Hell Gets Chilly; Ferrari Goes Green
Of course, they kinda have to, as the Maranello Mob don't have "get out of global warming free" card to hand the European Union when new CO2 regs come into force. As Reuters reports, the semi-democratic bureaucrats in the European Union (EU) are preparing legislation that will require manufacturers' fleets to average 120 grams of CO2 per km by 2012. And so Ferrari's GM has announced his employer's intention to reduce their bella machinas' CO2 production by 40 percent by the EU deadline. "We have to face the challenge of reducing consumption but not affecting the performance of the car," Amedeo Felisa told Reuters in Frankfurt. "Otherwise we move [away] from our position in the market and we do not want to do that." Felisa also took the opportunity to remind the world that the integrity of the Earth's polar ice caps doesn't depend on the CO2 levels emitted by Ferrari's 6k annual production run. "Our volumes will not … affect the environment," he said, piercingly glimpsing the obvious. And anyway, improving mpg with high-tech, lightweight materials shouldn't be that hard for Ferrari, an automaker whose products are not exactly what you'd call "price sensitive."
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Couldn't they just hop back into Fiat's pocket for a bit?
Ferrari? Green? Puh-leeeeze.
Once upon a time, racing was viewed as a petri dish of development for things that would filter down to production cars. It's possible that Ferrari could apply valve train or other sorts of engine technology, along with weight-saving carbon fiber, to production cars and bring mileage up to perhaps 15 or 20 mpg - enough to get the European community off their backs. And at some point, they might have to actually consider going back to a V6, such as the Dino had - maybe 5 to 10 years out. Those of us who lived through the Seventies, can still recall when the economic situation in Italy, meant that sometimes people in "supercars" had rocks thrown at them. It could get as nasty again.
Saw a Ferrari 599 in the flesh today. Drool. If turning green means the end for machines like this, the world will be a poorer place.