Paris 2010: Ferrari California HELE

Here's a new acronym for you: HELE. Since it's attached to the back of a Ferrari, you'd think it was something sexy and slightly dangerous.  "Highly Effective Laser Emulsifier?"  "Hella Easy Lovin' Extractor?"  "Hope Esprits Lose Easily?"  Sadly, I must remind you that it's 2010, and not even Ferrari is immune from the greenwashing overtaking the industry.  Meet the California HELE, which stands for "High Emotion Low Emission."  Isn't that a load of crap?

The idea is "still fun to drive, but not killing the environment quite as rapidly."  Ferrari says it's an idea that's going to spread to the rest of the prancing horse lineup, and I can feel my lunch coming back up already.

HELE centers around reduction of CO2 emissions, while not diluting the whole "I'm driving a Ferrari, OMG" experience.  So no, it's not an electric vehicle with a rotary powering the batteries or anything weird, it's just a California Spider retuned for lower emissions.  The GT's engine gets a stop-start function that can kick the engine over in 230 milliseconds, reprogrammed shift patterns, an intelligent A/C compressor, retuned engine fan and fuel pump controls, and a few other small changes.  Total CO2 emissions are reduced by 23% without any penalty to the driver on the fun-to-drive factor.

What else is different?  Well, the California HELE gets a two-tone red-and-black paint job that mimics the monstrous 599 GTO, as well as some much more attractive new alloy wheels.

So no, it doesn't have KERS or Li-Ion batteries tucked away in a dark corner, or a CVT or anything terrible like that.  Would we have preferred a California with a supercharger and straight pipes strapped to it?  Absolutely!  Is this better than the realistic alternative (remember, Lotus is making an EREV version of the Evora)?  Even more so.  If Ferrari can lower their emissions without making the driver suffer at all, that's a win in my eyes.  Brands  have to do what they have to do to survive in this market, so in the end it's commendable.  I just wish it didn't have such a goofy acronym.