Ferrari gets Solar Power
January 22, 2009 by Alborz Fallah
If you can’t make your cars more environmentally friendly, you might as well focus on the factory they come from. Italian supercar manufacturer Ferrari has installed a massive solar array over its factory to reduce its carbon dioxide footprint. The company says the panels will provide 210,000 kWh annually.
The solar panels will help power Ferrari’s Engine Mechanical Machining facility. Ferrari is keen to emphasis that it’s doing as much as it can to reduce its CO2 output, but really Ferrari, apart from the need for a “green image”, does anyone actually care?
To give you an idea, the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti produces 475 g/km of CO2 emissions, it also uses about 20.7L of fuel for every 100km. Now compare this to the humble Toyota Corolla which puts out 172g/km of CO2 emissions and uses 7.3L of fuel per 100km.
Of course it’s ridicolous to compare a Ferrari 612 to a Toyota Corolla, but it’s also a tad ridicolous for Ferrari to attempt to gain a green image.
The company is also expected to install a tri-generation plant which will be operational by the middle of this year. The idea is to further cut the company’s CO2 emissions as the new plant will cover virtually all of Ferrari’s electricity requirements.
Ferrari estimtes that the tri-generation plant will cut its CO2 emissions in 2009 by 25-30 per cent compared to the present levels.
Additionally Ferrari has increased the size and number of green areas both inside and outside its various factories, with over 200 trees planted around the factory in the last six months alone.
Now lets do a little maths here. Take a single Ferrari 612 and say it does an average of 25,000km/year, this means it will produce about 12,000kg of CO2 emissions per year (based on its CO2 emissions per kilometre). So how many trees does it take to offset just one Ferrari 612?
59 trees per year* are needed to offset a single Ferrari 612, so the 200 trees planted in and around the Ferrari factories can perhaps cover 4-5 of the Ferraris made there each year.
Brownie point to Ferrari for trying, but stick with what you’re good at, making awesome, fast and ridiculously beautiful cars. Leave the planet-saving stuff to the rest of us.
* Tree offset calculation is based on a tree planted in the humid tropics absorbing on average 50 pounds (22 kg) of carbon dioxide annually over 40 years – each tree will absorb 1 ton of CO2 over its lifetime;
Print it: 
Umm, how many 612’s do you think actually get to 25000kms a year? Averaged over the cars life, the emmsision outputs are probably similar.
I hope the mocking of Ferrari’s attempts at carbon reduction and sustainability were a misguided attempt at humour. Haven’t you ever heard of ‘every little bit helps’?
I think you missed the point F1worldchamp, Ferrari and the like are good at making cars that we all aspire too, let’s not try and make it sound green as well…
Although every bit does count, good to see Ferrari doing something, but the 200 trees thing made me laugh. That’s just a joke from Ferrari surely.
yay ferrari’s going green
Why do companies need to go green? It is the biggest rip off in world history. We are spending billions and billions of dollars that is going to have little or no impact on the future!
A quick calculation for the amount of CO2 saved by installing the solar panels (based on CO2 emissions from natural gas – the cleanest fossil fuel) put a saving of 126,000kg per year. For coal it would be around 200,000kg per year.
Not a lot but it’s hardly nothing. If more plants did this we’d start seeing some real “climate change reversing” figures.
I think you will find that in the life cycle of the car, a Ferrari is more environmentally friendly than most. Similar to F1worldchamp’s comments, I believe its probably driven less in 20 years than a Corolla does in 5. Also, after 20 years it is probably still alive and well, not having been driven into the ground. Alternatively, should it have been damaged, others will fight over the remains in the hope that that some can still be used or fixed. Who throws away Ferrari bits?
Also, I would guess that I could make a Corolla emit more Co2 tham a Ferrari using a simple test I saw elsewhere. Simply run a Corolla around a race track as fast as it can go and have it followed by the Ferrari which can easily keep up. Which one would be creating more Co2 now???
I say congratulations to Ferrari for being leaders not followers.
whilst i see your point guys about “sticking to what they are good at” – isn’t some effort better than none at all?
If your doing the Toyota v Ferrari “green” thing, calculate how much pollution the total production of one years Ferrari’s made [~ about 8000 units] v’s the 8 MILLION made by BigT
I think the important thing, as stated, is that Ferrari makes awesome cars but that combined probably don’t put that much emissions compared to others.
Secondly, no one wants Ferrari to cripple its fleet to meet some green target.
But there is nothing wrong with them minimising the impact on the environment of their manufacturing and administrative processes.
