End of the gas engine?

While on vacation in Hawaii I happened to have a conversation with a gentleman from Milan, Italy that was staying at the same resort as my wife and I. He said he worked for Ferrari. He was there for a convention in Honolulu. We spoke for about 20 minutes and he predicted that in 15 years there will be no new vehicles produced with gas engines. He said Dubai is their biggest market. The base model is $350,000. He said they have electric Ferrari's, but they don't corner as well due to the heavier weight and Ferrari owners want to hear the rumble of a gas engine. He said within three years the weight of the batteries will be reduced significantly. I am sure the price of gas is not a concern for Ferrari owners! As he got up and left he said he was the CEO of Ferrari - definitely not the kind of cat I typically rub elbows with! I am a simpleton that thinks the 4R is the greatest!

No new vehicles with gas engines in 15 years? Valid point?

 

Who knows what will happen in 15 years. Now EV is only good for short trips in cities, but if technology significantly improves and we'll have reliable and affordable EV with great range and solar charging - why not.

 

I've heard the same thing -- except that EV's are a dead-end due to the extensively wasteful and expensive process of mining rare earth elements and will not be the revolution. Not to mention the limitations on battery life. Check out Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell engine -- is it the next big evolution in transportation? Don't know, but it's pretty cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6liX9KuSwkk

 

Very cool conversation. Sometimes it’s crazy who you’ll bump into. I think there’s a huge disconnect right now between the world wealthy individuals perceive and the world everyone else lives in. I also had a gas vs. EV conversation this morning with a close friend who is an exec at a Fortune 500. In contrast, you’ll probably have to pry his 1990 truck from his dead hands. But, he still fears that EV is where legislation is leading. It isn’t a decision based on science or logic.

 

Oh and BTW -- awesome story, thanks for sharing.

 

15 years?
100% there will be gas engine vehicles.
even if most manufacturers offer competitive and high range vehicles and charging network becomes more prevalent -- a big if -- there will always be people (myself included) that just want ICE, and not EV. I think the demand is there, and therefore OEMs will provide and cater to that demand.
Plus I have a hard time believing 18 wheelers and large trucks will be EVs so quickly. I don't think the tech will get there that quickly.

 

This was posted here a week ago and was countered by another poster, with another video, that showed all the downsides of hydrogen. Basically saying if parked for 2 weeks the tank would empty itself and a few other things. Here's a video that covers pros and cons of it, similar to the other one posted in the other thread.




Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see something other than a ICE engine, but all of the alternatives now are just as bad or worse than ICE.

 

Thanks! He seemed to be a really cool down to earth person that we were having a conversation with on a broad range of topics and he offered up some interesting tidbits of information. As he got up to leave and said he was the CEO of Ferrari, the other dude and I in the conversation looked at each other like - WTF! I am sure he was equally impressed with us as well!!!

 

I've also seen that hydrogen fuel cell rebuttal and yeah, hydrogen fuel cells do have a long way to go to replace ICE's. I agree with broken-giver about the severe limitations on infrastructure and the EXTREME stress a ton of new EV's would put on current electrical generation capacity. And commercial vehicles? Don't think EV's will ever get anywhere near diesel's capacity for work, reliability, and capability.

 

There's the crux of the matter, right there.

 

Was he really the Ferrari CEO though?

 

https://www.topmarkfunding.com/best-electric-semi-trucks-of-2023/

And if the market and government force it, the cost of the few ICEs will be for the wealthy

 

Out of those tesla has the highest range at 500. And the cost atm is outrageous. Unless the government subsidizes these heavily.
Tesla has done so much for vertical integration since it came all the way back in 2008. It has a price advantage and has lot of room to reduce price and still turn out profit. After so many years.
I do not see *every* single OEM turning profit so quickly *in all segments* of automative industry, in 15 years. And to think that they'll do such a good job that there won't be a single gas powered vehicle manufactured in 15 years? Highly unlikely.

But I have been wrong before ;-)

 

OP would have to confirm if this was the fellow:

 

I truly don't have a clue, but EVs are moving forward, and I think we will see some big leaps forward in 15 years. There are a few states that plan to ban the sale of new ICE's by 2035, that's only 11.5 years away.

I think EV semi's make sense, the drivers are required to stop after so many hours, this gives them time to charge. Costs will just be pushed on to the consumers.

 

He seemed like a straight up honest man and worldly!

 

What these guys seem to conveniently forget is where the electricity comes from to charge these vehicles. They want to get rid of fossil fuels at the same time and there is no way solar and wind can cover this. Look at CA. Even they double the number of solar and wind farms and get rid of gas cars, they can't even cover charging these vehicles not to mention homes, businesses, etc. I call them CVs since most of the electricity to charge these things I think comes from coal plants.

 

That is not the guy I was speaking with!

 

EV batteries will get lighter and last longer.

But I think some other type of battery form will reveal itself in the future and the traditional batteries we use now will become obsolete. And at that point EVs, eJets (EJs), ePlanes (EPs) will start moving to electrical with more rapid pace than what we're seeing now.

 

Funny you mention this. I had a conversation about this topic with a young lad all excited about his new all electric vehicle thinking he was doing his part. I asked him where electricity comes from. His reply was from the wall socket. After explaining the facts he actually went and did his own research. He traded that Nissan leaf in for a Honda civic a month later. Funny how facts drive behavior. Problem is a lot of folks don’t have or consider all the facts.

 

Every new home is mandated to have solar panels. They shut down the boobies (San Onofre) because they don't want to spend the money to fix it properly but they also don't have a place to put all the spent fuel. We have some wind turbine farms on some areas that have a lot of wind but that's not everywhere. The infrastructure is failing because funds are diverted to "green energy" research so there's no budget for maintainance.

In the end we still have rolling blackouts and the governor asked people not to charger their cars in the summer because of AC use.

 

lol some rando guy who claimed to be CEO and we are all riled up

 

HaHa -- right? But what a great conversation.

 

While my next commuter car will likely be electric (my 19 Camry only has 30k and gets 40mpg, so it's not going anywhere anytime soon), I highly doubt 'all' cars will be electric by then. Some sort of hybrid power-train, yes, but not EV-only. We're at 6% of new car sales right now in the US as EV, and OEMs have to invest HEAVILY to even get where Tesla is today. 2050 maybe.

 

Now that's funny

 

Second chance. Any of these people? https://www.ferrari.com/en-EN/corporate/executive-officers

 

California to Ban Sales of Gasoline Cars by 2035.

I think this is pie in the sky. It’s an executive order, not legislation, which means a subsequent governor can undo it with the stroke of a pen. I have no special love of gasoline engines (except the ones in the collection of a half dozen or so antique cars that my brother and I share) but the development of electric car technology has not produced a system that is functionally analogous to internal combustion. When there are ubiquitous charging stations that will give me a full charge in 5 minutes, or swappable batteries or the like, I’ll be pleased to drive an electric vehicle. But the idea of waiting in line for an hour at a rest stop on Interstate 5 with a handful of other electric car owners waiting to charge up — that’s a big no-can-do.

 

Funny! After you sent the original picture, I did the same board check! The guy from Milan did not look like any of those board members. I must have been played by some flunky from Ferrari or Kia for all I know.

 

He was just practicing his act on OP for a con he'll be running in a few months.

 

At the risk of unfairly generalizing, I don’t believe anybody that would be a boss at Ferrari has any desire or need to interact with plebs like us. They live in a different world.