What the hell is Ferrari doing?
The Luce doesn't make sense. Maybe it wasn't meant to.
Ferrari just unveiled their long-rumored, ambitious EV known as the Luce (loo-chey, not loose), and the entire automotive industry had to pick their jaws up off the floor. Designed through a partnership with LoveFrom, the design collective led by former Apple designer Jony Ive, the Luce is the most aerodynamic Ferrari in history. It’s also ugly as hell.
Let’s get the basics out of the way. The Luce is a four door performance EV, with a ridiculous power output at 1,035 horsepower, which propels it from 0-60 in 2.5 seconds. It has a top speed of 193 mph. It’s built on an 800 volt electrical architecture with a 122 kWh battery pack and can fast charge at 350 kW, but will have a range of under 300 miles on the EPA cycle.
The Luce is perhaps the most livable Ferrari ever, with a roomy interior and AWD, if you’re into daily-driving a $650,000 vehicle, that is.
The elephant in the room is the design. I will preface this by saying I am a big fan of Apple’s industrial design, which was pioneered by Jony Ive before his departure to form his own design collective called LoveFrom. Ive has a reputation for developing minimalist, design-focused electronics that function as nicely as they look.
That said, he has not designed a car before, and it shows. Whatever design philosophy his team tried to bring to the Luce’s exterior has failed miserably. It’s missing passion. It has no Ferrari DNA, resembling an amorphous blob that is somewhere between a sedan and a hatchback, with the high floor that’s a necessity in EVs lending to awkward body proportions that look far closer to a Nissan Leaf than any prior Ferrari model.
Up front, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was an electric Honda. It has that same kind of bland, soulless design that Honda used for the Prologue. The side profile is no better: squint, and you might see the sweeping silhouette of a Lucid Air. Open your eyes a little more and you’ll notice the profile has the same awkward shape that has plagued the Toyota Prius for years. Best to just keep your eyes closed and pretend it was all a nightmare.
It’s not all nightmarish though. The interior looks quite nice, with a good blend of tactile controls, screens, and quality materials. Unfortunately, until now, nobody has purchased a Ferrari for the interior quality alone. Ferrari is supposed to create sexy, Italian sports cars with personality. This lacks any personality whatsoever, and is the opposite of sexy, yet it still costs around $650,000.
How this made its way through product planners, designers, and the executive team is nothing short of a mystery. Is it all a publicity stunt, or are Ferrari’s executives trying to expand the definition of their brand, targeting ultra wealthy individuals who want to experience a Ferrari without actually experiencing a Ferrari?
My assumption is the latter—Ferrari is no longer tied to FCA/Stellantis, meaning there is no volume brand (if Maserati could be considered that…) that they can use to amortize the cost of Ferrari development by adding Ferrari-developed powertrains and components to a much more popular car. It’s possible they want to expand into new territory and take on Maybach, Bentley, and Rolls Royce to fund continued development of their real performance cars. After all, controversial design for high end products seems to be in—just look at some of the travesties that BMW had developed recently, or the new Mercedes AMG GT 4 Door.
Maybe there’s a reason for all of this. Maybe Ferrari needed a car that could appeal to a slightly wider audience, so this EV technology could be used in a future sports car that is truer to their heritage. Maybe they want to transform themselves into an ultra-luxury brand that isn’t just a sports car maker. Maybe they wanted it to be ugly for the headlines.
In any case, the Luce has left us all scratching our heads and wondering: what the hell is Ferrari doing?