on actually driving less.
By that I mean encouraging companies to allow working from home and developing public transportation.
The issue with laws like this is that they don't take into account the various situations.
In my case, I own a motorcycle that won't be allowed in Paris and other major French cities starting in 2024. I rarely use it during the week since I actually commute by transit. But I sometimes go on long trips and stay overnight in big cities. I wouldn't be allowed to.
Would buying a new motorcycle, which I don't need since my current one works perfectly, be actually good for the environment? Sure, it would probably pollute somewhat less per km ridden, but it would have to be produced in the first place and then shipped halfway around the world.
No, that's because of the type of car, not because of the age, a Ferrari or a Porsche made today will still consume a lot of fuel compared to a more normal car made today. They've always been gas guzzlers simply because an engine that can make that kind of power isn't going to be made for fuel economy and the drivers don't care because typically money for gas isn't very high on their priority list.
I'm curious what type Ferrari and what type Porsche you've got, are you willing to disclose?
lol. It's funny to think of them as a 'priceless exotic' as those cars are basically mass produced items with an engine option.
Let's consider the cost. A decent Boss 429 is probably around $250k-$300k. The sales tax in California is around 10 percent, about $2k/year for the license, $4-$5/gallon for gas at around 8 mpg, collector car insurance at roughly 1% of stated value.
I want non polluting transport. Far more than you do, I'm pretty sure. I lived for years in Bucharest, the most polluted and congested city in Europe, with two air purifiers working non stop in my apartment. But I don't see anything productive in your comment. Mostly pettiness.
If it's not pettiness, it's short-sightedness and black-and-white thinking.
asking for the same rules for the rich and the poor is "eat the rich"?
As for why it's harmful - it's hijacking the conversation. Like somebody else said below, we're fighting over 0.1 percent pollution, while ignoring hugely more advantageous moves.
Want examples? Let's talk about taking all combustion cars, old or new, out of the cities. Bam, 10-40% reduction in damage to health. Let's encourage and build infrastructure for bikes and other small e-vehicles. Ocean commercial traffic. Waste burning in unsafe incinerators. Construction-related pollution. Each of those is a double digit share of either health impact or global pollution. But no, let's stop the rich from playing with toys instead.
How/When did wanting equality of outcome become "pettiness"?
Also, how did this get projected and extrapolated to I'm not only petty but now I'm also against effective action like fighting urban sprawl (which is the real reason we need cars in first place).
Also, my fundamental issue is that the rich will dodge all that other stuff you want as well; the way they are already getting the bulk of green incentives and abusing carbon offsets (see, for example [1] and [2])
This is going to be a long and difficult journey with many, many steps. And at each step of the way, people who claim to be allies will be saying "don't be petty" and "this is but a distraction, the real solution is over here"
[1] https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/06/wind-energy-subsidies...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-nature-conservancy-c...
It's ok, I know what you mean :) you're talking about non-corruption, equality in the face of the law/rules and so on. I pretty much agree with it. I also mean what I said about hijacking the conversation - I happen to care very deeply about health-related pollution (less so about carbon), and I really really don't want the discourse led astray.
I think carbon offsets are a fundamentally good idea that probably works. I see this kind of news you linked as proof that it does - in a working system I'd expect occasional abuse. I'd expect to see no abuse only if the system was so inefficient as to not be worse gaming. Is it efficient overall? For this you'd need statistical analysis and lots of data. But I like a framework where everybody can decide how much emiting carbon is worth to them - this way you can easily reach all the low hanging fruits, while still keeping those industries with high value per emission. For example I'd never want a blanket ban or quota to interfere with medical equipament manufacturers or high tech. Having the occasional rich guy buy a ferrari is a very small price. Plus, performance e-cars are already much faster.
Any calculations to demonstrate that this is indeed the case?
Should Italy prefer to reduce their carbon emissions by 0.1% while destroying one of the last few industries they're the best known for, with associated loss of jobs and livelihood for thousand of families? Of course they don't.
Allowing the 0.1% richest people to be above the law, because in the grand scale of things it's insignificant, seems outrageous for the average abiding citizen who have no choice. The rich would then always have an exception for all the sacrifices and cuts society has to do to preserve new generations.
