This new ‘e-building’ is where Ferrari will build its electric car

From 2026, this immaculately finished factory will be the theatre for a pivotal act in Ferrari’s long, frequently loud and storied history. For once a particular actor has taken to the stage and we’ve stopped torturing this analogy, it won’t actually be that loud, at least not in the way we’ve come to expect.

Welcome then, to Ferrari 5.0. That’s how the world’s most famous supercar company is billing the technology powering its new ‘e-building’; a huge, Death Star-esque laboratory filled with cutting-edge machinery and know-how that’ll manufacture combustion-engined cars, hybrids… and Maranello’s very first electric car.

Art thou afeard? Ferrari certainly isn’t. “Technology and innovation have always been in our DNA,” said Ferrari chairman John Elkann at the e-building’s inauguration. “Electric engines are no different. It is not a new technology to us.”

He points to the birth of KERS in F1 way back in 2009, the creation of the hybrid LaFerrari in 2013, the company’s modern line-up of hybrid tech and now, “our first full electric Prancing Horse model” that’ll be revealed late in 2025 and produced in this e-building the year after.

The building itself – a vast expanse designed by Mario Cucinella and sited north of the Ferrari campus in Maranello – occupies some 42,500 mq, able to accommodate 300 employees once it goes fully online from today (24 June).

Naturally, it boasts a plethora of environmentally friendly details: 3,000+ solar panels, a massive tank to collect rainwater, many trees. New manufacturing processes leading to an approximately 3.0 kTon reduction in CO2 emissions.

There’s also the principle of the place, Ferrari’s own tricolore of “technological neutrality”: red represents ICE cars, blue for hybrids, and green for full electricity. “The full electric Ferrari demands new technologies, components and processes” said Ferrari boss Benedetto Vigna, “which we want to design, engineer and handcraft here in Maranello.”

So it has invested specifically in this – and in setting up an ‘e-lab’ at the University of Bologna to further its research into electric drivetrains – in a bid to produce everything it needs to build its electric car in house. That means e-axles. That means electric motors. That means high-voltage batteries.

Building it in the new e-building is one thing, of course. The ‘other thing’ you’re all questioning? Vice chairman and son of Enzo, Piero Ferrari, told TopGear.com how they faced the same quandary.

“We had the same question ourselves,” he told TG about how an EV could 'feel' like a true Ferrari. “Now, I cannot say how, but we have the answer to this. How it is to drive an electric Ferrari, what the feeling will be like from an electric Ferrari [we have the answers].

“It’s like the Purosangue. There were many rumours before the production of the Purosangue, and the clients were asking ‘are you sure it’s right to make an SUV?’

“But we did it. And it’s very successful. So, wait and see. I promise that it will be a Ferrari.” Technically, he's not wrong on that last point.

Vigna was equally emphatic that Ferrari had ‘the answer’. Harvesting and mastering the technologies around e-power – like it has done with internal combustion – “will ensure that an electric Ferrari continues to deliver the distinctive driving thrills that all Ferraris have”.

But what about the distinctive driving noise that all Ferraris have? “When you buy a Ferrari there is much more than sound,” Vigna said. “A gearbox change. Braking. There is linear and lateral acceleration. All of them you have to blend in the right way.

“Last but not least, electric engines are not silent. Electric motors are not silent.”

Whether it leans into its e-power or allows you to programme in the noise from a mid-Nineties Ferrari Formula One V12 remains to be seen. What we can say for sure, is that this new e-building wasn’t built to increase Ferrari’s volumes, but because Ferrari customers like to… customise.

“We did not do this building for capacity,” Vigna said. “We want to have more technology tools, technology steps, more flexibility, to accommodate the need for more personalisation from our clients.”

Apparently, last year Ferrari was ‘caught by surprise’ by the level of interest in a personalised carbon finish. “We don’t want to be in such a position in the future,” Vigna said. So Ferrari is prioritising ‘revenue quality over quantity’, with personalisation one of its key priority areas.

We’ll know more about the electric Ferrari in due course, but Vigna did let slip one hugely important fact about this electric player soon to take to the stage.

“It will have four wheels.” Phew.