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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.'"
That distinction goes to the Rimac Concept One
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The modern supercars they put out are kind of stupid anyway. They poured so much effort into shaving a couple of tenths of a second off the 0-60 time with a petrol engine, only to be trounced by an electric sedan costing 1/15th as much.
Okay, I get that a petrol engine makes a nice sound and can be fun to drive, but these modern supercars don't sound particularly great, are hybrid anyway and the driving experience is carefully managed by the computers needed to wring that level of performance out of a combustion engine. There are plenty of interesting, fun fossil performance cars, but things like the La Ferrari are the iPhones of the car world, expensive jewelry that's good but not terribly interesting.
And now Tesla have a supercar that does 0-60 in 1.9 seconds, and doesn't overheat. The closest Ferrari have is 2.4 seconds, so they need to learn how to build an electric performance car and shave half a second off their current best. I'm sure they will do it eventually and probably make a car with superior handling, but it will cost at least 5x as much as the Tesla and won't arrive for 5 years.
Like most European manufacturers, they kinda missed the boat.
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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.
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Straight line acceleration is only a very small consideration for performance. Could a Tesla S beat a Ferrari around a track? I don't think anyone knows because EVs tend to overheat and turn off performance on any track actually designed to test a vehicle such as Nübergring.
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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).
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They poured so much effort into shaving a couple of tenths of a second off the 0-60 time with a petrol engine, only to be trounced by an electric sedan costing 1/15th as much
As long as you don't expect to do a whole lap....
http://www.thedrive.com/news/5...
Sure, you can do a few ludicrous 0-60 runs before you have to recharge. The petrol engine can do them all day long.
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.
"Straight line acceleration is only a very small consideration for performance. Could a Tesla S beat a Ferrari around a track?"
Straight line accel wasn't a problem until Tesla came along :-D
No, a Model S isn't made for the track unlike many performance sedans - it needs to have more cooling and to give the option to turn off regen or dial it down more as that heats up the pack too quickly under the kind of frequent braking needed on a demanding road course.
"I don't think anyone knows because EVs tend to overheat and turn off performance on any track actually designed to test a vehicle such as Nübergring"
Whoa, let's not jump to conclusions. You can't simply lump all EVs into this basket because the most common ones aren't designed for a famous track. FYI, Teslas and others do very well on shorter courses.
The Green Hell is a special case.
That said, the NextEV NIO EP9, a pure battery electric that uses on *air* cooling for the battery pack took on the Nurburgring and shaved almost 2 full seconds off the (then) production vehicle record time that had stood since 2010 when set by the Pagani Zonda.
I expect the Rimac Concept One which has considerably better cooling than the Model S would also perform respectably around the 'ring.
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