His Ferrari LaFerrari V12 hybrid breaks down: he avoids a €180,000 bill thanks to battery repairs

Advertising

The Ferrari LaFerrari is a legendary car. Introduced in 2013 at the Geneva Motor Show, and produced in just 499 examples, it was the Italian marque's first hybrid hypercar. Its naturally-aspirated 6.3-liter V12 engine, combined with an F1-inspired electric motor via the Hy-KERS system, develops a total output of 963 hp. That's enough to propel this hypercar from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.9 seconds and exceed 350 km/h. But as is often the case with hybrid technologies, there is an Achilles heel: the battery.

A breakdown after just 1,440 km

The story takes place in Croatia. A 2014 LaFerrari owner, with just 1,440 km on the clock, saw his hypercar break down. Diagnosis: hybrid battery out of order. At Ferrari, the proposed solution was simple but brutal: replace the entire battery pack, at an astronomical cost of... €180,000. Enough to make even a collector accustomed to hefty bills break out in a cold sweat.

Advertising

EV Clinic to the rescue

Rather than write this dizzying check, the lucky (but unlucky) owner turned to EV Clinic, a Croatian workshop specializing in electric and hybrid car batteries. Their mission: to analyze, document and understand what was wrong with this precious pack, which weighs around 60 kg and contains 120 cells.

After several days of investigation, the technicians discovered two faults:

Advertising

a problem with defective cells,
and a manufacturing assembly defect.

In other words, the battery was not totally dead, but the victim of a localized failure.

A meticulous job, a high bill avoided

The experts at EV Clinic therefore set about repairing the battery, cell by cell, rather than replacing it entirely. It's a painstaking task that has brought the LaFerrari back to life, while saving the owner the cost of a small house.

Advertising

The exact cost of the repair has not been disclosed, but it certainly bears no comparison with the €180,000 claimed for a new package. The owner, according to EV Clinic, left "extremely satisfied".