Ferrari eyes rising profit as it turns its iconic factory in northern Italy into a hub for making battery-powered luxury cars and accelerates its shift toward electrification.
Ferrari plans to invest around €4.4 billion to develop fully electric and plug-in hybrid models that will make up 60 per cent of its portfolio by 2026, it told investors on Thursday. “We have all the skills, all the capital, to successfully manage the electric transformation,” chief executive Benedetto Vigna said during a presentation at the Maranello site.
Mr Vigna was brought in last year to speed up Ferrari’s transition away from the 12-cylinder combustion engines the carmaker is known for. While the firm continues to post enviable profit margins, its shares have underperformed recently in part due to concerns about its late start in the electric vehicle race and how much playing catch-up will cost.
Ferrari expects adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation to climb to as much as €2.7 billion in 2026, up from about €1.5 billion last year.
The firm said it will expand its Maranello plant to make electric vehicles and develop batteries, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. Ferrari will introduce its first fully electric car in 2025.
Ferrari has in the past months shaken up its organisational structure, bringing in several executives from Mr Vigna’s former employer STMicroelectronics, and partnered with chipmaker Qualcomm to work on digitising car cockpits. At STMicro, Mr Vigna led the division that supplies sensors to Apple’s iPhone and automakers’ navigation systems. – Bloomberg
