Just a couple of days ago, I had an opportunity to get a close-up look at Ferrari’s controversial new EV, the Luce. I realize that this may be the most controversial Ferrari in quite some time, and it sure seems like most of the response to the car is pretty negative. Maybe more than most.
My initial reactions upon seeing pictures of the Luce weren’t great, if I’m honest, so I was eager to give the car a fair shake in person. I saw it. That didn’t help.
Now, I realize that the Luce is a very fast and advanced EV, allegedly capable of going from 0-60 in about 2.5 seconds, with four motors pumping out 1,006 more horsepower than my Citroën 2CV, and the thing has rear-wheel steering and big ceramic disc brakes and an interior designed by ex-Apple designer Jonathan Ive and all sorts of exciting things, but the fact that it just doesn’t feel like a Ferrari kind of makes it all moot.
There’s the one I saw. That matte gray color isn’t really doing it any favors, because you could absolutely stick a KIA badge on there and lose it in a Target parking lot with cavalier ease.
Plus, these things cost over $600,000 – and that’s a bargain compared to the one that went for $40 million at auction, baffling everyone. I know this for a fact, because I actually talked to some people who were there, and, for the most part, they were indeed baffled:
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Well, most of them were baffled; there are charity-related reasons that make more sense, and, let’s be honest, getting in good with Ferrari the family/company, but overall, I think it’s safe to say that people don’t seem to have any desire for this car. And isn’t desire something that should be at the core of what a Ferrari is?
And, sure, Ferrari as a company has proven to be, to put it charitably, a pack of [redacted by editor], filing lawsuits against high-profile owners who commit such heinous crimes as, let’s see, painting a car they own the way they want to paint it.
Anyway, as bloodless and pointless as this thing feels in person, part of me wants to at least try to find the upside here; we’re vehemently pro-car here, after all, and if I decide to pick one of these up for $7500 in 2046 on TikTok Marketplace I want to at least feel a little good about my decision.
So with that in mind, I’m going to try to come up with ten positive statements about the look/feel of the Luce. I haven’t driven it yet, so I can’t comment on that, but I think I can at least try and find the chrome lining in this grim stormcloud of a car.
Here we go:
- There seems to be enough ground clearance so that driving over a speed bump at 15 mph won’t result in a repair bill large enough to rent a San Francisco apartment for six months, unlike most Ferraris.
- It’s a great object lesson for kids to understand complex concepts like disappointment and ennui
- If you wreck it, it’ll be pretty easy to get over it
- It’s perfect for wealthy introverts who always wanted to drive a Ferrari but hate attention
- Ideal getaway car for heists since it’s fast as hell and eyewitnesses will think it’s a Hyundai IONIQ something or maybe a Dodge Charger Daytona if they saw it from the front
- The design lets you fit in with all the cool kids in their Nissan Leafs. I realize this is similar to 5.
- At 21 cubic feet, it has the largest trunk ever in a Ferrari, the main reason that people buy Ferraris
- I forget what 8 was for
- The wiper blades look pretty easy to change, sitting there on those A-pillars
- The dashboard is kinda cool, with lots of physical buttons, but those turn signal buttons make me want to scream:
See? Lots of positives to this thing!
[Ed Note: My BMW i3S is more technologically advanced than this Ferrari. Almost looks as good, too! -DT]
It’s hardly the soul-crushing anonymous lump of suppository-shaped EV that cruel people are saying it is! Suppositories are actually way more sleek looking, after all.
#8, nice Violent Femmes reference. And since that song was called “piss off”, maybe this whole article was code for just that.
Just wanted to second the violent femmes reference. I shall continue to ignore this ugly Prius wannabe.
Absolutely thirding this.
Came here for this specific purpose.
*kiss off*
https://genius.com/Violent-femmes-kiss-off-lyrics
But don’t get so distressed.
Did I happen to mention that I’m impressed? 🙂
I ought to remember this, I heard the song enough, but that was the early 80’s when it came out. No wonder I’m fuzzy.
I was surprised that I got the reference.
Here is the best breakdown of why the Luce became a design failure and what exactly these failures are as explained by a professional car designer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCPfLgq4n3
“This video isn’t available anymore”
The [redacted] are already in the water…
Personally, I think the Luce is kind of awesome in an Aston Martin Lagonda kind of way, and I’m here for it.
I love how mad it seems to make everyone. This car is 100% the automotive definition of living rent free in everyone’s head. I doubt many auto enthusiasts can even name Ferrari’s entire modern lineup, but they know the Luce. Maybe it’s just a sign the world is changing, and they just need a convenient inanimate object (that represents that change) to take their rage out on.