If a law is needed to save humankind, don't make exceptions to it purely based on capital of people, unless it's to help those in disadvantage.
I'd be kind of on board with the exemption if there was a (high) cost paid for it, and that the cost was used to fund some sort of environmental project, but is that what Italy is actually asking for, or are they simply asking for an exemption, no strings attached?
The number of spots should be truly limited though, you don't want to create a class of people who pollute and pay for thanks to inheritance or luck like the way society is divided into people with large homes and people who share rooms.
The carbon footprint of the super rich's personal consumption is negligible. 1000 Ferrari cars don't pollute as much as 3000 economy cars.
Banning Ferrari is like saving the planet by using paper straws. It makes sense to take 290,000,000 ICE cars off the street of Europe and leave a spot for a few thousand exotic ICE cars as a cultural artefact. The emission difference that would do is at a rounding error scale.
Actually, using paper straws probably has larger impact. People don't actually ride these cars that much, they move them around with trucks to keep the milage down.
[0] https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/Car-CO2-and-fuel-economy-mp...
(edit) Using that money to finance switching to battery/hydrogen/whatever powered cars for people with less resources could even offset it fairly. Let them help the rest improve the situation for everyone and they can keep their toys.
The same holds for the carbon footprint of any minority group. And everybody belongs to some minority group in some way. Does that mean everybody is exempt from the law? (No).
It’s like not demolishing the Parthenon and some other old buildings even if they don’t meet the modern construction requirements.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28652958
Putting some Ferrari's in a museum or on some restricted racing track is ok. But forcing everybody to follow the law and letting some rich people on TV ignore all the rules seems like a bad way to fight climate change.
I guess it comes down to what you are trying to achieve. Do you want to cut down the emissions dramatically or are you after some kind of engine equality ideal?
What is the purpose of life without joy?
If we pass a working planet onto future generations, then those of the future who want the thrill of a finely tuned ICE engine should have an opportunity to experience it. After all, we did.
The greatest tragedy of the environmental movement is it has allowed its well-funded adversaries to cast it as a a dour, sacrificial dogma. We can and should leave room for joy.
Because, in the broader calculus, occasional joy + usual responsibility >> no joy + all responsibility.
And we destroyed much of the planet doing it. Maybe it was a bad idea when we did it too. When joy becomes an argument for leniency you imply there is really no urgency. That is probably why the environmental movement is not very joyful. They want change now.
Leniency is distinct from tolerance.
The former allows rules to be broken; the latter formulates flexible rules that still accomplish the overall goal.
Perhaps a tiny minority are more interested in exhaust notes than accelerating out of a corner, and I suppose they will remain petrol heads, but with classic cars, since ICE technology is a dead end now.
What is this based on? Really isn’t the case in any auto enthusiast group I know of except ones that are extremely casual/Tesla-fanboys. If it were, all the people I know wouldn’t be buying GT3s, Huracans, R8s, etc. I know 0 who bought electric. I’m in the market myself for another car but I’m not looking at an electric car - gonna buy another ICE sports car because they have a lot more emotion and character. Not like any electric sports cars even really exist at this point anyway… or are still in production I guess.
For a start, most people have not experienced the thrill of a highly tuned internal combustion engine. A few rich people have. Second, do you really want to define what people should be able to do by what people have done in the past? Really? You might want to think that through a bit more. There are plenty of things people did in the past that people are still apologising for today, generations later.
Also a ban on new petrol cars I think might not really be necessary if petrol is properly taxed with carbon pricing.
The EU is just out of touch with car manufacturing. They are to blame for the SUV-epidemic in Europe. Basically they are making laws that sound good on paper but unrealistic in real world scenarios. Consumption and emission levels are skewed by the hybrid motors in the SUV. The laws are written so the mini cars like the Volkswagen Up are just not financially worth to produce. So in conclusion, the laws that were supposed to reduce the CO2 emissions actually made everything worse.
More on this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2020/08/04/just-ho...
I do wonder if they went too far too fast with some of the regulations. If it is beyond the edge of what is possible, the incentive becomes seeking loopholes, juicing numbers. However, the gains have been incredible the last 10-20 years in just raw efficiency.
