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Challenging Tesla, Ferrari Will Build An Electric Sportscar -- and an SUV (theverge.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Kant shared an article from The Verge:
Ferrari will build a battery-electric supercar in a bid to challenge Tesla for a piece of the high-end, eco-conscious luxury market. CEO Sergio Marchionne, who also heads Fiat Chrysler, said that the Italian racecar company would also make a Ferrari SUV -- after previously dismissing the idea as ridiculous. Speaking at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Marchionne didn't offer any specifics on the electric Ferrari, but indicated the company would release it before the Tesla Roadster hits the road in 2020.
"If there is an electric supercar to be built, then Ferrari will be the first," Marchionne said, according to Bloomberg. "People are amazed at what Tesla did with a supercar: I'm not trying to minimize what Elon did but I think it's doable by all of us."
BMW and Porsche also have plans to introduce all-electric supercars, and Marchionne says "I don't know of a [business] that is making money selling electric vehicles unless you are selling them at the very, very high end of the spectrum."
His remarks were also "a significant departure" from comments made in 2016 about the Ferrari SUV: 'You have to shoot me first.'"
"If there is an electric supercar to be built, then Ferrari will be the first," Marchionne said, according to Bloomberg. "People are amazed at what Tesla did with a supercar: I'm not trying to minimize what Elon did but I think it's doable by all of us."
BMW and Porsche also have plans to introduce all-electric supercars, and Marchionne says "I don't know of a [business] that is making money selling electric vehicles unless you are selling them at the very, very high end of the spectrum."
His remarks were also "a significant departure" from comments made in 2016 about the Ferrari SUV: 'You have to shoot me first.'"
I don't think he understands what the word "first" means.
"People are amazed at what Tesla did with a supercar" ...""If there is an electric supercar to be built, then Ferrari will be the first,""
I can't wait to see what kind of $200K+ car they come out with that 99% of people can't afford so they can challenge Tesla.
That distinction goes to the Rimac Concept One
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Forget your supercars and your A.I.-driving gadgets, what we need to make a difference is electric cars that anyone can afford, i.e. sub-$15K electric cars.
The comment from Ferrari makes me think of the motorcycle company in the game Full Throttle where the founder mentions the guy who wants to take over the company and sell minivans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWrUl3uemb4
But think how much fun it will be to watch Richard Hammond crash a Ferrari into oblivion like he did with the Rimac!
The Tesla phenomena isn't just about the cars - Tesla's range and supercharger network have played a critical role in their success. Most other manufacturers are still at step 1 in the process - building the cars - and they won't be really successful until their is a common charging infrastructure that all cars can use.
Participatory Governance : The only feasible option for a real democracy, where everyone really does have a say.
Putting out an SUV could be major step toward throwing away the Ferrari brand, the brand image they've carefully built over seventy years.
Or it could be a way to go from selling 8,000 units per year to selling 80,000 or 800,000 while maintaining their brand identity. For the last several years Porsche has been very carefully expanding, continuing to sell cars to the same customers after they have kids, while maintaining their brand and their high gross profit on each vehicle. The Cayenne is an SUV, yet also a Porsche, with over 500HP available. They have a compact SUV, the Macan, with Porsche handling. It *can* be done successfully, but there are so many ways it can go wrong.
The issues you raise are exactly why electric and supercar go well together. Even with taxpayers paying half the cost, buying a Nissan Leaf (at half price) doesn't make sense, they are too expensive for what you get. Range, refilling time, etc make electric cars not as practical for everyday use. People don't buy supercars based on price, looking for a good value. Supercars aren't supposed to be practical. Electric is a good fit for supercars.
Maybe in 20 years a lot of things will change and electric will make sense for ordinary daily drivers, but that hasn't happened yet.
Forget {...} your A.I.-driving gadgets, what we need to make a difference is electric cars that anyone can afford, i.e. sub-$15K electric cars.
Several European car makers tend to disagree.
Some of them tend to see driving-assistant gadget as essential tools to increase safety.
As an example VW for the past few year has offered some form of forward collision avoidance as a standard on *all* of their cars, including the cheapest ones (e.g.: VW Up! - and electric variations thereof).
