Italy Seeks to Shield Supercar Makers From Combustion Engine Ban

Too bad for those without access to a private garage or anywhere to plug in at home at all...they will be on the outside looking in...

does everyone in Europe have a private garage?

oh wait, nope

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I guess they can build something, wow, cannot imagine the power load a structure like this would require:

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e-fuels, by the way, are a complete non-starter, outside of motorsport/track-use, will never ever occur, far too expensive, far too small production, can never be use to replace traditional gasoline because e-fuel is impossible to make in required volumes (regardless of cost), it is a complete waste of time (again, outside of limited use for motorsports)

 

The Italian minister's comments are poignant:

This means that, with constant technology, with constant set-up, we will close the Motor Valley (Italian, that is, the motor district in Emilia Romagna - ed.) ". The minister added: «If today we thought we would have a penetration of 50% of electric cars immediately we would not even have the raw materials to make them, nor the network to manage it. Over a 14-year production cycle, it is unthinkable to think that the automotive and supersport niches will readjust themselves ».

 

e-kerosene is going no-where fast, it is a completely pointless exercise:

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from:
https://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publications/ReFuelEU%20technical%20briefingMay2021%20%281%29.pdf

here's a relevant portion of the above document, even at this very low level there are great challenges, read through the document, quite a challenge, in my opinion, quite unlikely to occur...

The e-kerosene subtarget should be set at at least 1% volumetric in 2030, which would require 550Ktoe (1% of expected aviation fuel demand of 54Mtoe).

A volumetric e-kerosene target under an overall GHG reduction target would ensure that e-kerosene developers receive the required level of demand certainty.

Under an aggressive deployment strategy, where public support is given to construct 40 plants globally and two-thirds of that supply goes to the EU, then that supply could increase to 730Ktoe (or just over 1.3%). However constructing 40 plants over the coming decade will be a challenge, therefore the target should start at 1%, with an upward revision to 1.3% mid-decade if such an objective appears feasible.

 

it's a struggle, gotta play the looooong game on this one

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google translation:

According to the Minister of Ecological Transition, manufacturers such as Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati could continue to offer sports models powered by a thermal engine without this generating a real environmental impact: "thanks" to the small production numbers, which end up weighing little or nothing on the environment. It is not the first time that Cingolani has reasonably talked about safeguarding the heritage of the Motor Valley, attracting criticism from many

Roberto Cingolani had already talked about the "Motor Valley" dossier last July: the Minister of Ecological Transition, in fact, had entered into the merits of the European Commission's proposal to ban the sale of new thermal cars starting from 2035, indicating it as a risk for the very survival of the Emilian motor triangle, an Italian excellence envied all over the world. "It is clear that there is a huge opportunity in electrification, but think of the Motor Valley: the European Commission has announced that even niche productions, such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, McLaren, that is the super sports cars, will have to adapt to full electric by 2035. This means that, with constant technology, with constant weight, we close the Motor Valley ": this was Cingolani's warning. Not to mention that "if today we thought we had 50% penetration of electric cars right away", explained the minister in one of his latest statements, "we would not even have the raw materials to make them and we would not have the electricity grid to manage it. . And we don't have enough renewable energy, we don't have a smart electricity grid capable of managing a discontinuous energy mix, we don't have enough recharging points. Over a 14-year production cycle, it is unthinkable to think that the automotive and supersport niches will readjust ”

For Cingolani it is above all a problem of timing, a balance between the need not to delay too much and that of not getting caught up in the anxiety of a total electric car, especially if we are talking about high-performance cars, which represent a very small niche in the market. : "In the context of the transition, we must take into account that thousands of people and companies are called to reconvert their activities, and it is not automatic: the transition must have a specific time: if we are too slow, we will fail as homo sapiens, but if we go too fast we will fail as a society. It is a great opportunity, but if we pretend to do it too quickly the victims will be too many, if we do it too slowly the victims will be too many: in the first case they die of hunger, in the second the environment. If we do not operate on the time axis and in the correct way we will end up with tens of thousands of families who have lost their jobs and in my opinion this is a principle of unsustainability comparable to that created by the environment ". Quite careful words.

Yet, Cingolani's considerations were indigestible to many, who also criticized the Minister for having been part of the board of directors of Ferrari before taking the lead of the Dicastery for which he is responsible. A slightly weak accusation for more than a few reasons: Cingolani also speaks in the interests of companies such as Lamborghini, owned by Volkswagen AG, a German group that pushes very hard on the electric; or even companies as small as they are excellent, such as Pagani and Dallara. Not to mention that Ferrari (the first electric arrives in 2025), Lamborghini and Maserati are working on their first battery-powered models and already have hybrid, ie electrified, cars in their respective product ranges: essential elements for adapting to the new regulations; under penalty of failure to homologate the cars and, therefore, the impossibility of selling them ...

What Cingolani wants to demonstrate is that electric technology and thermal-hybrid Ferraris can coexist as part of a balanced and, above all, concrete ecological transition. A topic on which the Minister returned during an interview with Bloomberg TV: while reiterating that it is in the Government's interest to support European initiatives for the reduction of emissions, including the gradual elimination of the most polluting engines, Cingolani recalled how at the inside the "gigantic car market, there is a niche" to protect. The same that would be at the center of "discussions with the EU Commission" in order to safeguard the environmental interests but also those of the manufacturers of sports cars (and related activities), supercars with particularly low production volumes.

