Ferrari says it cannot build self-driving cars

For many years, Ferrari dragged its heels in joining the electric vehicle revolution until it finally caved and started building a fully electric car. But the Italian luxury car company says it’s unlikely to be swayed by another big automotive trend: self-driving cars.

The iconic supercar maker’s brand is about designing sports cars that people want to drive themselves, and commit to self-driving technology like no other such as Tesla that would be against the spirit of the company, according to Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna.

“There are four types of software. There is performance software, there is comfort software, there is infotainment software, and there is autonomous,” said Vigna sa Coming to the Car Summit managed by Financial Times in London on Tuesday.

“The last one, we don’t care,” he continued.

It’s not the first time that Vigna or other Ferrari executives have vowed not to go autonomous, arguing that driving their cars by themselves would defeat the purpose of buying them, since most customers who buy a Ferrari doesn’t plan to be driven around. to someone or something else.

“No customer is going to spend money for a car computer to enjoy driving,” Vigna said in a interviews with Bloomberg last year. “The value of the person, of the person at the center, is the basis.”

Ferrari executives knew in 2016 that self-driving technology was not in the cards for the company anytime soon. “There will be no autonomous Ferrari in the near future,” said Nicola Boari, Ferrari’s director of product marketing, in a interviews with car magazine. “When you’re driving a Ferrari, we want you to concentrate.”

In the case of Ferrari, a proud company almost all of its production is in-houseexecutives may not want to dedicate resources to developing autonomous driving technology in any case, Vigna suggested in FTsummit.

Auto companies, from legacy manufacturers to autonomy-focused startups, have sunk $100 billion into self-driving technology since 2014, according to a report in 2021 through a consulting firm McKinsey. But few companies have much to show for their investments, as only Tesla vehicles with driver assistance systems are accused of causing hundreds of accidents.

Despite the setbacks, many automakers are doubling down on autonomous driving, especially companies with the backing of many parents. For example, Volkswagen AG—among the world’s largest automakers by sales operating brands including Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche—announced a $2.3 billion investment in a joint venture with a Chinese autonomous driving company last year.

While Ferrari won’t be releasing self-driving cars anytime soon, if at all, potential customers hoping the luxury brand will be modernized may have been encouraged by Vigna’s comments about the planned future. company’s electricity.

For the same reasons that Ferrari opposes autonomous cars, it is reluctant to trade its powerful combustion-fired engines for silent batteries. In 2013, the former chairman of the company Luca di Montezemolo admitted that Ferrari “will never make an electric car until I’m chairman” as the company strives to stay close to its roots.

But the rise of the EV has only grown in the decade since, along with many other sports car brands Porsche and Maserati introducing their own electrified models. Ferrari is now thriving its first fully-electric cardue to 2025, to remain competitive and even announced a Batas to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 throughout its value chain, from sourcing materials to manufacturing. The company will continue to produce hybrid and internal-combustion vehicles, utility e-gasoline which is produced from captured carbon dioxide emissions and clean generated hydrogen.

In a financial perspective presented last year, Ferrari set its own goal 80% of its sales which will be hybrids or fully electric in 2030, and during the FT summit this week, Vigna reiterated that, thanks to e-fuels, the company’s growth plan is “perfectly compatible” with the goals of carbon neutrality.



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