Ferrari to add EV production line
FERRARI has purchased a site adjacent to its existing Maranello facility and reports suggest that the site will be cleared to make way for the construction of a new production line dedicated to hybrid and electric vehicles.
The Prancing Horse is set to unveil further details of its electrification strategy at an upcoming investor briefing, when Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna is expected to reveal further details of the firm’s EV vehicle strategy and business plan for the next four years.
Details of the forthcoming facility are reported to form a significant portion of Mr Vigna’s announcement; the state-of-the-art factory is understood to comprise a new battery research and development centre in addition to a third vehicle production line.
And while Ferrari continues to post enviable profit margins, industry analysts say the Maranello-based company’s shares have underperformed recently, in part due to concerns about its late start in the shift toward electrification – and how much the effort to catch up with its rivals will cost the Prancing Horse brand.
The Italian company shipped 11,155 units in 2021, which was 2036 units more than the year before that (an improvement of 22.3 per cent). Sales of eight-cylinder vehicles were up 34.6 per cent on 2021, with V12 sales falling 16.1 per cent due, for the most part, to the reduced volume of the 812 Superfast, which was phased out in the past 12 months.
Earlier this year, Ferrari reported that it achieved double-digit growth in all global market regions from January to December 2021… EMEA markets rose 14 per cent, the Americas 21.8 per cent, the remainder of the APAC markets 27.2 per cent, and mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan up a combined 97.1 per cent on the previous year.
Net revenues for 2021 were listed at €4.3 billion ($A6.7 billion) – a rise of 26.0 per cent. Ferrari attributed much of the growth to what it said was “a richer product mix more than offset by the negative impact from the Monza SP1 and SP2 phase out”.
According to Bloomberg, however, Ferrari will have to invest heavily in its electrified model line-up to compete with other upper luxury brands’ hybrids and BEVs by 2026.
For the moment, Ferrari’s EV hopes rest on its upcoming Purosangue. Little is known about the SUV’s specifications, but the model will be underpinned by Ferrari’s all-new mid-engine architecture, which is said to support hybridised or fully-electric powertrains.
Ferrari has said previously that the Purosangue would be future-proofed to meet the demands of an electrified driveline, though given the model’s arrival timing, and that of the brand’s new third line, it is more likely that the SUV will initially draw its motivation from the 3.0-litre turbocharged – and hybridised – V6 introduced in the 296 GTB last year.
The Purosangue is also widely tipped to offer an all-wheel-drive configuration as standard, following in the wheel tracks of the FF, its successor – the GTC4Lusso – and other larger GT models. We will have to wait and see whether the SUV will use the same complex all-paw system as its predecessors did, or feature a simpler, more traditional AWD system as its rivals do.
There’s been much speculation about the final design of the Maranello-based firm’s super-SUV and, probably to Ferrari traditionalists relief, the Purosangue does not have an upright stance, bluff front-end and squared-off corners of traditional bruiser-cruiser large luxury SUVs – its extended nose section, four doors, and a sloping roofline are more reminiscent of the crossover’s V12-engined GTC4Lusso and FF forebears, both of which had all-wheel drivetrains.
Now four years in the making, the Purosangue (Italian for pureblood/thoroughbred) will be a “genuine game-changer”, Ferrari says, and that “all will be revealed later this year”, around the same time it is expected to begin deliveries of its Daytona SP3.