Ferrari boss says its first EV won't be silent

Ferrari is on track to launch its first EV in the last quarter of next year, and to prepare for that it will open a new production site in Maranello, Italy, in June, where it will manufacture electric motors, battery packs, and power inverters.

The company's CEO, Benedetto Vigna, told CNBC that people shouldn't be afraid of its first EV losing the "unique" experience of driving an ICE vehicle. Its EV won't be silent, he insisted.

When asked specifically about the sound of an EV, he said:

Each Ferrari we make is unique. When we do a Ferrari, we look at the performance, the design, the driving traits and the sustainability. If you know the technology, you know you can do a lot of things also with electric cars. When we talk about luxury cars like our cars, we are talking about the emotion that we are able to deliver to our client, so we are not talking about functional cars like other EVs that you see on the road. We have no doubt, honestly, that we can deliver a unique experience to our client because we can harness the technology in a unique way. That’s what our company has been doing since the beginning.

Ferrari engineers are working on "sound signatures" for its EVs "that will stir emotions and rival that famously produced by its combustion engines". That sounds a lot like fake exhaust sounds but we're still hoping against reason that Ferrari will somehow manage to create these signatures without resorting to that. Only time will tell, of course.

The company is forecasting that about 60% of its sales will be of fully electric and hybrid cars combined by 2026.