Pista pricing question...dealer sent my total today

Watching these prices skyrocket, I’ve relegated myself to the 2 years rule. Don’t buy anything that is not at least 2 years old. No dealer games, no massive depreciation. Plenty of used cars with little to miles on them.

I do well but I just don’t have that kind of scratch to be buying 600k sports cars. I thought I was a baller when I upped my game to 300kcars.

Apparently I’m just a peasant.

 

We agree once again. The stars must be aligned

What I think you're seeing is exotic manufacturers trying to push prices to the limit and build more and more super expensive "exclusives" like the Monza because they know they're running into a plateau of performance and features, and if they don't move now, they'll never be able to. If they don't push prices up now, entry level exotics are going to catch up and make it too hard to sell the $150-200K premium.

Going forward, they're going to run into a huge plateau and the cost of the tech is going to trickle down very quickly to lesser cars. EV powertrains are going to be child's play for everyone, battery costs will come way down, all you're going to be left with is suspension tuning and maybe some fancy composite construction (which will also filter down.)

Not to say Tesla is on par with Ferrari, but we already know that Tesla (and Porsche) can easily push insane power. All they have to do is A) make batteries more dense and B) improve cooling. Once that happens, powertrain/engine expertise like you see in a Ferrari or Porsche becomes meaningless. You'll just pick from a selection of more than capable e-motors and then decide how much battery capacity/output you want.

Composite construction and battery density will be the defining technology going forward. It will be about lightness since anyone is going to easily be able to stick a bunch of batteries and an emotor into their car and get insane performance with the flip of a switch.

 

We actually don’t agree. Unlike you i actually own exoctics.

Or a car.

 

It’s a lot more complicated than that. Battery prices will not come down yet. The existing technology is manufactured by a few companies who have no interest in making their product cheaper for the big car companies, none of whom manufacture batteries. This is a structural problem within the motor industry and it is why Tesla’s share price has had numerous upward movements despite massive losses (not to mention a certain televised cocaine episode plus EM getting embroiled in a slanging match with one of the rescue divers of the young football team - calling him a paedophile no less). Personally I think Tesla will not work in its present format but the stakes are high because traditional manufacturers have no battery technology or production. Therefore the only incentive they have to produce is legislation because they cannot make profit from battery cars. The presidents of two car large companies have told me that directly - and if you research it you can find it is a common view - the battery producer takes the profit. If another technology cannot be found and placed in the hands of European producers (to protect European manufacturers) then EU legislation will change. A controversial view, but I simply cannot see the EU handing over the keys to their automotive industry to China who are streets ahead in terms of battery production. As for Trump and the American industry.... The future is not very clear in this area except to say that if large traditional manufacturers cannot produce their powertrains they will die from profit starvation.

The current liquid batteries are not the future, new chemistry is needed (and this is from talking to one of the largest battery manufacturers in the world, a company most people never heard of). The problem with the current battery technology is weight and safety, and by extension performance. A liquid lithium based battery is inherently unstable. Pierce the case and the thing simply ignites or even expoldes - check out YouTube to see, it is shocking how powerful even a small battery combusts. This means you need ever heavier casing in an automotive product, the higher the performance the bigger the case. Even then you are not completely safe. Adding weight needs more power, which needs more weight..... A vicious circle.

Maybe the new direction is solid state (e.g. Cobalt-based is one example) where piercing the battery does not generate a flame. This means the casing is lighter, and also the charging is much quicker - a significantly better solution. Except that no-one has mass produced this for cars yet, and we are probably quite a way off. In fact so far off that an alternative solution might come along. Hydrogen maybe? Or who knows, someone may invent a way of splitting water into Hydrogen and Oxygen in a package small enough for a car.

The ICE is still an extremely efficient method of converting energy into motive power. And that is the problem. If legislation provides the impetus to go all-electric in the next 5 years, customers will complain because of cost and performance because new manufacturers will not have sprung up in time (except from China and they have other issues that will hamper them), if we go all-electric in the 5-10 year timeframe existing manufacturers could be heavily affected and the unions will complain leading to huge unrest, and if we go all-electric in the 10-20 year timeframe new battery tech and new non-battery tech is in range making it even harder to predict.

Therefore I believe Ferrari will be making ICE of some sort for at least the next 20 years and probably more.

 

Finally, a voice of reason. The current EV hype, as well as predictions of driverless vehicles taking over soon, seem very reminiscent of the hype surrounding widespread and eminent adoption of consumer 3D printing just a few years ago. Lithium battery tech leaves a lot to be desired, and has tremendous environmental and safety disadvantages that the manic greenies love to ignore. And TSLA would have caved even sooner without the substantial government support, e.g. tax credits.