Beyond the regulations, society and virtue signaling appears to have had a strong impact, on all side of the political spectrum. Capitalism does sometimes work, and the current 'desire' is to have either an electic clean car or to roll coal and shoot your m50 at commies in their liberal prius.
They're fixing to stick it to general aviation - mass market plane travel.
Perhaps only after private jets are outlawed - what, no?
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/technology-news/under-ski...
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry-news-environment...
Also, climate change is something we have to fight together. How will it look if everybody is forced to do X, but the rich people on TV all do Y?
Now that the world (mostly) accepts the tragedy of the commons that is GHG emissions, it’s not so easy to justify.
Which circles back to my original comment
> Their existence doesn't really hurt anyone, I do genuinely believe that supercars are not factor in the larger climate change
Any single automobile is not a real factor in climate change. But all automobiles (including supercars) are.
If they were taxed high enough to offset that shared cost completly or even more than that it would be fine.
... but that doesn't seem to be the plan here.
A handful of fast cars won't make much of a difference compared to the 100s of millions of engines running now.
And they are by no means “regular”. Acquiring batteries from other manufacturers did not stop them from making superb megacars. And Christian von Koenigsegg says their Jesko [4][5] will be the last one to be full ICE. That’s also meant to be a record breaker [6] (you have to see the video, seriously), just like Agera [7][8].
Refs:
[0]: https://www.koenigsegg.com/car/regera/
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenigsegg_Regera
[2]: https://www.koenigsegg.com/gemera/
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenigsegg_Gemera
[4]: https://www.koenigsegg.com/jesko/
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koenigsegg_Jesko
[6]: https://youtu.be/KD82XB7t8Xo
This is not because of regulations, but because their customers have changed along with society.
Just give this 3 more years and it will be settled.
Lamborghini's logo is a raging bull
Seems fitting, we don't need those animals to be in captivity anymore. We needed them for our survival for such a long time but we don't need them anymore.
Still we hold them captive for our entertainment (think Corrida de Espana and Kentucky derby or Polo or any equine competition really)
I think that will be the outcome here as well. Some 5000 V12 scattered around the globe won't destroy the planet. It's all about virtue signaling.
There is a huge battle right now going on between billionaires and millionaires.
Billionaires want to protect their private jets and yacths at all costs so they need to throw a bone to the population in the form of punishment towards millionaires' toys such as Italian V12s and American luxury RVs powered by Diesel engines.
Tesla has conclusively proven that super and hypercar performance will be dominated by electric cars.
Ferrari and Lamborghini can spend some mass budget on subwoofers to make their vroom vroom noises.
A lot of factors against EVs for super/hypercars:
* All tesla models weight 5000lbs+, so cornering performance is atrocious
* The batteries overheat and turn into literal bombs. If the coolant boils away you could run into thermal runaway territory (and a plaid prototype did grenade itself on the track in 2019).
* The overheating results in quickly degraded batteries and the inability to do more than a lap or two at a time on anything except extremely small tracks. On top of that, charging is much slower when the battery is hot.
* Plaid performance is egregiously overstated, 0-60 tests were done with arbitrarily long rollout and on glued surfaces/tires. Independent testing has shown that plaid still has worse 0-60 times than ICE supercars.
IMO the future for super/hypercars are fuel cell hybrid and hydrogen ICE powertrains, BEV makes sense for commuter cars but are pretty atrocious for performance cars unless you want to emulate FCA and Tesla's business model of selling extremely heavy bricks that only go fast in a straight line as 'performance' cars.
Weight in corners hurts you in terms of acceleration out (which is not a problem for Tesla) and by the turning force required to change the momentum direction.
BUT that weight also gets you increased downforce and traction, regardless of aero performance at the time. You can essentially treat your car like it has an F1 wing that never stalls.
The result is 5000lb which breaks the four-door nurburgring record.
The acceleration is drastically degraded once the battery is hot.
> The result is 5000lb which breaks the four-door nurburgring record.
They broke the record for production EVs, not for all four door cars. In a test that was also officiated by Tesla themselves, so not very credible. In 2017 a Civic type R could do a faster lap time than Plaid does in 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YSjItQneNM&feature=youtu.be
You might be confusing 4-door with 4WD?