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Regarding the price of electric cars themselves : the big barrier is the price of the battery it self. With most cars (Tesla being a prime example), you aren't as much buying an overpriced car, as you're actually buying an giant expensive battery, with the manufacturer adding a car chasis around that battery for a modest increase of price.
Though there *are* variation (Renault offers plans where you buy the car alone, sans the battery, for a more reasonable price, and then rent the battery for a monthly fee).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
... of all types of cars into one.
Doesn't fit any (unamerican) parking spot or European city street, costs a shitload of money to buy and in taxes, guzzles tons of gas, spits out tons of pollution, and on the positive side, it drives like a snail-powered 5-ton blancmange on springs.
The only reason those thing are bought anyway, is because they are basically civilian tanks, and people are such massive pussies nowadays. They delude themselves into believing that they will be safe and not die in them, when in reality, their sheer mass would make it just as bad, and the only reason they would result in fewer injuries, would be because they can't drive fast anyway.
Nevermind that they are more dangerous for anyone else around them anyway. Especially with the type of driver that usually buys them. But who cares about other life, in the society of psychopaths, right?
Maybe the Ferarri will have design input instead of a big iPad in the center of dash. Too me the Tesla Model 3 is just a plain Jane for a interior. Maybe the textures are nice, and I am sure they are not plastic like. But from what I have seen, its just too bland. Everything done through a giant iPad is not always the best way to do things.
>"for a piece of the high-end, eco-conscious luxury market."
But what would work better is to focus on the tangible advantages of electric vehicles, instead of feel-good "eco" ones. Things like incredible performance, simplicity, reliability, lack of noise, smoothness, lower cost of operation, ability to power it at home, etc. There are a lot of good reasons to be excited about electric vehicles. To many consumers, slapping "eco" on it just means "oh, this will cost a lot more, and be inconvenient, and sacrifice performance and comfort and features, but will 'save the earth'."
I don't have a Tesla myself, but have a few friends who do, and all of them really love the Tesla car(s) they have.
It's not because they are freaks who want pure electric cars for the sake of it; it's because Teslas are real cars. They have great performance, great handling, and are loads ahead of other car makers in technical features in production automobiles.
They could be driving more expensive cars but instead they are driving Teslas... and I have to admit, I almost put down a deposit on a model 3 myself.
How can you NOT consider that a success? They are building cars people love and are not shutting down anytime soon - that is a win no matter how you look at it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Finally, a Ferrari for soccer moms!
What next? Gleaming alloy air cars.
Fuck your stupid corvettes and retarded ferraris. Electric cars have 10 times less components and therefore must cost 10X less to build.
Every fucking dumbfuck, her grandma, and her dog should have an electric supercar by now.
Of course it's doable by any car manufacturer. But without Tesla breaking out a can of whoop @$$ all you other car companies would still be ignoring the EV revolution. Idiots.
Marchionne said,..."I'm not trying to minimize what Elon did but I think it's doable by all of us."
Assuming he's not lying, all this does is confirm my long-held belief that car-manufacturers are purposely holding back from the public performance and better technology that they could easily provide.
I'm not a big Tesla fan but even if all Elon has achieved is to finally get the big car manufacturers off their fat complacent asses and actually have to work for a living, then kudos to him.
I don't know of a [business] that is making money selling electric vehicles unless you are selling them at the very, very high end of the spectrum.
This is a comment right out of 2008 not from 2018. The 3rd gen Prius started turning profits 8 years ago. Renault and Nissan have stated they make the same profit on electric vehicles as ICE vehicles, except for the Twizzy which makes even higher profits due to the leasing agreements and refurbishment of the battery packs.
Mind you I'm not at all surprised to see a car company which has nothing to do with the common automobile industry have absolutely no clue about what's going on.
Or something like it. A sporty 2 door vert similar to the original tesla roadster but at 1/2 to 1/3 of the price. With the advances in tech that should be doable now.
BMW and Porsche also have plans to introduce all-electric supercars, and Marchionne says "I don't know of a [business] that is making money selling electric vehicles unless you are selling them at the very, very high end of the spectrum."
