As it should be clear to anyone who regularly reads this website, we sometimes have spicy takes. People still have extreme reactions to David’s timing belt take, and that was published two years ago. This is all to say that we’ve brought back the Autopian Podcast as a show we’re calling “Carbage Time” that’ll allow us to burden you, our dear readers, with the insane opinions burning a hole deep in our brains.
For this first episode, I couldn’t help but talk about the Ferrari Luce. I proposed to David that there was 0.000% chance that Ferrari would get this right, or that they could get it right. Obviously, the actual execution achieved a level of wrongness that’s impressive, but that’s somewhat immaterial to my argument. There was no version of this that would have felt right. It doesn’t mean the car is bad, or people won’t buy it, just that the entire premise was screwed from the jump.
He didn’t agree with me, and he had his own idea for how this could have been a success. He’s wrong, but that’s ok! The show isn’t about being right, it’s about being honest about our ridiculous opinions (I am right, though). If you’re a video a podcast person, it’s right here on YouTube:
If you’d like to just listen to it right now, in the browser, here’s a little player:
I love that logo, btw, which is something Jason put together for the show.
To listen to more podcasts episodes you can go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or you can use the RSS feed and point your favorite Podcast player at it.
My Main Point
One of our objectives with the website is that every article has value, so if you’re not a person who wants to watch David and I talk about cars, or even listen to it, I’ll outline the main point here, which is that Ferrari set a trap for themselves. When Porsche built the Taycan people generally didn’t freak out about it for a few reasons, and I think understanding the (relative) success of the rollout is key to understanding where Ferrari went wrong.
Obviously, the Porsche looks like a Porsche, so it has an immediate advantage there. The Ferrari is an odd-looking car. From a performance perspective, I haven’t driven a Luce, but I’m going to assume it drives and performs extremely well. Ferrari has made very few bad road cars in its entire existence, and the modern company is an excellent engineering firm.
So what’s the difference? Relative to Ferrari, Porsche is a volume brand. Porsche will essentially sell as many cars as people will buy. This may not be true for every model, as there are limited numbers of 911 GT3 Tourings, et cetera, but it’ll basically make as many Macans and Cayennes as the market will support. Ferrari doesn’t. More than anything, Ferrari sells scarcity. The power Ferrari wields over its customers is that you cannot just buy any Ferrari you want and it can decide, if it wants to, to never sell you a car again. Owning a Ferrari means you’ve put in the time and the money. You’re in the club.
Could Ferrari have made a lower-priced ($200kish), light weight, high performance sports car? Absolutely. But then people would want them and they’d be directly competitive with the 296 GTB and the Amalfi. Ferrari probably doesn’t want to do that. I doubt this current version of Ferrari wants to sell more electric grand tourers than sports/super/hypercars. I think this is why they made the car a GT and why they made it look different. It had to be something very unique and not particularly competitive with the other cars in the stable, and it also had to be super expensive. The reason why Jony Ive and Marc Newsom were called in is that it justified the $640,000 cost.
And that’s the other problem. Ferraris are, by their nature, superlative vehicles. Electric cars have, to a great degree, democratized performance. A sub-three 0-60 mph time isn’t that hard to achieve, nor is going faster than three seconds to 60 mph something your brain can easily register or your body can enjoy. The performance metric that people most care about with electric cars is really range, and the necessity of making it fast means that its range is pretty mediocre (sub-300 miles likely on the EPA test) and, to make things worse, its charging isn’t state-of-the-art. On paper, a Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is fairly close as a performance vehicle, to say nothing of a Lucid Sapphire.
Take two of the best designers in the world, let them run free and build a car with few budget restraints, and you’d think you’d get something great. The fact that you didn’t is just proof that what Ferrari tried to do wasn’t ever going to be a success. I do think this makes another proposed electric car seem like a better idea, but you’ll have to watch the episode to find out which one.
Let us know what you think about the podcast, the format, et cetera! This is our first one of these and we’re going to try and do one every week.
Top photo: Ferrari
So what you are saying is that the Ferrari F1 team strategists were in charge of this project during their off-season time. That explains so much.
The problem is that Ferrari took two product designers, not transportation designers to create this car. Very little of what product designers do or their approach translates naturally to car design, and these two designers totally blew it on the most basic level: proportions, and they blew it on the exterior graphics, particularly the rear end. Yeah, I heard people say that this is a 5-seat EV with a huge battery pack under the floor and is therefore impossible to look sleek and good, but remember the Chinese has managed this for years, even Porsche has cracked this code.
The old saying still rings true: “Car designers can make attractive products, but product designers cant design attractive cars.”
Marc Newsom’s Ford 021C is extremely attractive in my eyes; but exceptions/rules/proved and so on.
I like your point about Ferrari’s being superlative vehicles. Apparently in this case they wanted to maximize controversy. Can’t say they failed, but so far I don’t see where the controversy created is of value to the brand.
