pdb

Well, maybe not yet. But the company we all knew and loved is now a green leaf turn away from being a push-button, soulless, styrofoam mockup of its former glorious self. Once upon a time, Mr Ferrari quipped that “Aerodynamics are for people who can’t build engines.” And now…?

Ferrari 599GTB Hybrid Concept
Start getting used to the idea of hybrid Ferraris—they’re the wave of the company’s future.

… [The] hybridized 599 concept has a modified version of the Getrag dual-clutch gearbox found in the 458 Italia and the California with a 100-hp motor hanging off the back; the motor is hooked to the shaft used for the odd-numbered gears. Two lithium-ion battery packs with a relatively small total output of 3 kWh are located under the chassis, where they help to lower the center of gravity without disturbing underbody airflow. …

Indeed, the Ferrari engineers with whom we met plainly stated that hybridization is the only way the company can make cars that improve on their predecessors’ performance and, just as important, meet new emissions standards both here in the U.S. and in Europe.

So there you have it. Mighty Scuderia Ferrari was brought down not by competition from Porsche or Ford or Mercedes, but by the bureaucratic fiat of unelected apparatchiks. Because if it’s one thing a Ferrari needs, it’s another layer of mechanical and thermodynamic complexity to go wrong! My only comfort is that even if the 2019 i600V runs on only batteries (and rapidly depletes them in half the advertised distance), it will somehow leak oil from somewhere.

Electric cars are a joke. It will take a quantum leap in battery technology in order to come close to the energy density of good ‘ol hydrocarbons. And this technological miracle will never occur as long as there is a) liquefied dinosaurs to pump out of the crust, and b) our energy policy is centered around King Canute ordering green technology to appear magically from the gates of the academy instead of building proven nuclear infrastructure. Government historically sucks at picking favorites, and the incentives it creates reward failure, not success. A government engineering team that is 5 years away from a major breakthrough for 25 years sees its funding increase every quarter. A team that produces a miracle overnight gets sacked and barred from reaping the profits of their discovery.

The oil sloshing around in the earth will get consumed one way or another. It is too easily accessible, portable, storable and energy dense to let it sit. It will either get burned by the Chinese and Indians, or by the West, whose transport and industry are equipped with pollution controls and catalytic converters.

It is also too valuable to keep in the hands of unelected wog dictators. Peak oil bugs are always harping on the fact that production is stagnant, but when most of the world’s oil is controlled by tyrants, supply is controlled by political considerations instead of price data. All over the world, formerly productive wells are being mismanaged into uselessness by bandit kings who have nationalized the machinery and driven off the people who actually know what they’re doing. The world’s supply of inexpensive fuel and polymer feedstocks will either be controlled by homicidal fascist warlords, or Western meritocratic corporations who thrive on wringing every last dollar out of every scrap of hydrocarbon.

Which would you prefer?