What numbers are we talking about? Last year Ferrari produced 9,100 vehicles, Lamborghini about 7,400; a trifle compared to the 78 million cars produced in the world (there were 92 million in 2019, before Covid). Therefore, for Cingolani an exemption from the ban on heat engines on sports cars is not only possible, but also desirable. "We are discussing with other partners in Europe and I am convinced that there will be no problems" in obtaining a shield for niche car manufacturers, who have made their fortune on the basis of certain traditions and certain technologies, starting with connecting rods and pistons; the same ones that still have enormous room for improvement, even at an environmental level.

Some observers, then, wonder why it is easier for Chinese companies to produce electric cars, even supercars, as the joint venture between Silk EV and FAW will do, which has chosen the Motor Valley to build a new production site for electric supercars. high-end. "If the Chinese do it, why can't the Italians do it?" Because the Chinese do not have any kind of tradition linked to thermal motors, nor to the automobile in general: for them, therefore, the only way to put their beak in the automobile business - considering that it would have been impossible to recover the know-how developed over the decades by western manufacturers on the subject of thermal cars - it is through battery-powered electric cars, conceptually much simpler to build than any thermal model. In Italy, on the other hand, we are traditionally linked to a certain way of understanding motorsport, which has its roots in the epic of motorsport: we are talking about a century of history that we run the risk of losing all of a sudden without, and this is the joke. greater, that this sacrifice has any kind of real implication on the protection of the environment.

Other observers object that even some sports car manufacturers would like full-electric, as Porsche demonstrates with its Taycan, which now sells more than the historic 911. In reality, the question is more complex than it appears, even at Porsche. Speaking of the Taycan (which, it should be specified, is not considered a "supercar" even by Porsche itself), it is true that the model is doing quite well commercially: the production forecast for the whole of 2020, equal to 20 thousand pieces , was already absorbed in the first half of the year. However, the electric sedan has nothing to do with the sports 911: the latter has already been outclassed in sales for several years by more usable thermal and hybrid models, such as the Macan and Cayenne SUVs. And soon it will be from the Taycan, regardless of the type of power supply. Products appeal to extremely different customers, while coexisting under the umbrella of the same brand. The 911, so to speak, is part of that niche that Cingolani would like to preserve.

As indeed the same Porsche would like: last March it was Oliver Blume, CEO of the German company, who reiterated that "the 911 will continue to be produced with combustion engines". Moreover, "for this decade, I will be very clear: the 911 will be a car with a combustion engine," said Blume. We will continue to think of electrification for the 911 as a very sporty hybridization. Maybe for the next generation. The 911 concept does not allow a 100% electric car, because we have the engine in the back and if we put all the weight of the batteries in the back, the car would not be drivable. " Clear isn't it? The intention is to completely electrify the "volume" models - Porsche is a manufacturer of about 200,000 cars a year - those with four-door bodies and, perhaps, even entry-level sports cars, such as the Cayman and Boxster, but survive the tradition of the 911 and its six-cylinder boxer engine, also through more or less intense forms of hybridization and through synthetic fuels.

A technology in which, coincidentally, Porsche itself believes: if it is true that the manufacturer would like 80% of its sales to be made up of electric cars by 2030, it is also true that, together with Siemens Energy and several international companies (including our own Enel), is developing a pilot project in Chile for the construction of the first plant in the world for the large-scale production of e-fuels. "Well-to-wheel CO2 emissions are reduced by 85%, with fewer particulates and less nitrogen oxides" at the exhaust, explains Frank Walliser, Vice President Porsche Motorsport and GT cars: "This will allow thermal or hybrid models to have a carbon footprint similar to that of an electric vehicle "

“The problem is not the internal combustion engine itself, but the fuel it burns,” says Michael Steiner, head of Porsche's research and development department: “We want to show that this technology could be the solution for sports cars, for the motorsport but also for road cars ". This is why Porsche, together with ExxonMobil, will experiment with this type of fuel in motorsport, in the Porsche Mobil 1 SuperCup series during the 2021 and 2022 seasons. high emotional rate and without the latter constituting a real problem for the environment, in full compliance with the principle of technological neutrality.

100% sustainable synthetic fuels will also arrive in Formula 1 in 2025. In an interview with Motor1, Scuderia Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said that "total electrification is not the only solution, we believe that there are other solutions such as, for example, hybridization with completely sustainable fuels. The fuels change, the engines change. It will be a rather significant step in terms of know-how given that this type of fuel is not yet well known in the motorsport world. "

While for István Kapitány, Shell's Global Executive Vice President for Mobility, “sustainable fuels represent another alternative to electric vehicles. EVs are great vehicles, they are coming and will, from now on, be part of the market. But we must also make sure we offer different solutions, a mosaic of solutions for our customers. And Formula 1 is the right test bed ”for this technology. While TotalEnergies is ready to introduce a 100% renewable fuel - bioethanol based product - at the next 24 Hours of Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) starting in 2022. This fuel should allow an immediate reduction of at least 65% of CO₂ emissions from racing cars.

"Endurance races, by their very nature, have always been an excellent platform for research and development. As such, the transition of the FIA World Endurance Championship to 100% sustainable fuel marks an important milestone ", says Jean Todt, FIA President:" The main objective of the FIA is in fact to implement sustainable energy sources throughout the its portfolio of motorsport disciplines, thus paving the way for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, in perfect harmony with our “race to the road” strategy and the FIA's PurposeDriven movement ”.