Also, I can’t help finding the lack of Ferrari Red as significant…
It’s true. I am possibly the biggest EV enthusiast on this website. But what I love about them is how simple they are, how much they can do with such a basic set of components. Yes, there is still a big whitespace for visceral EVs that are riotiously fun on a back road. But, in the space of 5000lb EV SUVs, there’s not much Ferrari can do to stand out.
The entire reaction of the internet proves that Silicon Valley won and Car World lost. We know it. Ferrari positioned the Luce (name stolen from Mazda, fittingly) for Silicone Valley royalty who will afford and will buy this because all they need is a badge on an expensive turd. Oh and at least should have 5 seats if they’re paying that much money. They’re not wrong, their stock will recover and they’ll continue to laugh all the way to the bank. Depressing.
It still surprises me that this went through a whole chain of approval and not once did someone stop and say it looks fucking hideous.
There were responses that were extreme, but David’s take on timing belts being inherently bad, or unreliable, is actually the real extreme (and incorrect) take.
If we take out non-OHC engines from the equation, and we are talking about SOHC or DOHC motors that are running on chains or dry belts, especially in 2026 with super long OCI’s… (dry) belts win, hands down.
3.6 GM V6’s – Chain related problems
2.4 GM 4 cylinders – Chain related problems
Ford 3.3/3.5/3.7 – Chain related problems (ecoboost or NA)
Ford SOHC motors – Chain related problems
VW/Audi 4, 6, or 8 cylinder engines – Chain related problems
BMW N20 (and others) – Chain related problems
JLR “Ingeniums” – Chain related problems
Hyundai/Kia V6’s – chain related problems
It’s simple… yes on paper from an engineer perspective it seems like chains are a no-brainer, and I used to think this way too. Not anymore… it just means that you haven’t worked on enough engines (and got paid to do so…) to really understand why OHC dry belts are good, especially if you are buying something used.
It’s WAY shittier to replace a timing chain set vs a timing belt set, speaking broadly.
However… I think we can all agree that wet belts are the worst of all worlds, and should go away.
“I’ll outline the main point here”
Thank you! I wish you good luck on the podcasts…I’m just very proud to say I’ve NEVER listened to a podcast and am not interested. Just the word makes me cringe. Don’t think I could do audiobooks either. Forget about talk radio. I do read regular books though! There’s nothing like the feel of holding a book and getting lost in a great novel. Plus everything on this awesome site. Yeah, not interested in the Luce in the slightest, but why does it’s mouth look like it got slit open by a razor?
I’ll take an F40 but more realistically my favorite Ferrari is the awesome Testarossa!
Yep, same here on the podcast thing. I can call a friend and pontificate about timing belts and e-cars that are twice the price of my house.
But I’d buy the print mag in a hot minute, especially if it had classifieds and those little ads for things like sea monkeys and “ass, gas, or grass” stickers and Italian dinnerware for the shower.
Hell yeah, a magazine would be awesome!
Interesting, I thought I was the only person in the world that could claim that. Well, that makes two of us I guess.
550 Maranello or 330 GTC for me.
Ferrari sells an illusion at this point. ICE performance now is in a state similar to the premium watchmakers during the “quartz crisis”, when cheap quartz timepieces outdone them in precision overnight. Their (premium watchmakers) salvation was to fight them (Japanese quartz movements) in the refinement/prestige/durability department, not performance. The Luce is like Rolex trying to claim better time accuracy than quartz.
Actually, this is worse for them, this is like Rolex SELLING a quartz based watch on the presumption it can command the same price as their luxury watches just on brand alone.
When you go to a design firm like this one, you’re kind of asking them to do “their thing” with the design. And when you’re as firmly douchey a designer as they are, then you trust your own vision implicitly, no matter how repetitive and bland. You’re too used to being heralded as a design genius to have doubts. A designer should always have a healthy dose of skepticism about their own tendencies, in order to ensure they’re designing for the client and not the other way around.
Well said.
I prefer the written format, thank you for including it. Never got into podcasts (or talk radio before that) I can read faster than most people talk, and watching people talk feels even worse…
Same here.
The only way Ferrari could have gotten the Luce vaguely right is also the only way that they could justify their current crop of turbocharged, automatic, occasionally hybrid supercars: by going to war on the Nürburgring.
I don’t really like to clamor for more track-time-focused supercars, but if Ferrari refuse to make fun cars under the pretense that they wouldn’t be fast enough to compete, they damn well better FUCKING WIN.
So what I wonder is – can the people who have been blacklisted by Ferrari for tarnishing its image (say painting it pink and so on) sue Ferrari now, for tarnishing its image?
I guess the fact that I’m so baffled by this car proves that I’m too poor for the conspicuous consumption set. The question I can’t get past is what the hell are you getting for your $640,000? It looks like every other roughly Prius-shaped EV, the performance isn’t anything special (which is basically impossible at this point anyway, given the democratization of acceleration that’s come with EV’s)…so you’re paying 10 times the price of, say, that Ioniq 5N for, what, 10% more car? Granted the interior looks pretty nice, even if it’s still a little too “if a Ferrari interior was an iPhone” for my taste, but if you gut that 5N and throw 10 or 20 thousand at a custom interior, you’re all the way there and still only 1/8 the price.
