Italian government seeks emission exemptions for supercars

Italy is lobbying the EU to seek an exemption for supercar makers on its total ban on sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035.

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The Italian government is in talks with the European Union as it seeks to gain an exemption for supercar manufacturers from the planned phase out of combustion engine vehicles by 2035.

The EU announced in July it is committed to cutting vehicle emissions, phasing out the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035. However, Italy is now looking to protect manufacturers of low-volume supercars, including Ferrari and Lamborghini, from the EU commitment.

Speaking to Bloomberg TV in Italy, Roberto Cingolani, Italy’s minister for ecological transition said “in the gigantic cars market there is a niche, and there are ongoing discussions with the EU Commission” regarding the phase-out.

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Cingolani argued that the low volumes of vehicles produced by his country’s supercar manufacturers would have minimal impact on overall emissions when compared to high-volume car makers. Last year, Ferrari sold 9100 cars while Lamborghini sales numbered 7400.

“Those cars need very special technology, and they need batteries for the transition,” Cingolani, a former non-executive director of the Ferrari added. “One important step is that Italy gets autonomous in producing high performance batteries and that is why we are now launching the giga-factory program to install in Italy a very large scale production facility for batteries.”

Low volume car makers like Ferrari and Lamborghini don’t enjoy the economies of scale of larger manufacturers, meaning any electric powertrain developed by those high-end manufacturers would come at a significant cost.

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Ferrari has yet to confirm the phase out of all petrol engines, although chairman John Elkann stated earlier this year the Prancing Horse would reveal its first all-electric vehicle by 2025. The first regular production Ferrari featuring a hybrid powertrain, the SF90, was released in 2019 while the new hybrid-powered Ferrari 296 GTB (above) was revealed a few weeks ago.

The European Union has yet to comment on Cingolani’s proposal.

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