I remember sitting in the car with my mother when it was announced that London had won the rights to host the 2012 Olympic Games. It was all very exciting, because winning things is fun. It is even more fun when the loser is the French. After the excitement died down, I didn’t think about the London Olympics for some time, because that was in 2005 and the games were in 2012. But then all of a sudden they happened. And 2012 was 12 years ago.
Things are announced, and nothing seems to happen for a while, and then they happen. There is always a moment when you realise that the thing that was always going to happen, is suddenly now happening. For the Olympics, it was when they started painting the roads in London with those ‘Olympic Only’ car lanes.
It’s been quite clear for some time that the future of motoring is going to be an electric one. Even when it was announced that by 2035, all cars sold in the UK would have to be electric, it seemed a long way off. But then Ferrari announced that they are going to make an electric car, and now it is the moment. The future is the EV.
Last year, Ferrari debuted the 12-Cilindri, likely the firm’s last V12 production car. It looks fantastic; an 80s inspired throwback with a log bonnet. I love it. It was probably clear then to most that this was a ‘last hurrah’ for the current iteration of the Prancing Horse. A greatest hits, rolled into one.
The 12 Cilindri, likely Ferrari's last V12 production car.
But with the announcement of a fully-electric Ferrari, which you could probably charge using the dynamo of Enzo spinning in his grave, the future is now here. If Ferrari are making fully EVs, then that is the final banner coming down on the keep of internal combustion.
I am not hysterical about our inevitable EV future. I have driven plenty, and I like them a lot. The Lotus Eletre was one of the best cars I drove last year, and would seriously consider buying one should I ever have a spare £90,000 lying around. If you consider driving purely about performance, then an EV does it all. They probably do too much, quite frankly.
But the loss of the internal combustion engine is still sad nevertheless. I miss smoking, and plastic straws, and fizzy drinks with lots of sugar in them. I know and I understand why these things are bad for me and the planet, but I still enjoyed them. I will be better off without them in the long run. The world will be better off without them in the long run. But it will be much quieter.
On October 9, according to Autocar, we will see the electric Ferrari. That will be the moment that the thing that we knew was coming, will really be coming. The bridge where we step from the old world to the new.
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