The reveal of Ferrari’s first electric vehicle gave the world plenty to be riled up about, but you haven’t even seen the beginning of it. CarBuzz has just found a new patent that shows the Luce’s wipers, which were parked on the windshield Cybertruck-style at the reveal, could actually be much, much worse.
Those Upright Wipers Could Be Downright Wipers
How could it be worse than parking the wipers like a broken 2006 Honda Civic? Ferrari was recently granted a patent called “Motor Vehicle With Windshield Wipers Having A Rest Position On The Hood.” No, not under the hood, like most modern cars. On the hood.
The parking position is where the wipers sit when you’re not using them. Nearly every vehicle on the market since wipers were invented puts them lying flat at the base of the windshield. They may sit exposed, or they may sit below the trailing edge of the hood where they are slightly hidden. The Luce’s wipers are parked fully upward, so they’re always clearly visible and subject to the elements. But they may not stay that way.
Ferrari’s electric vehicle has a very unusual hood design, where the main bodywork is elevated above a lower panel. With several inches between the two layers, someone at Ferrari evidently thought it would be the perfect place to store the parked wipers, out of sight.
The patent shows Ferrari’s wiper problem. The design of its hood and windshield allows for an uninterrupted flow of air from the hood over the surface of the glass. In the wind tunnel, it’s great. But parking windshield wipers in a traditional horizontal placement where glass and hood meet hurts the airflow. On an EV, that’s bad. But putting the wipers straight up is ugly, or as Ferrari puts it, “the exposure of the windshield wipers significantly jeopardizes the overall aesthetics of the front portion of the motor vehicle.”
So, in Ferrari’s mind, at least one of these issuesneeds to be eliminated. The patent reveals a solution – but it may be the most baffling automotive engineering decision since the Cybertruck’s massive single wiper blade. Here’s why.
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This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.
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