Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne says the company could enter Formula E "a few years from now".
Formula E is continuing to attract manufacturers, with Jaguar joining for its third season and BMW planning a fully-fledged factory entry for next year. Audi has recently pulled out of the World Endurance Championship and has promised to "intensify" its Formula E programme, while Formula One world champions Mercedes have reserved a spot on the 2020 grid.
Marchionne says Ferrari would not join the all-electric series in its current guise, with drivers having to switch from one car to another mid-race, though it could enter in future once it has made progress.
"I have agonized over with this with my colleagues here in Ferrari for quite a while," Marchionne said at a teleconference following the announcement of Ferrari's Q3 earnings on the New York Stock Exchange. "I'm going to give you two answers to the problem. If Formula E today, [as] is currently structured, requires people to change cars during a race because we exhaust the power available within a given car, that is not something that Ferrari would naturally gravitate to.
"Secondly, the standardization associated with the electric car is something which runs against the grain of Ferrari, because otherwise it will prevent [Ferrari] from playing whatever it is that it does technically on a vehicle.
"But I think it is possible that [after] some level of maturity that Ferrari would develop [a] unique set of skills that will make that car uniquely Ferrari, in an environment like that, but we are not there today. And, secondly, if it were to happen it would happen a few years from now. But it's possible."
Formula E plans to expand its grid from 10 to 12 teams for its fifth season, which will commence in 2020. One of the two new slots has been granted to Mercedes. The series hopes to have one-car races by that point.