I have no particular love for Ferrari or super cars in general, but this one makes a statement. I love the interior and the exterior isn’t nearly as bad as people say, especially in that great blue colour.
Anyone who’s actually driven the Luce seems to think quite highly of it. The car is going to be a future classic.
It’ll be a future curiosity at least for sure. Similar I expect to when Rolex offered a quartz watch in the 80s.
Yes. You’re saying it better than I can. The Luce( even the name is going to be hated enough to be unforgettable ) is a moment. It’s gonna be remembered. It’s gonna be in the design history books. All those others are definitely Ferraris, no question, but you’re a trainspotter if you can tell them apart. Hell’s sake you guys, Ferrari’s still gonna make Ferraris. All this, “Ferrari you’re dead to me,” cmon. I think y’all protest a little too much.
Not really living rent-free in my head more than any other vehicle I am aware of but don’t care about.
Considering all the coverage of this thing, I’d expect it to occupy more brain space.
Yeah I mean automotive journalists more than anyone. Writing articles hating on this car is becoming a bit uninspired.
The Luce makes it hard to publish a positive take with your name attached to it.
It would probably generate traffic to be one of the outliers publishing something positive about it, but people who care about journalism even a little bit may have a hard time with that.
“Hey, that’s Anoos”
“Who’s Anoos?”
“The guy who loved the Luce.”
“F that guy.”
“Yeah, F that guy.”
“Sellout bitch”
“Let’s grab a couple of shisties and stomp him when he leaves.”
“Abso-F’n-Lutely”
The on-paper specs seem to indicate driving it should be pretty enjoyable, and EVs have a way of bending reality so a blobby-looking CUV thing can drive really well, but I think the issue is just how pedestrian the design looks, especially considering it cuts a closer profile to something like a Model Y or Ioniq6 than anything really “sporty.”
To add in an Apple metaphor for Mr. Ive’s sake, it kind of feels like if the next Macbook ditched all the aluminum and sleek fit and finish and instead shipped something that looked like my chunky HP engineering work laptop, but then priced it above every other laptop in their portfolio.
Sure it’s different than every other Ferrari, but if that means its closer looking to every other CUV EV blob I don’t think that’s a positive.
It’s hot, it’s magic, it’s the new Dino!!
Which Lagonda do you mean? Because the Lagonda – while very much a product of its 26-year lifespan – has its fans both contemporary and in the present, and saved the company in the mid-1970s. Even the Lagonda Taraf had its fans, as short-lived as it was.
The Lagonda. The wedge. I’ve never heard of the Taraf.
Lagonda and Luce are both controversial, hyper-expensive, luxury sedans with polarizing design.
They both feature advanced and experimental interior design elements. The Aston Martin pushed the envelope with LED and CRT displays, the Ferrari mixes OLEDs with ultra high-end tactile controls.
OK I get where you’re coming from.
I’d say the original Fiat Multipla or the Bangle-designed “E65” 7-series might be a better analog than the Lagonda example, but that’s me. I think the Lagonda is kind of cool in its way especially given the constraints of its day, and it pushed technological barriers more than this Ferrari, but it’s not appealing to me personally. The Luce – if it were 1/20th its price and not a Ferrari – could be appealing in a Multipla sort of way, where it’s so bad it’s good.
Then again, it could also just be a Ssangyong Rodius for the 1%.
I absolutely love the Femmes references lately.
This car, less so.
eh, kiss off
Here’s the thing: Ferrari has always been about superlatives. The fastest, the sexiest, the most valuable, blah blah.
It is very on brand to create the most hated Ferrari.
Every bit as on-brand as David buying his kid a rusty Jeep pedal car.
It also has intermittent wipers, dual outside mirrors, AM/FM, carpeted floor mats, tilt wheel, air conditioning, cruise control, power brakes, power steering, and remote trunk release. Those are all nice features, I suppose.
1.Stellantis can now finally sell 600 charger EVs.
2.Multiple us cities will have Ferrari badged chargers and likely Kia Hyundai products.
3.Most people won’t be able to tell the difference
4. Kids in those cities will be much more likely to be able to say they saw a Ferrari
5. You can show your insurance agent your new Ferrari is actually a charger ev and get a discount. Sometimes Ferrari owners have long strived for.
