Several months ahead of its official debut, Ferrari has unveiled details of the powertrain, chassis and components of its first fully electric super sports car. A concentration of technology which, through internally developed racing-derived solutions, aims to rewrite the performance standards of electric supercars
During its annual Capital Market Day, held last October 9, Ferrari presented its new industrial plan, confirming the introduction of four new models per year between 2026 and 2030. By the latter date, the Prancing Horse’s range will consist of 40 percent models powered exclusively by internal combustion engines, a further 40 percent hybrid vehicles, and the remaining 20 percent fully electric cars. In effect, from 2030 one Ferrari out of five will be purely electric—a strategy that Maranello considers instrumental in achieving its decarbonization goals, which call for a reduction of direct (Scope 1) and indirect (Scope 2) emissions by at least 90 percent in absolute terms compared to 2024.
The starting point of this journey is the Prancing Horse’s first fully electric sports car, for now simply referred to as the Ferrari “Elettrica”, which is expected to debut in spring 2026 but was previewed at the 2025 Capital Market Day in terms of powertrain, chassis and components. A clear demonstration of how close the project is to completion, with engineering development guidelines firmly focused on creating a car that, despite being electric, would not betray in any way the sporting DNA of the Modena-based brand.
For this reason, Ferrari’s engineers centered the project around a compact-wheelbase chassis—2,960 millimeters—drawing inspiration from Maranello’s classic berlinettas. A mid-rear engine layout with a driving position designed to place the driver close to the front wheel, ensuring optimal dynamic feedback while also easing access. This seemingly simple choice required dedicated structural adaptations, particularly in terms of energy absorption in the event of an impact, given the greater overall weight of an electric car compared to an internal combustion version. In this context, the front shock towers—structural chassis components that support the upper part of the spring-damper assembly—contribute directly to energy absorption during a collision, while the positioning of the front electric motors and inverter is designed to dissipate energy before it reaches the chassis nodes, maximizing safety and structural integrity.
Centrally, the chassis fully integrates the battery, also providing protection through a housing with spaces between the modules and the side members, allowing the latter to fully absorb energy in the event of side impacts. The lower cooling plate, essentially the liquid cooling plate, protects the battery from potential intrusion in the case of a vertical impact. At the rear, by contrast, the priority was minimizing vibrations induced by the powertrain. This goal was achieved through Maranello’s first elastically mounted subframe, designed with an architecture that maximizes the distance between elastic bushings, ensuring high stiffness under lateral loads without compromising the flexibility required to damp vibrations. To this end, specific bushings were used to filter vibrations from the electric axle, offering greater lateral stiffness combined with increased vertical and longitudinal compliance, thereby isolating the chassis from road-induced stresses without affecting driving dynamics.
The final result is a subframe that, despite a modest weight increase compared to a traditional rigid solution, provides optimal support for both the front and rear axles, each integrating two independent motors. The car will therefore feature four motors. The front units deliver a combined output of 210 kilowatts—around 286 horsepower—and can be disconnected at any speed to turn the car into a traditional rear-wheel-drive sports car, maximizing efficiency and consumption when all-wheel drive is not required. Under maximum load, however, the system is capable of delivering more than 3,500 newton-meters of torque through a lightweight structure made from a secondary aluminum alloy, within which all power electronics elements and inverters are integrated. This choice not only reduces packaging requirements but also allowed Ferrari’s engineers to achieve power density and efficiency figures of around 3.23 kilowatts per kilogram and 93 percent, respectively.
The rear axle shares this efficiency level but offers a higher power density—around 4.8 kilowatts per kilogram—thanks to a total output of the two electric units reaching 620 kilowatts, or approximately 843 horsepower. Like the front units, the motors are permanent-magnet synchronous machines and, thanks to their high rotational speeds—25,500 rpm at the rear and 30,000 rpm at the front—are able to deliver peak outputs of around 310 kilowatts in the former case and 105 kilowatts in the latter, while maintaining compact dimensions that minimize packaging. This is also due to the use of surface-mounted permanent magnets on the rotor, segmented to improve efficiency, while the racing-derived Halbach array configuration directs magnetic flux toward the stator, maximizing torque density and reducing overall weight.
