Ferrari provided flights from Washington to Bologna and accommodation so Ars could visit its factory. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.
MARANELLO, ITALY—The E-Building is one of the newest on Ferrari's sprawling factory complex. One of the first LEED-certified buildings in Italy, the gleaming white interior is the latest in flexible factory design, capable of assembling any model in the automaker's range. And from next year, that will include Ferrari's first electric vehicle.
It's a momentous occasion for Ferrari, and one it's taking its time over—although it has now briefed us on some powertrain and chassis details, we'll have to wait until next year before seeing the interior or exterior of a car that it's calling the Ferrari Elettrica—for now at least.
Ferrari says it considered an all-electric two-seater or even something with occasional rear seats, but the performance benefit of an electric powertrain wasn't enough to offset the added mass for either of those applications. Those calculations did work out in favor of a four-seater, though; the battery pack lowers the center of gravity by 3.1 inches (80 mm) compared to an internal combustion engine powertrain and reduces the polar moment of inertia by 20 percent.
However, the Elettrica won't be massive. While we don't know most of the exterior dimensions, the wheelbase is 116.5 inches (2,960 mm)—slightly less than a Hyundai Ioniq 5—and Ferrari says that the Elettrica features very short front and rear overhangs. Seventy-five percent of the aluminum used for the chassis (and the body panels) is recycled, helping save 6.7 tons of CO 2 per car.
F1 influence
Ferrari has been working with electric powertrains since the introduction of hybrid systems to Formula 1 in 2009. The motors here aren't direct copies of the ones you'd find in Ferrari's F1 racers, but the influence is there—like the Hallbach arrangement of the magnets in the rotor. Think of it like the Konami code for magnet orientation, except here it keeps the magnetic field concentrated on the stator. A thin carbon sleeve helps contain the magnets in the rotor, and the stator windings are embedded in a vacuum-impregnated resin that has much greater thermal conductivity than air.