So, as far as I can tell, roughly $560,000 here buys you a few yellow badges and the right to pay nearly three quarters of a million for about $75,000 worth of car.
And I suspect that’s the whole point of it. It’s an electrified brick of money that can also seat 5 and you need to let people you know what you got.
I haven’t seen anyone pose this, so I guess I will. Ferrari should have spun off their EV into a separate brand – like Dino but not “Dino” because that would be sacrilege – and have priced this at $100k. They could have little Ferrari cavallinos in places but for fuck’s sake avoided the brand outrage with the shields on the fender which look like someone attempted a sad up-badge of a Hyundai Ioniq6.
The electricity that charges the batteries in these hypothetical Dinos should be called “Dino Juice”. And Ferrari should trademark it
I can’t get over the ‘on air’ light not being lit.
We tried! But it was too bright in the background so it just looked like an amorphous blob of white. I think we should get Matt a dimmer switch for it
They could have just plopped an F40 body on a Tesla model 3 chassis.
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If you say so. You hire the guy famous for designing cell phones and Mac’s, you’re gonna get an Apple car. Apparently his range is about as bad as the Luce’s. Maybe if they hired whoever was responsible for the iMac G3 we could have had a neat Frutiger Aero Ferrari instead of an iFerrari 17 Pro Max.
The person who designed the iMac G3 was also Jony Ive
Yes technically he was head of the design team at the time, but he did not (as far as I can gather) design the overall shape or aesthetic.
…and you’d get an MB W140, R129 or R230, a first gen NSX, a McLaren F1, and it goes on and on. There seems to be at least some correlation between competent designers, design freedom and large budgets.
Take someone who has designed the same bland thing over and over again, let them think they are the best, and you get this curvy turd.
Who voted these two best designers in the world, again? There’s nothing transcendental in the design of an iphone, an imac or an apple watch. Going through seventeen models with a 3-degree changes in the angle of the screen’s corners as sole update is not best design. Balmuda sailing lantern – ok, we’re talking, but one robin doesn’t make a spring.
As for Newson – anyone who would let the designer of the Embryo chair or the Pentax K01 anywhere near car design is an idiot.
Bringing the EV part in the discussion is pointless. The issue is not whether this thing is an EV or not – it is that it’s ugly as hell. It’s recent Kia-level ugly. It’s Cybertruck ugly. And just as with the Cybertruck – it probably burries worthy qualities and great technology in a landslide of ugly, which is a shame.
Design is like stand-up commedy: if you have to explain the punchline – you failed.
Hiring the best car designer would have involved hiring Marcello Gandini (yes, I know he’s no longer around, but he would have been alive during part of this car’s development). Or, I don’t know, god forbid they hire Pininfarina again. Hiring a car designer is what’s important. Ive and Newson might be renowned industrial designers but they don’t design cars. Just like I, as a trained architect, don’t assume I can walk into apple and think I can design products for them. My training had absolutely zero to do with that world, and you can tell that the interior design of this car is more product design studies of individual components than one cohesive design. I like the interior of the luce if only because it has physical buttons in a lot of places, but I also think the screen designs are clunky as hell.
Dunno, I think they nailed Apple’s target design level, which is premium mediocre. The iPhone is very far from the optimal design for phones in many, many ways. It is however, about perfect in easy marketability, which is why it’s so popular. It’s also cheap enough that almost everyone in the Western world can afford one.
The problem is Ferrari is a premium-full-stop brand. Mass market appeal is a horror story to them, not a target. Very few people can afford them, and even fewer are allowed to buy them. Consequently, you want a designer who knows how to appeal to rich snobs, and who knows to throw in a few obvious flaws so the aforementioned snobs can signal their snobbery by publicly not caring about the flaws. Maybe call up Minotti and find out who did their fall collection.
I call BS, Matt. Put the Luce power train in a 296-eques body and price it $300k less and they at least appear to be actually trying.
This never would work because it was electric. By making it look electric too, they killed any chance, and as we have seen caused significant damage to the brand. If I’m a bro who buys Lambo an Ferrari’s, and I see this, no way can I consider anything they sell anymore. My buddies will pick on me for it and the ladies will laugh.
…this title is surprisingly close to another automobile related YouTube channel called Garbage Time, where a loud Australian drummer and his technically inclined friend put various foodstuffs into car engines, among other things.
I really enjoyed the podcast. There was a sync problem with voice and image, but it was easy enough to ignore. In the end it seemed like you got into general agreement or at least acceptance of each other’s point of view. I hope that you will have to apologize to Jaguar, not to be mean but because the car will be good though I’m not betting on it.
Noted. The whole thing was a fresh dry run on some software none of us have ever used so I’m aware some things could use refining. Lord willing, things will never get worse and will only get better!
I wonder if they will have one on display at my local dealership (Silicon Valley). I’ll keep an eye out for it and report back when I see it and stop for a chat.
I checked their inventory. They don’t have one. They have a 365GTB with 25K miles for just under a cool mil and a GT40 for somewhat less. I guess I’m going to have to live with my ’27 Bolt.