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Transportation Technology

Ferrari Unveils World's Fastest (and Most Expensive) Hybrid 222

Posted by timothy from the green-whooshing dept.
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Fred Meier reports that Ferrari has unveiled its fastest car ever, a nearly 1000 hp. gas-electric hybrid dubbed LaFerrari that does 0-62 mph in less than 3 seconds, 0-124 in less than 7 seconds, 0-186 mph in 15 seconds. "We chose to call this model LaFerrari," says Ferrari's President, Luca di Montezemolo, "because it is the maximum expression of what defines our company – excellence. ...Aimed at our collectors, this is a truly extraordinary car which encompasses advanced solutions that, in the future, will find their way onto the rest of the range." LaFerrari is the company's first hybrid and has a system that incorporates technology developed for the Scuderia Ferrari Formula One race car's KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) setup. In LaFerrari, the hybrid (HY-KERS) version uses a 6.26-liter, non-turbo, V-12 gas engine rated at 800 hp coupled with a 163 hp. electric motor for a combined rating of 963 hp. A second, separate electric motor drives the power accessories."
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Ferrari Unveils World's Fastest (and Most Expensive) Hybrid More

Ferrari Unveils World's Fastest (and Most Expensive) Hybrid

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  • Can't wait until I pull onto a freeway with one of these, driven by an idiot, suddenly is spotted in my rear view mirror fish-tailing and spinning towards me as the driver attempts to slow down and miss me. It'll be the experience of a lifetime. Of course I may not see this for the rest of my life.

    • Re:Can't wait. (Score:5, Funny)

      by __aaltlg1547 ( 2541114 ) on Sunday March 10, 2013 @06:06PM (#43133845)

      Can't wait until I pull onto a freeway with one of these, driven by an idiot, suddenly is spotted in my rear view mirror fish-tailing and spinning towards me as the driver attempts to slow down and miss me. It'll be the experience of a lifetime. Of course I may not see this for the rest of my life.

      If you do see it, it's likely to be for the rest of your life.

    • Re:Can't wait. (Score:5, Informative)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Sunday March 10, 2013 @06:08PM (#43133853)
      Massively overpowered cars don't fishtail and spin anymore - at least they don't need to unless the owners choose to turn off the electronics. In the last 5 years, I've watched the motorcycle magazines shift from being very leery of fly-by-wire (or even fuel injection, 10 years ago), to dismissing aging models based mainly on the inferiority or lack of traction control, wheelie control, ABS, and dynamic throttle response. Now real-time suspension tuning is the big thing. Ferrari is obviously deep into F1 where the allowable degree of automation is a matter of constant debate and rule changes every year, so their street cars probably have more electronic control than their race cars do.

      • Re:Can't wait. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Sunday March 10, 2013 @06:50PM (#43134045)

        Massively overpowered cars don't fishtail and spin anymore

        That depends on how much cough syrup Justin Bieber and his pals have been chugging.

        Many massively overpowered cars suffer from the mechanical fault of a loose nut behind the steering wheel, where the drivers have more money than driving skills.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by adolf ( 21054 )

        Assuming that the steering wheel is (eventually) mechanically connected to the tie rods, and that the electronics cannot add unrequested throttle: Any car can suffer from throttle-lift-induced oversteer in a long turn, or the beginning sequence of the Scandinavian Flick, and unexpectedly be flung wildly out of control with an unprepared driver.

        I dare say that this is do-able on any surface, even with the most front-heavy FWD car you can get your hands on.

        It really has nothing at all to do with being massiv

        • Re:Can't wait. (Score:4, Informative)

          by jkflying ( 2190798 ) on Monday March 11, 2013 @12:43AM (#43135543)

          Any car can suffer from throttle-lift-induced oversteer in a long turn, or the beginning sequence of the Scandinavian Flick, and unexpectedly be flung wildly out of control with an unprepared driver.

          Nope, they route torque to the front wheels and it will understeer instead. Braking induced oversteer/spinouts is non-existent as well, because the moment the back starts sliding out the brakes are released to bring it back in. And all of this is happening hundreds of times a second, so that little patch of gravel/oil/dirt isn't going to cause an issue either. You have to try pretty hard if you want to spin out a car with full 4WD/ESP/ABS/ACRONYM.

