I can’t help but get the sense that many enthusiasts don’t care about new Ferraris. They can make eleventy million horsepower and have laser beams for windscreen wipers and it still won’t matter. They’re too generic, too unobtanium, no longer objects of desire or even interest. The Ferrari Luce, on the other hand, is interesting. Not just because it’s electric, but because it’s an absolute freak. Welcome to the weirdest Ferrari since the Mondial, and possibly the weirdest Italian car since the Fiat Multipla.
Right, let’s get the specs out of the way first because they somehow aren’t the most interesting thing about the Luce. This EV has four motors kicking out a combined 1,035 horsepower, but don’t think they’re all identical. The front two motors combined can only generate 282 horsepower, which means the two rear motors are responsible for 835 ponies. That should make things lively in more ways than a claimed zero-to-62 mph in 2.5 seconds. A good clip behind the Lucid Air Sapphire and Porsche Taycan Turbo GT, but still seriously rapid. Speaking of pace, Ferrari claims zero-to-124 MPH in 6.8 seconds and a top speed of 193 MPH. What’s the curb weight, you ask? Well, it’s a claimed 4,982 pounds. Luce is Italian for ‘light’, but not that kind of light.
Feeding those motors is the responsibility of a 122 kWh battery pack, although that’s gross rather than net capacity, and don’t expect that gargantuan figure to result in serious range. Ferrari claims 330 miles on the WLTP cycle, about on par with a 2022 Kia EV6 long-range RWD which was rated at 310 miles on the EPA cycle. Expect a final figure around that ballpark for the Luce. In another weird similarity to the aforementioned Kia, the Luce also features an 800-volt architecture, except the Ferrari’s good to actually max out 350 kW DC fast chargers.
As you’d probably expect with something weighing nigh-on 5,000 pounds, Ferrari’s pulled out all the stops to make it go ’round corners. We’re talking active electrohydraulic suspension, four-motor torque vectoring, rear-wheel-steering with up to 2.15 degrees of angle, 265-section front and 315-section rear tires, and the latest version of Ferrari’s dynamics management software. Want to slow down? In addition to up to 500 kW of regenerative braking, the Luce sports 15.4-inch carbon ceramic discs up front and 14.6-inch units out back.
So then, what about engagement? While simulated V12 F1 car soundtracks would be neat, Ferrari’s gone in the complete opposite direction. Instead, the Luce processes actual sound from the rear drive motors, with various profiles and intensity depending on the drive mode. At the same time, paddle shifters aren’t just there for regenerative braking, the right paddle can adjust available torque, giving a kick in the backside with each pull. And we haven’t even reached the interesting part yet.
Designed by Apple veteran Jony Ive and “trustworthy and honest” public toilet designer Marc Newson, the Ferrari Luce is the first car from Maranello to carry the silhouette of a Magic Mouse. It has a dash-to-axle ratio of no, an enormous sweeping roofline, and a serious amount of wedge to the belt line. It’s certainly not objectively beautiful, but it’s also not immediately repulsive in the same way the new Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupe is. Electrification has allowed for all sorts of new shapes of cars. This is one of them.
You can really tell the Luce’s roots lie in tech design rather than automotive design because there’s just so little typical Ferrari DNA here. While surface tension and thick black trim tries to take some weight out of the bottoms of the doors, there’s still an enormous amount of unbroken metal down each flank. Huge black bezels around vents on the front doors make the Luce look stubbier than its 197.87-inch length suggests. The down-the-road graphic is virtually impossible to anthropomorphize, the rear end treatment looks like it’s nesting an entire other car within it, and this is all only at a macro level.
Zoom in on the Luce and you start to notice some outrageous details. While the rear coach doors are precedented by the Purosangue SUV, they barely scratch the surface of the oddities dotted about the exterior. Each windscreen wiper’s resting position is completely vertical, like two Tesla Cybertrucks welded together longitudinally. This is because the Luce has no conventional wiper cowl, and each wiper arm simply sprouts out of an enormous windscreen with a big frit band to meet a giant recessed black hood insert.
Around back, a band of tinted plastic hides four circular inner elements, melding a touch of F355 Berlinetta with a touch of facelift Jaguar XJS. Oh, and while you’d expect the Luce to feature a lineup of wheels all more visually complicated than webs woven by spiders on LSD, you can tick an option box for the cleanest set of five-spoke alloys from Ferrari in decades.
If that isn’t enough visual whiplash for you, just take a look at the interior of the Luce. If you were expecting the dashboard to be a holodeck, you’d be mistaken. Instead, you get loads of leather and aluminum, real buttons and toggle switches, and an uncharacteristically pretty steering wheel reminiscent of the classics. Granted, this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Metallic finishes are a hallmark of Ive’s Apple tenure, and elements on the OLED infotainment screen and digital instrument cluster bristle with his influence.
Add it all up and the Ferrari Luce is an extremely Marmite proposition. It doesn’t evoke emotion, it evokes a skeptical sort of studiousness, something you don’t normally get from something with a Prancing Horse on the front. At the same time, a €550,000 electric Ferrari was always going to have a buyer pool the size of a shot glass, so why not get bizarre with it? Some might call it a crime, but when the 849 Testarossa looks the way it does and a Ferrari SUV is something you can actually buy, any connotations of sacredness died a long time ago. As long as every future Ferrari doesn’t look like the Luce, I’m okay with it. At least it’ll make the 2075 Pebble Beach lawn more interesting.