The stator is made from non-oriented grain iron–silicon ferromagnetic laminations just 0.2 millimeters thick, stacked using self-bonding techniques to minimize the risk of short circuits between individual laminations. The concentrated-pole winding solution helps limit end-winding bulk, while individual tooth connections are welded onto a compact, efficient terminal board. To reduce copper losses caused by skin and proximity effects, Litz wire is used, ensuring optimal performance even at very high frequencies and elevated phase currents. To counter centrifugal forces at high rotational speeds, Ferrari’s engineers interference-fitted carbon rings just over 1.5 millimeters thick onto the rotor, ensuring magnet retention without affecting the rotor–stator air gap. These components hold the magnets at a distance of half a millimeter, withstanding stresses equivalent to a centrifugal pressure of 390 bar.
Such extreme values are made possible by the support of a 122-kilowatt-hour gross-capacity battery, designed and developed entirely in-house by the Emilia-based brand. During its engineering development, cell distribution was studied to reduce inertia and lower the vehicle’s center of gravity, with 85 percent of module weight positioned beneath the floorpan and the remainder located beneath the rear seats. In this way, the battery is not treated as an independent block but becomes a structural element once secured to the chassis via 20 central mounting points, with the lower casing actively contributing to overall body stiffness. This approach—opposite to that of early monolithic battery generations—has enabled class-leading values in terms of energy density, nearly 195 watt-hours per kilogram, and power density of about 1.3 kilowatts per kilogram.
The 15-module configuration—six double rows, one single row and two upper modules—makes optimal use of available space without negatively affecting wheelbase length. Each module contains 14 cells electrically welded in series, separated by insulating partitions and conductive metal separators, with optimized thermal management achieved through thermal paste applied to the modules and three cooling plates. Two of these are attached to the battery body, while a third is dedicated to the upper modules. These plates are integrated into a cooling system that combines multiple flows into a single metal body, with supply and return within the same cooling plate, ensuring uniform temperatures and longer cell life. As a result, the battery cooling circuit is internal to the pack yet fully integrated into the vehicle’s overall cooling system, grouping coolant flows from other components from front to rear and vice versa.
Electric Ferrari: No detail overlooked
The inverters were also designed and developed specifically for Ferrari’s first fully electric powertrain. At the heart of the component lies the “FFP” system—Ferrari Power Pack—an integrated power module housing everything required for power conversion: six silicon carbide modules, an integrated cooling system and control boards. The latter act as the interface between high and low voltage, with each board managing three modules, each composed of 16 power transistors, ensuring precision and responsiveness in torque delivery to the motors. The inverters’ switching frequency, variable between 10 and 42 kilohertz depending on application requirements, was calibrated to balance efficiency, acoustic comfort and thermal management, optimizing powertrain response without compromising overall system integration. Higher frequencies allow for more precise control, reduced noise and vibration, and more compact filters, at the expense of efficiency and cooling demands, while lower frequencies improve efficiency but can generate noise and torque harmonics.
Energy efficiency optimization of the powertrain is further enhanced by the “toggling” function, a strategy specific to the rear axle that periodically alternates the inverter’s operating state between active and standby. This allows the inverter to operate in its most favorable regions, improving overall efficiency without compromising the torque management demanded by the driver.
Freedom to evolve
The architectural freedom offered by the electric powertrain, combined with a lower center of gravity, allowed Ferrari’s engineers to further evolve the active suspension system that debuted on the recent F80. The main update concerns the ball-screw assembly connected to the electric motor—the heart of the system—which has seen its pitch lengthened by 20 percent. This enables better absorption and control of vertical impacts by reducing inertial force transfer to the vehicle’s chassis.
