Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne likes to talk. A lot. At the recently held Detroit Auto Show, he also talked a lot. Except this time, instead of threatening to pull his Formula 1 team out of the sport, he took aim at Elon musk and Tesla, declaring that his brand would be the first to build an electric supercar. Ok, Sergio.
In a chat with Bloomberg, Marchionne suggested that Tesla’s achievements in the electric car space were capable of being replicated by anyone in the industry. Fiesty.
“If there is an electric supercar to be built, then Ferrari will be the first,” he said. “People are amazed at what Tesla did with a supercar: I’m not trying to minimize what Elon did but I think it’s doable by all of us.”
It’s a bold change of direction from Marchionne, who in the recent past has been quoted as saying “It was always make-believe that electric cars save anything like the amount of CO2 claimed for them. Before we assume electric vehicles are the ultimate answer, we need to consider cradle-to-grave lifecycle.”
That was only four months ago. Who knows what happened to change his mind, but either way I look forward to seeing what Ferrari can come up with to challenge the much-hyped Tesla Roadster; a car that, if Tesla’s numbers are to be believed, will reach 100kph in a skin-melting 2.1 seconds.