Oh, Ferrari, what are you doing? A new video from outside the Prancing Horse’s Maranello factory shows what looks to be employees from the Italian supercar maker testing a Tesla Model S Plaid. We don’t believe Ferrari has any upcoming plans to tackle the electric sedan segment, so we’re surprised to see the four-door American luxury car inside and around Ferrari’s hallowed grounds.
While Ferrari has embraced electrification in the form of hybrids, which accounted for nearly half of the brand’s sales last year, its first fully electric model won’t arrive until 2025.
Maybe Ferrari is just getting a feel for what’s already on the market. Or perhaps the company’s engineers are benchmarking the Tesla against an upcoming PHEV system that rockets a car to 60 miles per hour in two seconds before igniting the gasoline engine. We don’t know, but we hope Ferrari doesn’t learn any of Tesla’s bad habits.
We know the automaker will launch three new cars in 2024, one of which could pack a plug-in hybrid twin-turbocharged V6 engine. The LaFerrari successor will allegedly pack an engine derived from the 296 GTB. We should also see the 812 Superfast replacement debut, but it’ll likely lack any electrification and stick with a naturally aspirated V12 engine. The camouflage-wrapped prototypes you see throughout the video are likely hints of what’s to come.
Ferrari might be focusing on hybrids right now, but, like the rest of the industry, it’s also researching battery-electric vehicles. The Model S isn’t Tesla’s most popular model, but with over 1,000 horsepower in its spiciest configuration, any electric car from Ferrari will have to outperform the four-door American sedan from California.