> To me, the exterior has lost almost all of Ferrari's identity. It's a nice car-design, but if you'd tell me it's a Hyundai, Lexus or BYD I would believe you.
Ferrari already got their exception from the EU regulation for CO² reduction via the E-Fuel loophole, which was tailored for them and allows them to continue selling V8 and V12 ICE-based cars beyond 2036 if they only use synthetic e-fuels.
This secures their existing business model for customers who insist on ICE-based cars and are willing to pay the premium for it.
A portion of their addressable market shifts to EV-based sports cars though, they are shooting themselves into the foot by not establishing a BOLD identity in this space soon. A bland product with a "we used to be big in ICE" brand won't cut it there
But Porsche has a much wider palette of cars, if ICEs would be banned without exception they could adapt.
Their concern was that Ferrari could be exempted entirely from the regulation due to their low total volume, with Porsche ending up unable to compete on ICE sports cars with them because they're no longer allowed to build one.
Hence the "Ferrari loophole". Not just for Ferrari, but BECAUSE of Ferrari
"Look, we tried to create an EV and no one bought it. So we need to retain that carve-out in the regulations that mean we do not have to electrify our entire product line or we will go out of business entirely."
I'd totally buy this car if it looked like that and was from a mainstream manufacturer (i.e. priced normally), but yeah I cannot see a typical ferrari owner buying one.
Googling this ruined my day