6. Ferrari and changer owners can both sit at the chargers together and say they have sort of Italian cars
7. When driving a number of EVs when asked what it is you can say Ferrari and no one will be the wiser
8. Wraps are now cheaper so Ferrari owners don’t have to suffer the German rainbow
9. At night you can’t see the matte black ones.
10. Because the matte black ones won’t be seen at night they will likely be totaled by larger trucks.
11. With the total loss from the “Ferrari” insured as charger the owner can then get the charger ev
Total loss.
“But I spent $40,000,000 on it”
Wonder what the premium would be on that agreed value policy…
First time I’ve heard of greyscale referred to as the German rainbow and I love it.
(I also realize that Porsche and BMW are some of the only companies offering colors, but I blame them and Audi especially for starting this trend)
Wouldn’t you put a Chevrolet badge on it if you wanted to lose it with Cavalier ease?
And here I thought I was clever. Have an upvote.
You beat me to it, well played! Funny thing is, I don’t recall them even being offered in such meh colors.
I mean the last of them certainly came in the turn-of-the-millennium GM pale greige. But that was still a glossy metallic color.
After I read that I was expecting more economy and/or failed car names to be snuck in. “Escort” would have been easy. Beretta wouldn’t have been difficult while talking about interior storage. Could have called it “Ferrari’s new colt” for another and staying with their horse motif. Focus, forte, dart, nova, fit, etc. But I was disappointed not to see that.
Alas, it was just the use of an appropriate adjective.
10 good things.
That was hard, but I probably could have done better if I really tried. Really, it’s just a car that happens to be made by a marque that people love to hate. I hope the people who buy it drive it and enjoy the experience, or it at least encourages them to find something more analog to flog around.
“Somebody donated $40 million to charity”
A good forensic accountant might have a different opinion.
donate and launder are now banking synonyms
They always have been.
It’s only recently that there is no reason to hide behind the difference.
Struggling more. Low carbon emissions when stored in the climate controlled garage.
I wonder how much energy it takes to cool a single car garage in Dubai.
I wouldn’t think a garage in Dubai would need much energy if the walls are thick, the outer surfaces are light colored and it’s sealed most of the time. The latter would also keep the cars clean. If the garage incorporates a properly used wind catcher it might need no active cooling at all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher
People and animals have lived comfortably in hot climates a long, long time. Termites perfected passive cooling architecture 150 million years ago:
https://environment.sciencearray.com/termite-inspired-architecture-passive-cooling-buildings
Those passive cooling systems are very functional and reasonable.
They have no place in Dubai.
Well you did ask how much energy it would take, not how much can be squandered ;).
You are technically correct.
The best type of correct.
Unfortunately the charity is an organization to teach techs how to work on Ferraris.
LOL!
That made me laugh, but you could be right.
Completely wrong but funny.
The interior is by far the best part. It’s by no means perfect, but it IS interesting and full of mechanical switches, the best kind. It also looks like an upscale sim racer setup.
Yeah, Jony Ive got a little too far into his own kool-aid at Apple, but the interior here is very nice, and I really like the blend of the tactile and the digital. I think there might be a way to translate all of this into a genuinely cool Ferrari, but I think the body style is just killing it.
Even better, if you’re sitting in the interior, you can’t see the exterior.
All I’m hearing are positives!
Yeh the interior is actually solid if too Apple-y for its own good, still way better than anything else they’re doing in the screen dominated hellscape that most modern luxury cars have.
Honestly I think the Luce is an expression of Ferrari’s general contempt for their own customers and a test to see how much they could actually get away with.
Brian Regan had a stand-up routine making fun of the pitifully small serving sizes for desserts. “Hey, look what I put for the serving size. I just did it as a joke but they’re goin out like that, I don’t know what to do.”
I like to imagine it happening to the designer who pitched this.
I love Brian Regan.
I agree 100%.
With the line out the door for the next ‘yet to be revealed’ Ferrari supercar, what else do you sell them to ‘grease the bouncer’s palm’ but a Luce?
This car is the admission to buy another one that you actually want. It’s like basic cable; you want ESPN and IFC – but you gotta take QVC and C-SPAN, too.
I think they knew before the Luce.
The Luce just lets the rest of the world know just how little prompting is required before a Ferrari buyer grabs their ankles. As it turns out, ZERO prompting. They will fight for the honor of being the first.
Besides looks, the Luce has another thing in common with a suppository: they both require you to take it in the ass. Rumor has it, that’s not uncommon among Ferrari owners.
Definitely true for any new Ferrari owner in the US.
