Ferrari president Luca Cordero di Montezemolo confirmed at the Geneva Motor Show on Wednesday that Ferrari is in the process of testing a 599-based prototype vehicle with a hybrid drivetrain.
“We have to understand how you can benefit from hybrid technology,” explained company CEO Amedeo Felisa. Ferrari aims to reduce its CO2 emissions 40 percent by 2012. This certainly track with recent Ferrari chatter that they are considering turbocharged six-cylinder engines as as a means to its reaching just such an efficiency goal.
Montezemolo also mentioned that important technology from their F1 effort will make there way to the future production models. “We are currently working on the development of a Ferrari that will use alternative energy sources and which will be based on what we are doing at the moment in Formula 1,” he said. This seems to reference the Kinetic Energy Recycling System (KERS), which uses regenerative braking to enhance efficiency, which was one of the most dynamic rule changes for this upcoming 2009 F1 season.