          • I hit a wet exit ramp that also had a fair amount of oil spilled on it. My BMW DSC system stabilized the car at a seemingly impossible tail-out angle and it must have looked like I was the best full-opposite-lock drifter EVER to an outside observer. It was pretty wild feeling the brakes being applied selectively to hold the angle and feel the throttle control shift from me to the car. All I had to do is steer.

        • Any car can suffer from throttle-lift-induced oversteer in a long turn, or the beginning sequence of the Scandinavian Flick, and unexpectedly be flung wildly out of control with an unprepared driver.

          The car knows that the driver is flicking the wheel left, so it brakes the right-rear wheel to compensate. All vehicles sold in developed nations now must legally be equipped with ABS, traction control, and yaw control. Even some years ago it was said that with all the computers on you pretty much could not get the new Corvette to spin out. You could still drive it off a road if you went too fast, but that's something else.

    • Re:Can't wait. (Score:5, Funny)

      by 0111 1110 ( 518466 ) on Sunday March 10, 2013 @06:13PM (#43133871)

      Can't wait until I pull onto a freeway with one of these, driven by an idiot

      So you claim to be an idiot then?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by adolf ( 21054 )

        So you claim to be an idiot then?

        You've heard that Porsche owners are compensating for something.

        Perhaps driving a Ferrari on the freeway turns you into an idiot, just as owning a Porsche makes your dick fall off at the very moment that you finish up the paperwork.

        (I would not want to be the person responsible for picking up all of the cast-off penises at the Porsche dealer, but if I were I'd not own anything better than a Chevy, just to be safe.)

        • I've never heard that, but I have heard that people who drive trucks: pickups, SUVs etc are compensating for the size of their equipment. People with small cars don't seem to compensating for anything.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by adolf ( 21054 )

            I think folks with ridiculous and useless pickups (useless around here, anyway: this is flat country), with lift kits and silly-huge tires, and exhaust stacks run up through the bed suffer from a different sort of malady: Their equipment might be fine, but they're so obese that they haven't been able to see it for themselves in years.

          • 'Small penis' has been the standard throwaway shot for as long as man has had words for 'small' and 'penis'.

            It is indeed thrown around in relation to any expensive or large car being compensation. Expensive small cars definitely fall into that category.

            IMHO all brand new cars fall into that category.

            • Not true, the Greeks saw having a small penis as a sign of virility.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by stdarg ( 456557 )

              There's also a group of men who drive "plain" cars because they are absolutely terrified at being called out on having a small penis. They'd rather avoid the whole situation and not call attention to themselves.

              Then there are the people who have normal dicks but are obsessed with penises. They think it's the only thing that counts, and that every other type of competition is actually a sham to avoid direct penis competition (which they think about all the time). Men compete to look better in whatever way th

              • You've thought about this subject for far, far too long.

                There are few things as dreary as a repressed homosexual.

          • I've never heard that, but I have heard that people who drive trucks: pickups, SUVs etc are compensating for the size of their equipment. People with small cars don't seem to compensating for anything.

            BCSD: big car, small dick. Personally, I drive a Mini.

            Old joke.

  • "Aimed at our collectors.." (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 10, 2013 @06:13PM (#43133869)

    ..nuff said.

    1000 hp of Postage Stamp, disappearing under a dustsheet in some collectors exclusive lockup garage near you soon.

  • Gas mileage (Score:5, Funny)

    by DaveAtFraud ( 460127 ) on Sunday March 10, 2013 @06:36PM (#43133981) Homepage Journal

    Odd that neither linked story tells us what kind of gas mileage to expect. I'd hate to buy one of these and then find out I can't afford to drive it.

    Cheers,
    Dave

    • When I first heard about this, I googled a news report that said 16mpg (cannot remember if Yank or British mpg). I cannot be arsed to find the link now, though.

      • Re:Gas mileage (Score:5, Interesting)

        by adolf ( 21054 ) <flodadolf@gmail.com> on Sunday March 10, 2013 @08:17PM (#43134469) Journal

        16MPG? That sounds fairly excellent for such a beastly machine that can actually generate downforce (which can never happen for free).