Also yes performance is lower when the battery isn't topped up, but "degraded" is a bit dramatic. It's less significant than, say, tire-wear.
In formula E practice sessions they gradually adjust how much charge is available, only enabling 250kW at the end of the session.
In NY P1 this year, the best time on "low power" was 1m08.988s, and the best time on full power was 1'08.472
Half of the grid ended below 'the low power' fast lap
Plaid gets beat by unmodified ICEs that are 1/5th the price.
There's several 4 door cars faster than plaid on there too, not sure why you'd bother trying to move that goalpost.
and my goalposts haven't move... my original comment said fastest 4 door time.
* Audi RS3 (7:35.522)
* Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT (7:33.95, also an SUV)
* Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio (7:32)
* Porsche Panamera Turbo (7:29.81)
* Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé 63 S 4MATIC+ (7:25.41)
It's actually hilarious to me that you would rather double down and act like a tantruming toddler instead of taking 1 minute to read the list like I did. You're a loser clamoring to defend Tesla with any excuse possible, to the point of desperately lying.
I would also wager that if it was actually tested independently the performance would not hold up to what Tesla claims, and that the M5 below it would probably exceed it's time. We already know Tesla lied egregiously about the 0-60 time as no independent test has managed to get below 2.27s without a glued surface and drag slicks.
It's also extremely embarassing that the S Plaid cannot beat the times of the Camaro, C6, C7 and C8 corvettes, and R35 GTR. These cars all were less than $80k USD new, while an S Plaid is $148k USD.
I guess we'll find out when the roadster tries later this year. enjoy your troll accounts until then.
PS You attributed a time as the Panamera turbo which was actually the Panamera Turbo S, a hybrid :P
Tesla, again, twisted everything into their favor here, so they could market themselves better than they are.
According to the official Nürburgring Record Database, Tesla only beat SUVs and compact cars (Audi RS3). All other ICEs were a lot faster than the Plaid. Even a Porsche Panamera Turbo S, which is a 4-door sedan.
Low center of gravity is good, but no one would add dead weight just to lower the CoM. Stiffen up the springs and the lighter car is ahead by a lot.
[EDIT] Also, we've had boxer engines in race cars since at least the 40s.
[1]: https://www.auto123.com/en/racing-news/f1-technique-the-secr...
Car (dry weight I believe) + driver + weight > minimum.
There is no advantage to adding dead weight in a car. The disadvantage can be minimized by using very dense metals that minimize their impact on the car's moment of inertia.
I said "Weight in corners hurts you in terms of acceleration out and by the turning force required to change the momentum direction."
You are twisting my words to say that i'm arguing weight is a benefit, which is an easier argument for you to attack....
My point is that a low center of gravity and higher downforces are positive influences on a car.
The increased weight can be OVERCOME in race duration by using this downforce and by the exceptional performance of motors over engines.
Oh look... I made my point without resorting to a reddit attack on your character.
You dont add mass just to lower CoM. And downforce from added mass sucks: the downforce, Fn = mg, from weight cancels out
Slam on the breaks. Traction is F = u m g. acceleration is F/m = a
M cancels out so weight doesnt help you. It appears to come out even though.
Except it doesnt cancel out. Traction scales sub linearly. So your stopping times go up.
Same thing for every part of the track.
Corner? Turning torque is proportional to mass. Traction is sub linear to mass.
Acceleration in a straight? Power is constant wrt mass so accel is inverse proportional to mass.
And to all of this you have to add the aero effect which add to mass downforce and aren’t proportional to mass.
So traction becomes:
Ff = u(Fn) = u(mg + kv^2)
For high speeds v^2 dominates so Ff is constant with m so:
A = Ff/m.
Or acceleration is inversely proportional to mass for any driver action.
No one has argued that a heavier car will go faster.
I am arguing that because the weight is low it handles better than a car of the same mass with ICE distribution of weight.
I'm arguing that because the weight is not 'just to lower CoM' but instead 'to allow insane amounts of rapid energy release' the NET RESULT is something ICE can not accomplish.