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Not s

Not sure if I agree with everything said here. I agree that Ferrari (and others) will keep making ICE for the foreseeable future. I agree that the battery technology needs to advance. I am not sure if I agree with all the issues listed for the electric cars. Yes, the battery cost is high, but economies of scale have always taken care of issues of that nature. Battery cost will come down. Lithium batteries are fine; you may argue with Tesla as a car company and their overall business strategies; which are somewhat flawed, but they have shown an electric car can be manufactured with sufficient range and efficiency and with enough creature comforts to make it appealing to car buyers. And others are following suit. They would not have done so if the business model was not working.

 

You have to understand why price comes down with volume - it is because a manufacturer uses his volume/cost advantage to compete and force others to do the same. Here there is no cost advantage with volume. Batteries are already produced in massive numbers (a battery is a collection of cells - a big one is simply more cells bolted together) for phones, computers etc. The battery company wants the profit so BMW, Mercedes, Toyota etc. have to pay because they don’t have the tech. The only way these companies get to dictate price is if they are courted by numerous battery companies but that does not seem to be happening. Lithium batteries have reached the point of diminishing returns and new chemistry is being sought. That won’t come cheaply and battery manufacturers don’t have an interest in selling their products cheaply just to attract car manufacturers to old tech when new tech is required - they want the profit to fund r&d because they are also in a tight spot. And why would you voluntarily give away your advantageous position to these ‘nice friendly car manufacturers’?

This leaves car manufacturers looking to produce the minimum amount of battery cars to meet their legislative obligations. Currently the 2025-2030 legislation can be met with around 30% EV in the EU. It is possible that some governments may legislate that only EV can be sold after 2030 or 2040 but statements to this effect are being made by politicians who won’t be around to deliver it. Wait until the unions realise that this hands an unbelievable advantage to Chinese manufacturers and large-scale job losses loom. Guess what the politicians will do then?

The only thing that changes this in Europe is if they can develop a Euro battery consortium (like they did with airbus) to compete with China. I believe this is being discussed, but how long will it take? By the time it arrives Lithium will be history and who-knows-what will be powering our cars.

It is simple logic IMO. People and companies fight hard to survive and some very big names - VW, BMW, Mercedes, Toyota, JLR etc. will all die if they are forced into 100% EV before they can control the tech that powers their products. They have 100+ years of ICE knowledge and their engineering teams simply cannot convert to battery in a short time. It would be like asking Chinese engineers to be as good as European ones building advanced petrol engines. It ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.

So the best guess is a blended approach will be used in the medium term. In the long term neither petrol or lithium will power 90%+ of vehicle production.

Also, imagine this. From 2025, 30% of sales are EV. Maybe, maybe from 2035 we get to 80%+, it takes at least another 15 years for most petrol cars to go out of circulation. That’s 2050! For all we know our children will be flying around in personal aeronautical vehicles at that time.

The other thing you can work out is this. To force-sell 30% battery cars which are expensive and profit-less for manufacturers, guess what happens to the 70%? Yep, you guessed it. Price goes up, for two reasons. First the EV cannot seem uncompetitive against an ICE otherwise it won’t sell (and it must sell) and second, this 30% unprofitable production is like a tax so guess where shareholders want that passed? The only thing that may save most motorists is if customers actually prefer an EV, in which case they will be asked to pay the additional cost. But manufacturers must be cautious here because if they undershoot their EV target and their fleet CO2 emissions are too high, the fines are simply eye-watering.

The legislators have put the home team at a massive disadvantage to the away team and something has to give.

 

I disagree with a lot of your projections Luke, but I will add this: When you're talking $200-300K cars, it doesn't matter how much it costs because the price is high enough already and the buyers will just pay for the added cost of batteries, just like they do in the Model S and Model X. Battery cost is only an issue at low prices. Guys with $200-300K can swing another 10% for batteries.

Ferrari is selling a 488 for $250K and people are paying $400-500K for a Pista, which let's be honest, doesn't cost anywhere near 2x 488 to produce. So let's say they want to go EV. No problem, increase the price by $30K. No one will even blink. This will hold true around $200K as well. An Audi R8 costs $50-75K less than a Huracan, yet they sell both just fine. What will happen is Audi will just increase the price of the R8 by $30K.

Battery cost will go down as density continues to go up. That means weight will go down as well. Companies may need to start adopting composite construction, but McLaren shows it's not a problem even in the entry level segment.