        Even cooling this thing must be a drag (literally), and the big tires themselves eat huge amounts of energy just in overcoming rolling resistance. Everything about the car (including the hybrid aspect, which seems more about performance than economy) seems to indicate that it should be very, very thirsty.

        For a totally unfair comparison: My old straight-6 BMW averages about 20MPG with somewhat-spirited mixed driving, and gets about 26 on the highway (it used to be a bit better on the highway, but the diff gearing is currently "wrong" due to other changes). It's got a reasonable drag coefficient, doesn't generate meaningful downforce, cooling it is fairly easy since there is nowhere near as much waste heat, the tires are not so big nor nearly so sticky, and it has far less than half as many functional moving parts (and around 1/5th the power of the Ferrari).

        At 16MPG, if that is indeed the number, it sounds like they've done a wonderful job with efficiency: It is certainly not a concept that was cast to the wind when they designed it.

    • If you can afford 1 of the 499 that they are planning on producing, I'm pretty sure you don't give a rats behind what the gas mileage is.

    • Ferrari's hypercars are super exclusive. If you were buying one of the 499 that they're making, they would have already contacted you to let you know ;)

      Incidentally, IIRC, this isn't like a regular hybrid in that you can let it run on the electric motor alone, that would turn the engine off which would defeat the point of a V12 Ferrari. It's basically just an upgraded F1-KERS system. I guess the engine might turn off in stop-start traffic, but other than that, no.

    • Lifetime ownership costs of cars like this are approximately $1/km. Might have been $1/mile, it was a while since I read it.
      Fuel cost is negligible compared to that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      your gas costs would be like one sixth of the insurance...

  • The road has got me hypnotized. ...
    (one more radar lover gone).

  • so um for them to be combined they have to work in tandem right?

    for a computer analogy (since the article is on cars) its like saying my 2GHZ server on the other side of the house combined with my 4Ghz quad core means I have a 6Ghz computer, even though my server is working its ass off on demand, while my quad core sits there with a thumb up its ass showing a copy dialog box

    • There are three motors, one driving the electronics (like an alternator) and two putting power to the wheels. The wheels don't care how they get powered, and neither does the rolling road used to measure HP/BHP (derived).

      And no, your analogy isn't quite right. HP is a measure of power, just like FLOPs ( not GHZ). It would be equivalent to saying you have a 1 TFLOP server, and a 2 TFLOP server, and given a task that has a combined output for both (like the rear wheels) have 3TFLOP of computing power.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

        wrong dude, that electric motor is not assisting 100% of the time, neither is the gas motor

        its in stages

        so you get X hp from the electric, and Y from the gas

        if they were both on at the same time THEN you would get a combined HP, but they are not, its marketing bullshit, something I would think an ultra premium brand is above as it treats their customers as utterly stupid

        • You can get them both working together in bursts, just not continuously.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gl4ss ( 559668 )

          kers is all about saving energy from braking to be emptied when you need fast acceleration...

        • Both motors will open wide if traction permits. This will almost never happen. That doesn't mean it won't happen. The customers of that ultrapremium brand can afford to pay someone to understand the car for them.

    • See this as using both your CPU and your GPU working at brute force cracking a hashed password. Your CPU is used for generic functions like powering the steering and air con, as well as using the surplus power to do some driving the wheels. The real powerhouse is your GPU with 12 parallel cylinders optimized for driving the wheels.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      well yeah, except that you can actually use the motors in parallel to make the car accelerate faster to solving a straight line problem that can't be parallelized. though it might leave you paralyzed faster.

  • Ferrari now get to slap a green "hybrid vehicle" sticker on la Ferrari, even though it likely gets about 10 mpg. It's not REALLY in the spirit of it, is it.

  • ... in the carpool lane? On account of it being a hybrid vehicle.

    • Nope [ca.gov], not in California anyways. There is no way the Ferrari would come even close to meeting the tailpipe emissions requirement with that engine. "Hybrid" is not an automatic qualification.

  • Why is it that people making hybrids usually seem to need to make them look stupid?

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