Another throwaway account mentioned the Panamera turbo S beat the plaid by 5.7 seconds on the nordschliefe... Ignoring the fact that the plaid was carrying 90% too much battery for the circuit, the ICE was not carrying excess fuel, and that the 'ICE' is actually a hybrid and the identical car (Panamera turbo) without electric power was another 5 seconds slower than plaid /despite/ fueling down.
Also your friction force purism ignores that the behaviour of a car at it's limits has a huge effect on how the driver can drive the circuit.
A heavy EV with low CoM can be driven at or near the limit of traction without risking an F1 style spinout when tires chirp.
If you've driven a Tesla you know how difficult it is to get off it's turning line.
"You're utterly and completely wrong."
Let's assume we're talking about acceleration due to change of direction, or braking (since for increasing speed weight is obviously a disadvantage you simply decided to disregard)
The force required to change car's direction due to change of direction or braking is proportional to weight.
F = m*a
Therefore
(1) a = F/m
The expression for the turning torque is similar
To a first order approximation the maximum traction force available to a car is proportional to the normal force
(2) Ff = u Fg = u m g
Where Fg is force of gravity, and Ff is maximum force of traction.
So, it appears that the mass cancels out. It doesn't:
1. there's the fact that Coloum's law of friction is incorrect, especially for rubber. That's why race cars have wide tyres.
2. aerodynamic downforce is independent of weight. So my expression (2) is wrong.
Ff = u* (m*g + k*v^2)
Where k has all the information about lift.
As you can see mass no longer cancels out. As mass increases the force required to change direction increases proportionally, but the traction force available stays roughly the same.
But it gets worse. Let's say we ignore aerodynamics and assume Coloumb's law of friction (hahahahaha), largely your scenario
In comparing two cars, one double in mass than the other, the heavier car will wear out tires more quickly (since they're subject to double the loads). The heavier car will run the breaks hotter and be more prone to fading.
There is nothing good about added mass for the dynamics of a car. Nothing.*
What rules of physics do you propose we use? Ones where dead weight makes you faster? In the ideal case weight cancels out. But it doesn't, it forces you to take corners slower.
But hey, if you don't believe the math, watch an F1 race how the lap times drop and tyre life extends as they use up their fuel.
- I think every proposition (not just sentence) of this comment is wrong.
- Tesla, not only didn't break the lap record (they only broke the EV record) which is ridiculous, but the Ring is probably the best suited lap for an EV: large track with mostly long straights or gentle curves. Try breaking the lap record at Suzuka.[1]
- Even if Tesla had the record, a single lap is hardly a fair comparison to a Ferrari or a McLaren. The Tesla couldn't do 30 laps before taking 4 hours to recharge. Those ICE cars are raced in LeMans 24. That's 24 hr. straight of driving. I'd love to see a Tesla compete in that.
[1] Full respect to the Ring - see Rush's explanation for it in the link bellow. But the Ring Niki did in under 7 minutes [2] in the 1970s is not the ring of today, and the prime difficulty of the Ring is that it's so long that
a. Weather conditions are different around the track
b. No driver can really learn the track
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjyIrLKgbbA
[2] Niki's record still stands today because the original, much longer, ring is no longer.
you cannot be serious... I've done nordschliffe over a hundred times in simulator... every corner is memorized... i'm not even amateur let alone professional
I'm also waiting for someone to find a faster 4 door time, my original comment that everyone is ignoring to teardown a strawman "fastest car ever" argument no one made
Didn't you read my previous comment? Porsche Panamera Turbo S is the answer, just look at the official Nordschleife Records Database.
Tesla Plaid: 7:35.579
Porsche Panamera Turbo S: 7:29.81
The Porsche did it in 2020, Tesla in 2021. The Porsche is also a 4 door car.
But they are also separated by these https://www.summitracing.com/parts/MHL-51138
We will see if that 5.7s is comfortable enough when the tesla also has a rollcage and racing tires...
until then it's speculative which is faster.. since it's been 2 years, surely we have some Porsche times with stock tires you can share???
Lauda almost killed himself there. Toto Wolf almost killed himself there.
Are you sure you know the Nordschlieffe better than those two blokes?
Theres also a few M3 reports, but I cant tell which ones are stock
https://www.alvolante.it/news/alfa-romeo-giulia-quadrifoglio...