I had a friend who moved to FL in the early 2000s and his job was re-selling nearly new Ferraris (mostly F360s at that time) for $100k+ more than the Ferrari MSRP.
I stayed around here, I was working in the import business and at one time we had a guy who had shipped himself a US-spec 360 because he could just buy it from a dealer in France. If he wanted to buy it in the US he would he would have had to buy a used Ferrari here and then begged for them to take his order.
I also remember running into a guy at a car show standing near his 458. I asked him a couple of questions (I wasn’t really interested, but I was being polite) before he told me “I don’t care about this car, I bought it just to order the next one.” At that point he didn’t have specs, name or pricing on the next car.
In the grand scheme of things, I’m inches from where Jay Leno grew up. A classmate of his was actually my 7th grade teacher. I can entirely understand his FU attitude toward Ferrari.
It’s incredible the hoops these people will jump through. It’s worse than an Ivy League waitlist.
On another note: my friends and I used to go down to the Combat Zone in Boston and sneak into the clubs. Jay Leno used to MC at one ( the Teddy Bear Lounge, I think) and do his routines. I think he was still going to Emerson College and definitely in his early 20s. He was hilarious working blue and, based on his act, if anyone could tell Ferrari FU, he’d be a grand master at it.
He had mentioned his regrets about his agreements with the Tonight Show in interviews. The contract was VERY restrictive about what he could do / say even outside of TV.
They paid well enough for him to not worry about losing the money from standup gigs, but it was selling out.
I saw him at the Newport Concourse a few years ago (probably more than a few, but they pass faster after a certain age) and everyone noticed him but nobody crowded him. It reminded me of how people treated Paul Newman at Limerock, but it was better because Leno is not a ‘regular’ around here (despite his roots).
I think #8 was supposed to be “It’s a car!”. You know, much like a Yaris. Except not quite as good looking.
I thought it was really tasteful of them to paint this Luce matte gray. It really accentuates the Generic Unbranded Car From Insurance Commercial look that Ferrari nailed with this car.
I’m sure Shaq and the CGI General are excited to get their hands on one.
They’re taking a page out of Slate’s book, so it’s real easy to picture your landscaping company logo slapped on the door there.
My love for Ferrari is gone daddy gone, the love is gone
Subtle meets subtle.
Nice Violent Femmes reference
Ten, ten, ten, ten
FOR EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
Had to scroll way too long to see this. I haven’t heard that song in probably 20 years and immediately it jumped into my head.
11. Won’t leak oil on the garage floor.
But it very well might catch fire!
…somehow, yes, it will.
Dunno, it IS Italian after all…
Probably still requires 4-figure annual services.
First Jason label your articles I almost skipped this because I didn’t know it was yours. What did Beau think of it because around these parts his opinion carries more weight than the supporting cast of Risky Business. I didn’t plug any of these people as experts, and that last guy I would not buy a car from him even if his BHPH lot was rated the best in quadalerhera Mexico. Really all these people were dressed like they were a supporter cast on Miami Vice. They actually decreased my desire to be among the 1%, heck when I went to high school in Palm Beach in the 70s the rich kids dressed in better more modern clothes
I think it’s more interesting than a Roma.
I mean, like, don’t challenge me on that. Just let it drift out there into the ether and waft away.
They could’ve at least slapped a coat of Rosso Corsa on there, instead of Slate grey.
Ok, quick challenge accepted: your buddy with more money than taste asks you to please go pick up his kid from the airport, take on of the Ferraris. Roma or Luce?
Or fart in his living room and walk out forever to stay “cool”?
Thank you for the Violent Femmes reference
I’ve been wondering (get it?)… what if this was the Apple car? Of course, probably with waaaaaay less power, and less cost, but I can kind of see how the butterfly could have flapped a little differently and we would have ended up there.
Does the driver have to get underneath it to plug it in?
No, but you have to take the IC engine out. I know it’s vestigial, but it must be there, just for complexity.
I hope you know this will go down on your Permanent record…
I cannot get over those 2008 Autozone rear parking sensors.
And that 2001 Impala taillight panel.
I will never, EVER get over the windshield wiper placement.
I actually think that is kind of cool. Easy to change, like Torch noted. Plus, more aerodynamic at speed and no need to tuck them away.
They’d be plenty aerodynamic under the hood on the cowl like so many other vehicles. And wipers can be set to a “service” location for easier access when changing.
Everything everything everything everything about it is terrible.
Did you not read the list?? There are practically 8 and 1/2 nearly good things almost about this!
I kind of like it, not 40 million or even 4 million but as good as any super car but yes better color