Precisely. EV are luxury items. May as well go all the way.
Imagine that: Ferrari making an SUV.
-- Cheers!
Regulation problems made Ferrari threaten to leave the Formula 1.
May be the logical step following the threats ?
Totof
I had lunch down at the Ren Cen, and took a few to look at GM's latest lineup. Knowing a number of engineers on their EV and Hybrid programs, I expected more... but again, no electric Corvette, no hybrid crossover (Equinox or Terrain). What a shame... an EV Corvette would be sexy and awesome - and not all that difficult to do. A hybrid crossover would sell like crazy, but instead, they concentrate on their poor selling Bolt and hybridizing big pickups.
Ah well.
Meanwhile, their autonomous Cruze looks like the Ghostbusters Gen 3 car... with a massive sensor pack occupying the entire roof. Good luck with that.
" think how much fun it will be to watch Richard Hammond crash a Ferrari into oblivion"
How much do you hate him? I think in a Ferrari, he'd probably would have died.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
A couple weeks ago when I bought another car I really tried to justify going electric. I guess I just wanted one because they're different. The reality is, even after significant government subsidies you end with a low-end economy car for the price of a mid-range gas car, after factoring in gas cost.
Maintenance costs are low until you pay $6,000 to replace the battery, which is guaranteed to get worn out. Gas cars have low maintenance for the first 60,000 - 100,000 miles too. Even a cheap Kia comes with a warranty that lasts for five years or 60,000 miles, and a 10-year 100,000-mile powertrain warranty.
Given the battery technology driven by smartphones, ten years from now electric cars might make sense. Right now, no matter how hard I tried to come up with reasons they make sense, they just don't.
But you don't need A.I. for basic things like detecting obstacles in front of the car and slowing it down so you don't crash into said obstacle. {...} It's a good feature that doesn't require decades of work, powerful neural net processors and thousands of dollars of sensors and cameras all over the car.
Depends.
Ultra-sound sonars (the kind already equipped on cars for "Parking Assistance" type of feature) only get you that far (pun intended): they are short sighted (only the immediate vicinity around the car) very poor resolution/object recognition (can be easily foiled by grass, or event bursts of air emitted by other vehicles' active suspensions).
Radars are also limited. They can detect a big metallic object in front (The next car in line, that's why they were the first go-to technology in early iteration of "Adaptive Cruise Control" type of assistance)
At some point you'd need more capabilities to recognize more types of obstacles better. You need to throw cameras in the mix (MobileEye is a prominent provider of parts, including after market) or LIDAR (or LIDAR-ish not-so-expensive Laser sensors like the City Safety that Volvo uses a lot and which is standard across the range at VW). This kind of devices are better at recognising pedestrians, bicycle riders, etc. while not panicking when there's a plastic bag blown by the wind.
But making sense of these inputs require some data processing (LIDARs give you just a cloud of points), and integrating all those multiple signal to best infer the environment too. AI and DNN are a promising technology for that. (They are good at all situation where there isn't a clear easy rule, but where a human can visually notice a pattern by looking at the data)
I do agree that the price of the battery is the problem, what we need is a standardized battery that works in all brands of cars/trucks/SUVs/etc. Let Tesla, Panasonic, Sony, Energizer, Duracell and others compete.
I hope we reach such a situation. There are some promising signs that we might attempt to go this road (e.g.: the fact that lots of people in the industry standardise on the same 18650 Lithium cells that are already used in laptop and power tools batteries, instead of custom shaped constructor-specific blocks of Lithium-Polymer. Meaning that at lest the building blocks used to make the battery are a bit more standard and cheaper to obtain thanks to scaling production).
But there are risk that we end up with several different standard of batteries, each incompatible and over-patented.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
at 2, maybe 3x the price of a tesla i would expect nothing else.
the model 3 is a modern electric car almost within reach for most people, those silly ferrari vehicles are not. if you're lucky you can afford an officiel poster.
on the other hand, porsche says it will deliver its electric car from €55k, that is a high, but competitive price compared to tesla 3 & 5.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Here's hoping you have to watch your children die slowly in a fire.