I look at Rolls Royce and I just laugh that it's an ICE. It costs like $600K, it already weighs so much as to be irrelevant, and it is an ideal car for an EV powertrain. Why not just stick $60K of batteries in it and turn it into a 500 mile range luxury barge? It's not like the buyers can't afford another $60K. They're already spending $20K on a stupid art gallery dash board.

 

Oh, I missed the bit about Tesla. Everyone knows the business model isn’t working.....yet. This last word is why some see it as a worthy investment and others don’t. You pays your money and takes your choice. My guess is that he has bitten off more than he can chew - not only is he seeking to revolutionise car usage but also the motor industry too. Its distribution methods et al. This is very complex and something I know a lot about. He didn’t need to do that, it only threatens the success of his main objective. Model 3 is way late and he can’t produce enough of them to deliver his plan. This means that IMV those companies who are very good at the things he is not - high quality, high volumes, efficient production and effective distribution chains - will learn from what he is good at and beat him with what he isn’t. That is the easy bit for them. The tough bit is how to buy batteries cheaply, as discussed earlier. By the way, Tesla uses very efficient Japanese batteries with very expensive rare materials. The Chinese are using less efficient batteries from elements that are in far greater supply. Tesla production is something like 8GW and one Chinese company is planning one factory that will manufacture 200GW alone. Their current production is simply huge compared with Tesla.

 

Argento Nurburgring

 

Uh huh. Sure. And you will have a very nice golf cart with a big battery.

Meanwhile the Speciale will top 1 million in 10/12 years because of its rarity from the above crap u just promoted.

 

The fact that someone on this thread is comparing a Ferrari to a Tesla shows how little they know about cars. I own both. My wife’s daily driver is a Tesla which she took from me.

She hates engine noise. She hates “power” she hates going to the gas station. The latter is why she loves her Tesla and hates all my cars. Thinks they are frivolous.

 

Boss!

 

The arguments against Pista valuation as resale is pretty interesting to me; as if coming from speculators (I am not accusing anyone on the board of being that.) The buyers are buying the Pista for what the car is all about, not it's resale value. But, let's say hypothetically that after I get my Pista, I decide to sell it. I don't think the depreciation would be any different than a 488 Spider or a 488 GTB. Mine is coming out around $430k or so with very nice options. I don't think the car would depreciate anything below $380k-$400k. So percentage wise it might be even better than the non Pista variety anyways.

 

When speculative prices are reached, anything could happen - they can still go up, or crash. There is no logic anymore at the current levels.
A Speciale (or a Pista) selling for more than a BB512 does not make sense to me, but I do not care if people trade at these prices.

 

The BB512 was my childhood dream car. After spending a day driving one last year, my bubble was burst. Horrible ergonomics, at least for my body habitus.

Ferraris have progressed so far since then. I know 1950’s and 60’s Ferraris bring huge money but I think the paradigm may be shifting with respect to older cars being automatically more desirable & worth more than newer. My interests now lie in the 2012- cars except for maybe the eventual F40 or 1950-60’s car.


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I'm no economist but from my perspective Ferrari should increase the prices on all cars, as should Porsche increase the price of GT cars. Increase it to the level the market will tolerate so end users become buyers instead of flippers. I hate seeing for sale ads for a car that's brand new or worse an allocation slot for $50k or $100k over MSRP or more. Very inefficient. The real buyer didn't get to spec the car in many cases and the flipper is a leach on the system warning far more than the builder who did the work.


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I agree. Other than the iconic Ferrari’s of the past (who does not want a 250GTO! which none of us can afford), my interest started with F40, then ENZO, the baby ENZO (CS), and the rest of LE of the latter years as well. I own a CS and I absolutely love it. Pista would be an awesome edition of the turbo Ferrari’s.

 

It's not about Tesla compared to Ferrari, it's about EV compared to ICE. ICE has no real future and the future is going to come a heck of a lot sooner than people think. I'd be shocked if the LF replacement isn't an EV.

 

ICE is definitely old, but a real replacement has yet to be designed.
Current electric vehicles based on batteries (and electricity produced somewhere else) are completely inefficient and are heavily subsidized to be able to just exist.
The replacement for the ICE may come with a totally different technology like hydrogen fuell cells or whatever.

 

You should tell every manufacturer on Earth that then...

 

They certainly are already working on different options, Toyota (not specially a small player) has already hydrogen cars available.

 

Last of non-hybrid V8s, maybe?

 

They already know it. They just don’t have a solution to the emissions regs in enough time so they are saddled with EV. Sorry, did I say ‘they’, I meant ‘we’...

EV is not a great solution yet. They say the aim is 300 miles range, recharge in 30 mins. We are miles away currently.

 

Totally the same here... Geez, it apparently is nothing when everyone daily drives a 100k tesla.