Good on them, and may they continue to provide the world with awesome cars that just about everyone dreams of.
if the rudd gov’t was really serious about climate change,they would offer solar power systems for domestic use at such as subsidy that the average bloke couldn’t refuse it.good on ferrari!
Didn’t you guys see the big solar panels on the roof? You mentioned them, but all your referring too is the 200 trees they planted.
Umm, why are we having a go at ferrari for doing something good? I mean, sure ferrari’s cars aren’t designed to be economical, but it does seem a bit ridiculous saying ferrari shouldn’t bother just because they don’t make cars as economical (or as catastrophically boring) as a Toyota Corolla. I think its even better Ferrari doing this, because they have nothing to gain sales wise from it (its not like you’re going to get someone shopping for a prius buy a ferrari instead because of their huge solar array powering their engine plant). People that buy Ferrari’s don’t really give a damn about climate change, so for Ferrari to spend millions anyway on doing what they can, thats a move we should applaud, not ridicule.
Just seems like a ridiculous article to me Caradvice. Poor form.
Every bit counts!
Good on your Ferrari
Even if the trees don’t create that much oxygen, Europe needs all the extra trees it can get!
lol the writer of this article is very misguided about effectively reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Reducing greenhouse gases is about the combined effort of EVERYONE, big and small. In fact, the largest savings can be made from the smallest carbon users in the economy because they make up the the single largest group by far.
Also, the true carbon emissions from a vehicle manufacturer come not from the cars themselves but from the manufacturing process as the infamous Prius v Hummer CO2 comparison so clearly demonstrates. Ferrari quite rightly so is targeting the most carbon heavy aspect of their cars, the manufacturing process.
Good on Ferrari for doing their part. Climate change is not about a few large individuals/companies saving the world on their own, the point is for EVERYONE to do their bit.
Please don’t go down the Joshua Dowling route of comparing everything to Toyotas, it’s not clever or amusing.
it is doubly smart considering solar panels will eventually pay for themselves cause they generate free electricity
What a cynical piece of journalism.
Maybe Car Advice could detail what environmental initiatives they have undertaken in the last 12months?
Reading through lots of pro-green websites gives the estimated CO2 produced per kWh in Aus at around 1.3kg per kWh. Removing the typical 30pc dooms day mark-up still gives around 1kg per kwh. Italy has a similar power generation setup to Australia, so producing 210,000 kWh a year is saving 210 tonne of CO2 a year, or a touch less than 200 Ferrari 612’s using your bizarre estimate of 25,000km per yr. In reality the CO2 savings would be around 3 times that, or the equivalent of 600 ferrari 612’s, which is pretty impressive.
Looking forward to hearing what CA has done to reduce their carbon footprint. not a lot i bet.
Reading through lots of pro-green websites gives the estimated CO2 produced per kWh in Aus at around 1.3kg per kWh. Removing the typical 30pc dooms day mark-up still gives around 1kg per kwh. Italy has a similar power generation setup to Australia, so producing 210,000 kWh a year is saving 210 tonne of CO2 a year, or a touch less than 200 Ferrari 612’s using your bizarre estimate of 25,000km per yr.
The estimated CO2 produced per kWh in Aus at around 1.3kg per kWh. Removing the typical 30pc dooms day mark-up still gives around 1kg per kwh. Italy has a similar power generation setup to Australia, so producing 210,000 kWh a year is saving 210 tonne of CO2 a year, or a touch less than 200 Ferrari 612’s using your bizarre estimate of 25,000km per yr. In reality the CO2 savings would be around 3 times that, or the equivalent of 600 ferrari 612’s, which is pretty impressive.
Looking forward to hearing what CA has done to reduce their carbon footprint. not a lot i bet.
I’d love to know what rules the ‘your comment is awaiting moderation’ bot uses, because i can’t seem to get a further comment through, unless the author just wants this article to die quietly and has stopped commenting.
if you’re that embarassed about the article to stop any comments going through, simply acknowledge the mistake. blocking further comments is just unprofessional.
Haha, lol. My comments go through in a hurry. Just trying to make my point that 210,000kWh a year is nothing to sniff at. Still, the comment filtering bot does seem fairly random, blocking swearing and insults is good, but as you can see from the above experiments, it also blocks ordinary english on occasion.
Geni, you posted about 10 comments in the 30 minutes we were upgrading our software :) – so the comment script was blocking all. It\’s been re-enabled now.
well, i guess every bit helps. it will hardly make up for the years of pollution they’ve caused but it’s a step in the right direction.
well….to be fair they did kill some cows for the leather. decreases carbon footprint.
is ferrari against global warming?