Also, consider that the weight penalty for an EV four door is less than for a two door. Which makes sense, electric propulsion has always made sense for heavier vehicles
moving the goal to endurance racing is interesting choice... because this conversation is about the performance capabilities of a car... not about the best cruising vehicle or enduro series winner...
It's almost as if off-track performance of refueling speed is the only metric left for clear ICE dominance?
They -can- do so, but there are plenty of ICE fuel and oil fires and they're not easy to put out either. I've seen rally cars go up in flames and there was nothing to be done other than watch £100k+ burn.
>* The overheating results in quickly degraded batteries
You're assuming a fault condition and extrapolating from that. That's like me saying that ICE cars radiators fail, and then they overheat and break down.
>* Plaid performance is egregiously overstated
"The electric car accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.07 second" - [1]. Doesn't sound egregious to me.
[1] - https://divisionkent.com/car-reviews/2022-tesla-model-s-plai...
Also, the Nevera has 4 wheels. Which means that the 2 000 hp it has are, mostly, BS. That much power can't be delivered to the tires. Not unless they have custom, street illegal, tires.
Do they damage the road or something?
A race tire is
1. slick
Even the slightest moisture will result in hydroplaning and loss of control. Today’s F1 race was a good example of how the cars go from behaving like their on rails glued to being on ice from a drizzle.
2. made of a special rubber compound
Race tires feel like plastic, not rubber, until they are at temperature. Their operating T is above boiling.
To get to T, you have to drive like a maniac in a way no one has ever driven on streets (seriously, you wont make a live a few km driving the way you have to to keep the tires warm)
3. very wide
Makes them very difficult to handle. Also makes hydroplaning much easier (see point 1)
4. wear out in 100 km.
Number 4 i don't think needs an explanation.
However, if you’re on a dedicated race track these same tires are like putty when they’re used properly and will withstand 6 G of lateral force.
To give you an idea of the grip, a coasting F1 decelerates harder than your road car if you slammed on the breaks. Your road car’s braking performance is limited only by your tire grip.
Why? The Volkswagen ID.R did the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 6:05. Only the Porsche 919 EVO has done better than that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCiGABQupA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRHIiJjWhWo
All you're really saying is that there need to be better, lighter batteries, which is true.
Luckily, many organizations are conducting exactly this kind of research and development. Lithium sulfur batteries, for example, weigh less for about the same volumetric energy density:
https://lyten.com/lyten-launches-lithium-sulfur-battery-plat...
https://newatlas.com/energy/sugar-doped-lithium-sulfur-batte...
We need batteries that store energy in less weight and volume than the most efficient ICE compatible fuels, which is unlikely to ever happen. BEV is therefore a non-starter for cutting edge super and hypercars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4orCB71BgY
Also, the full 22.8km Nordschleife record is Niki Lauda's in a 45 year old Formula (i.e. w/ rules) F1 car - 6:55. The VW's record is for the 20.8 km circuit. No F1 car has raced either the 20 or the 22 km Nordschleife since Lauda's crash. An any F1 car since the mid 90s would demolish any track record for any configuration of the track.
No, I'm comparing battery electric propulsion to supercars and hypercars, which is what the thread is about. Remember the claim is "a lot of factors against EVs for super/hypercars". Here are some definitions for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercar
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/anything-goes/matt-priors...
The point is battery electric propulsion is clearly in the realm of supercars today. Here's an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE_w1-5eHgI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4orCB71BgY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUB1z5wr5p8
> Also, the full 22.8km Nordschleife record is Niki Lauda's in a 45 year old Formula (i.e. w/ rules) F1 car - 6:55. The VW's record is for the 20.8 km circuit.
The VW ID.R completed its lap in 365 seconds. That's an average of 1 km every 17.55 seconds. Add on the extra 35 seconds for the extra 2 km, or even add on an extra 45 seconds, and the ID.R still beats Niki. Sorry.
“ The point is battery electric propulsion is clearly in the realm of supercars today. Here's an example:”
No, they dont. They can only compete on a very restricted space: straight line speed, or a single lap. The competition is always tailored to deal with the same problem: they’re heavy.
