Supercars get ahead in the ‘go green’ race, Ferrari takes the lead!

Ferrari is now well on track to reducing its cars' CO2 emissions levels from 400g/km to around 280-300g/km by 2012. Tough, when most of your cars are fitted with fire-breathing V8s and V12s!

While you’d be forgiven for assuming that it’s companies like Toyota and Honda – with their hybrid cars, Prius and Insight – that are leading the ‘go green’ race among car manufacturers, it’s actually supercar manufacturers like Ferrari and Porsche that are doing better when it comes to reducing their cars’ emissions levels.

According to a report recently released by JATO Dynamics, most car manufacturers are doing quite well in terms of reducing their cars’ emissions levels and cars from Smart, Fiat and Mini are already below the 130g/km CO2 emissions mark, which would be required by law only in 2015.

However, supercar manufacturers seem to be doing even better and they are just as committed as more mainstream carmakers towards reducing their average CO2 performance. And of all companies, it’s Ferrari that leads the race, with a 40.4g/km improvement in CO2 output of new cars sold in January-June 2009, compared to the same period in 2008. This is the greatest volume reduction of any brand on sale in Europe and represents a 9.5% improvement in emissions levels.

‘Of course, supercars are starting from a high base and have more scope to reduce emissions than mainstream cars, but the speed with which they are improving their CO2 performance should be credited. Sales volumes might be on a smaller scale, but those manufacturers we studied sell close to 100,000 cars combined each year, and we know well that the days of supercar makers being excluded from the environmental debate are over,’ says David Di Girolamo, who heads JATO Consultancy. ‘Owners of these types of cars are also now acutely aware of their own environmental responsibilities, although this is clearly not top of the wish list when considering a supercar,’ he adds.

Ferrari’s net reduction puts it well on its way to achieving its stated aim to reduce CO2 emissions from 400g/km per vehicle to 280-300g/km, by 2012. However, it’s not just Ferrari that’s doing well – companies like Porsche and Lamborghini were not very far off Ferrari’s figures, followed by Aston Martin, which also did well. On the other hand, companies like Bentley and Rolls-Royce haven’t been able to improve their cars’ emissions levels by any significant amount, while Maserati cars’ emissions levels actually went up during the period under review!

For more information, visit the JATO website here