Who wants a quiet electric Ferrari?

The huge white lobby, which looks even more spacious thanks to the large amount of glass, the austere stairwell with minimalist materials, and the sleek beauty of the rear. What a beautiful building, 42,500 square meters of sleek beauty. The abundance of greenery is stunning. Planters several meters long, the courtyard at the entrance, huge plants planted in correspondingly spacious pots.

What is it? The tech company’s upcoming open-plan office? Zuidas’ elite hub? A premium event hall?

Wrong. A car factory. Let yourself be shown. Everywhere are cars under construction. Behind glass barriers, robots glue and install windshields with inhuman precision. In the production hall, car bodies slide from one assembly stage to the next via roof rails. In a lab-like corner, with white floors and walls, technicians in red overalls work in the cockpit. There, under green flashing lights, a ghostly self-driving plateau is driving toward a freight terminal.

This is clearly no ordinary car factory, as was evident during the official opening on June 21. The atmosphere was too serene, too elegant. These cars are therefore very special. This is Ferrari’s new factory in Maranello, near Modena, which has been the home of the Italian sports car brand since 1943.

The car won’t go into production until late 2025, but it will be ready by then.

The building, designed by Italian architect Mario Cucinella, is called the e-building. That’s because, wait, they want to build an electric Ferrari. The car won’t go into production until the end of 2025, but it will be ready by then. In the meantime, Ferrari can produce all its models based on demand, and some of them are already electrified. Ferrari now offers two plug-in hybrid sports cars: the SF90 Stradale and the 296 GTB.

Cleaner construction

Hybrids are nothing new for the brand. The first hybrid, the LaFerrari, was released in 2013 and cost 1.5 million euros. It bore no resemblance to a Prius. The technology came straight from Formula 1 and it pumped out nearly 1,000 horsepower, which was nothing to be ashamed of. At the time, such a car was still an exercise, a spectacular experiment.

Today, not a single famous sports car brand can escape the energy transition. A time when supercars emit 500 grams of CO2 with impunity₂ Emissions per kilometer are over – even though Ferrari produces less than 14,000 cars a year in the industry, it is statistically a marginal polluter.

To significantly reduce emissions, manufacturers must also create a cleaner environment. Ferrari CO₂-neutral production, to which the new factory must make a significant contribution. The roof of the E-building has more than 3,000 solar panels with a peak power of 1.3 megawatts. Other electricity suppliers provide green energy, said Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna. Rainwater is collected and reused.

Whether customers will accept them, Ferraris powered by electricity, remains to be seen. They lack one feature that Ferrari customers (almost always men) value very much: a hysterically roaring engine. On the other hand, he does not seem to shy away from hybrids. Plug-in Ferraris run like clockwork. In the third quarter of last year, 51% of Ferrari cars sold were hybrids.

Prestige is a rich asset. If everyone is lining up to buy your model, the manufacturer can afford a lot more in terms of price. Last year, Ferrari’s profits rose to 1.26 billion euros, with 13,663 cars sold. The cheapest model in the Netherlands already costs 275,000 euros.

As for the hybrid, electrification also has a positive side for the typical Ferrari driver. The electric motors simply make the car go faster, and the acoustic damage remains relatively limited: above 20 km/h, they start spitting out that familiar, delicious hellish noise again, because of course there’s still a real hard-core engine inside.

Fake noise

What if, when the beloved six-, eight- and twelve-cylinder engines truly blow out the final smoke screen, there’s no longer any screaming? You could support the driving experience with electronic fake sounds, just as BMW did with Hans Zimmer’s swelling synth soundscapes and Hyundai did with the extremely realistic fake gearshift and engine sounds in the electric 5N.

Vigna didn’t want to talk too much about the plug-in Ferrari, but he got the noise issue right. “Electric cars aren’t silent either.” And that’s true. Wind noise and tire noise already provide plenty of fiery acoustic sensations in superfast cars.

What should Ferrari worry about? Porsche, another brand once known as a carnival of sound Unique Selling Points After use, it successfully pulled the chestnut out of the fire. It preceded Ferrari in launching its plug-in car and the first all-electric model, the Taycan, which produces only a dark brown sci-fi hum when accelerating. The Porsche people are also happy with this, so the next chapter is inevitable. An electric version of the new Macan is coming soon. Both cars are sportier family cars than full-fledged sports cars, with four doors and a back seat, but Porsche is now also launching real sports models. A small electric sports car with the same size as the current Porsche 718 is in the works.

On the other hand, Porsche is also setting boundaries. It will not start with a purely electric 911. Running on electricity is too sacred a brand symbol. If the EU bans all internal combustion engine cars by 2035, Porsche hopes to be able to get away with it. Europe makes exceptions for engines that use CO2₂-neutral synthetic fuels, in which Porsche has invested heavily.

E-fuels could also be Ferrari’s savior. They are expensive and complex to produce, but the high price per liter is not necessarily a problem for customers. A Ferrari now costs three to seven tons, and special editions or vintage cars can cost millions of dollars. Ferraris rarely travel very many kilometers.

Model selfie

On opening day, Ferrari laid out its range of models in the second-floor lobby like a showroom; open and closed 296 and Roma, a best-selling SUV with the terrible name Purosangue, and the beautiful 12 Cilindri with a front end modeled after the classic Ferrari Daytona. The vehicles are unlocked; you just walk in and quietly admire the interior and atmosphere. I witnessed an important scene, however trivial it was.

In the yellow SF90 Spider sits a man of about thirty years old – stylishly dressed, toned, tight shirt, shaved hair of a football player and rapper. It is impossible to remove him from the car. He takes selfies and photographs every detail of the dashboard, even the keys. An hour later, he is still there, or rather there again. He puts his hands on the steering wheel and starts to dream. The engine is not running at all, so the fans obviously don’t want that kind of kick. I guess Ferrari is for these people.

Would you like the Ferrari logo on your headrests to be white, red, green, black or purple?

If that’s the case, Ferrari boss Vigna won’t have to worry about the future. If the silent corkscrew accelerates fast enough, half the Monegasques will want him just as much. Ten to one, the man who drives the SF90 will order one as soon as he has the money. Ferrari will get involved in the personalization options, and if he’s rich enough, he’ll tick all the boxes. Does he want yellow, red or blue brake calipers, a black or carbon fiber engine cover? Does he want standard seats, Style seats, Daytona seats or Daytona Race Carbon seats? Does he want the Ferrari logo on the headrests in white, red, green, black or purple?

The price is not listed, but buyers can still pay. With the electric Ferrari, simply choosing a titanium exhaust or a ceramic exhaust is no longer an option. Then you just have to buy another Ferrari for it, or get your old one out of the shed. Most Ferrari drivers own five cars. From Doha to Monte Carlo, they almost always stand still and drive just to be seen. With an electric Ferrari, everything will be fine.

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