High Emissions Low Emotion..wait, i mean High Emotion Low Emissions

Ferrari has decided that they are not content with being one of the best makers of supercars in all of history but now, it seems as though they are trying to make their cars greener little by little. In the new Ferrari California they have added a new system called HELE. HELE stands for High Emotion Low Emissions (I'm waiting for the day when some Ferrari spokesperson says that in the wrong order). The system tweaks a bunch of electronics such as a quick start/stop function, intelligent engine fan and fuel pump control, electronically controlled variable displacement air-conditioning technology and adaptive gear shifts.

 The start/stop function seems to be the most interesting item here as it can restart the car in 230 milliseconds. This is the same amount of time that it takes you to move your foot from the brake pedal to the gas. So when you are in slow city traffic or just sitting at a red light the engine will automatically shut of while you are stopped and then turn back on as soon as you take your foot of the brake. The sound of the engine starting has also been reduced so much so that you will barely even notice, but don’t worry, when you start the car for the first time it will still be as loud and amazing sounding as ever. Your probably thinking "does all this actually do anything at all?", well actually it does.

The HELE system manages to reduce the CO2 emissions by 23%. The most important part is that it does this without sacrificing ANY perceptible performance at all. This is extremely important because when you are spending 200k on an exotic sports car, you probably couldn’t care less about how green your car is but if it was sacrificing performance for being green you probably would just go on to the next exotic car maker. If you are getting the same performance plus reduced emissions as a bonus then this may even convince some buyers from, for example, Lamborghini, to get the California instead of Gallardo.