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In the past year, Italian high performance icon Ferrari has increasingly showed signs of succumbing to the pressures of the modern world of transportation. At the Detroit Auto Show in January, the Ferrari displayed what was labeled as an E85-fueled F430 Spyder and last year showed a mock up of a lightweight concept dubbed MilleChile. Speaking to German newspaper Welt am Sonntag Ferrari president Luca Cordero di Montezemolo once again proclaimed the company's commitment to reducing carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption.

Montezemolo declared that a road-going hybrid Ferrari would be on the market by 2015 and the company intended to reduce CO₂ emissions by 40 percent by 2012. Bringing technology from race programs to the road is nothing new for Ferrari. This is a company that truly lives the motto "Racing improves the breed." From advanced variable intake systems to automated manual transmissions, Ferrari road cars feed the Formula One program with cash and feed off the advancements. The latest is the kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) being developed for the F1 cars. KERS is a regenerative braking system and it's not known is if Ferrari is planning to use a flywheel-based system or electrical energy storage. Either, way Montezemolo has committed to maintaining the character of Ferrari while making the cars cleaner at the same time.


[Source: AFP via Sydney Morning Herald]