“ The VW ID.R completed its lap in 365 seconds. That's an average of 1 km every 17.55 seconds. Add on the extra 35 seconds for the extra 2 km, or even add on an extra 45 seconds, and the ID.R still beats Niki. Sorry.”
You either break the record or you don't. Theres no “could possibly if I do a linear fit”.
Linear fit? Really?
But lets keep it linear. Niki’s record is 45 years old on a longer, more difficult track on a car made to last a 2 hr race and not custom built for that one track, and not made of carbon fiber.
Im supposed to be impressed compared to the Ferrari?
Here’s F1 dirty secret:
Since the 1930s (!!) the cars have been faster than human reflexes. F1 rules, for almost 100 years, have been about slowing the cars down.
Good for VW, great accomplishment, but its good for an electric car. Good despite being an electric car. Good for within their competition space. But the ICE has too much of a weight advantage.
Nope, I never mentioned the ID.4.
> They can only compete on a very restricted space
Supercars are a very restricted space. That's why they're so expensive and produced in such low numbers. People don't buy them to do grocery shopping.
> Linear fit? Really?
Yes. You should check the circuit layout between 1975 and now.
> F1 rules, for almost 100 years, have been about slowing the cars down.
False. F1 lap times have increased at historic circuits. In 1991 Aryton Senna qualified at Monaco with a time of 1:20.344. In 2021 Lewis Hamilton qualified at Monaco with a time of 1:10.346.
In 2020 Lewis Hamilton set a new record for the highest average speed around Monza:
https://www.racefans.net/2020/09/05/264-362kph-the-stats-of-...
It will probably be better in the future, but producing an EV pollutes close to twice as much CO2 compared to an ICE. And then you would think you are going to drive around in it with green energy at least, unlikely. So we are going to replace all personal vehicles with EVs and a ban on new ICE? We could drive an ICE for many years before it has the total CO2 emission as an EV.
It will take a long time before EVs are more than a niche for the city. In the meantime I hope synthetic fuel can get a foothold in politics and production, so we can slow down or reverse much of this EV nonsense and solve problems.
I did not know that cars had testosterone.
Should the sales of these be allowed? Because they're basically smoking any Ferrari or Lamborghini out there (at least in 0-60)
Charging in general is a hassle if you live in the city. You might need to park in a different neighbourhood just to let your car charge while you're at home.
For many use cases, EVs just aren't practical.
First I've often enough been told that high performance cars weren’t the most comfortable, and the mere risk of it breaking down somewhere in the middle of nowhere without any certified garage in the area (which is the case of most places) would make me think twice.
But to each their own, I guess.
People want that because they can, because of the image it gives, because society somehow associates some of those older riskier tech as "more manly/showing strength", and because no matter how much money you have we have a need to strive for that one next thing we can't get yet, which is why the richest people are all trying to go to space or change the world in whatever way.
- The cars we're discussing here are anything but "older tech". Ferrari has been consistently at the vanguard in terms of making fast cars. I guess you could argue that they're older in that they're ICE based, but then, consider that the first Porsche was an electric car, electric is actually older tech than ICE ;)
- Different people have different reasons to prefer vinyl, but one thing I don't think can be argued against is that, as a music storage medium, vinyl is a lot more resilient. I have records from when my grandmother was young and I can still play them just fine, yet she's been dead for a few years. I have lost files from my first computers (30+ years ago) and there's no way to get those back. Of course, my grandmother never made backups of her records, and I can even get an idea of what music they have without electricity: I can always just put it on the turntable and manually spin it. For archiving purposes, vinyl wipes the floor with any digital format IMHO.
Still, I think your point stands, it's only the analogy that may not be the best :)
Also, notwithstanding Dinoco, oil does not come from dinosaurs.
I'm concerned about all the batteries we'll have to dispose of if we transition to only electric vehicles.
I hope I'm wrong, but I think the only sustainable option long-term is to give up having individual engine-powered transportation, ICE or otherwise (and I say this as someone who loves cars).
Don't even start on the special fuel they use for their gulfstream.
For racing (higher output), I can get 110oct or ethanol blended gas which is not as easily available on west coast but is cheaper than gasoline in Midwest.
Especially rural, diesel will be around for a long time after suburban cars go electric. But also petrol for vehicles and tools.