Top graphic credit: Ferrari
Light as in a lightbulb. If want light as in weight, it would be leggera.
Also they called their SUV “pureblood” so they clearly don’t care. They’re Ferrari so they can get away with such stupidity.
Also that dash looks almost exactly like the concept they showed off a year or two back when they first collaborated with Ivey, so it definitely is no surprise there.
Angry irony. “We make graceful machines for turning petrol into glorious sound and agile speed, but you actually demand four-door hippopotamus SUVs and mosquito-sounding EV bricks. We’ll deliver what you demand, but every unit is a dead-eyed FU to the modern auto market.”
I too remember when an idiot writer at the old site just threw “purosangue” into google translate and wrote a screed about those evil Italian racists and their problematic language. Never did get the follow up when a bunch of native Italian speakers corrected the author that “Purosangue” is properly translated into English as “Thoroughbred.” As in the breed of horse, specifically the one on Ferrari’s logo.
Oh yeah I remember that now! Ridiculous, people are so bad at projecting their views on other cultures.
But the thing I remember the most is them suing a European anti-doping non-profit with that name, because that non-profit blocked Ferrari’s EU trademark application. Ferrari won but and it’s probably not a huge deal in the end, but to me it just spoke to Ferrari’s typical bullshit behavior.
Oof. Not a whole lot I can say positive about this. It’s better looking than the Merc? Sure I’ll go with that.
Can’t really say why someone looking for an exotic car would lust after this. But like many have said here, I am not the intending market because while I may be a knob, I’m not an unfathomably wealthy knob.
In the sea of odd/ugly/strange things being spit by automakers nowadays, this is not the worth by large.
This does not look like a Ferrari, but I believe that it is what the public they want to reach want (probably young very rich people with environmental concerns or that want to look like they care about the environment).
It is interesting, in a strange way though. Maybe a monochromatic setup in a conservative color (black over black, brown over brown) will make it look better.
But definitely nothing that one would look at and and identify as a Ferrari. I would say a chinese EV SUV. And actually, lots of them look better than this.
Great looking Honda
The problem with this analogy is the Magic Mouse is arguably a rather good visual design (some functional quibbles aside) it’s very sleek and rather slick. This is neither of those things other than a general well worn bar of soap shape.
To that point-I can’t go over why this is such an incredibly dumpy tall shape and why it’s even a 4 door. Who at Ferrari thought they needed to enter the crossover wars?? This is a company that notoriously wouldn’t even sell you a new car if you hadn’t first owned a used one and while I hate the snobiness, that did a lot to maintain a sense of exclusivity and specialness for the brand. Recently saw a Dodici-cilindri or whatever it is at cars n coffee and my god is that a sexy car-everything a Ferrari is supposed to be, just oozing presence like nothing else I’ve seen on the road, I don’t get wowed by cars much but that felt like a special experience.
Just to add to my rambling point above-as much as I can’t stand Elon and a lot of the later direction of Tesla, I do think they proved that something sleekly good looking AND uniquely futuristic is the way to convert EV buyers. Yet somehow everyone seems to have missed the sleek good looking part. If you’re Ferrari and if somehow you’ve convinced yourself you need to be making an EV sedan(suv) it better look damn sexy-the Taycan and Audi e-GT already set a very high bar (or for that matter the first Fisker car). Folks are on the fence about EVs, I certainly imagine the mega rich are, if you’re gonna convert them you need something that just grabs them and says this is so unbelievably cool they’re willing to overlook the fact that it’s an EV because it’s got that IT factor, not be like here’s our new Little Tikes sports car.
Ya know, I walked by the new dodge charger EV this morning, and it pulls off the idea of this front end just so much more elegantly
Like other enthusiasts, I don’t care much about the Ferrari name anymore, and as far as I’m concerned they’ve gotten too pretentious as it is. So I don’t really care that this doesn’t look like a “real Ferrari.” In fact, I think this looks pretty nice and functional, if not beautiful or desirable (except the car-in-car thing at the back. Yeesh).
The problem is that Ferrari is pricing this even higher than all their existing pretentious and exclusive lineup, which it absolutely does not live up to.
They really could have been on to something by hiring Jony Ive if they’d used it as an opportunity to execute some great design and go mass-market luxury with it (like the iPhone…). If this was a $70-80k EV sedan (without some of the silly power numbers), it would be a great Tesla, Audi, BMW, etc EV competitor and would probably sell in decent numbers. It would never attract iPhone level sales, but at least it would be playing in the same mid-luxury space as the iPhone exists in.
The car seems fine, just not when it’s marketed as some hyper-exclusive, $600k halo car. So when Ferrari tries to pass it off as that, they just remind us all how absurdly pretentious they are. This is no less ridiculous than if they slapped a red paintjob on an iPhone, called it a “Ferrari Cellulare Superleggera” and tried to sell it for $50k. Plus another $10k for a “handpainted” Ferrari logo on the back.
Make this the next Tesla Model S or Audi e-Tron whatever and it would be fine.
I like the wheels and most of the interior. The rest of it looks like someone took a contemporary Prius and ran it through AI just enough to avoid a trademark strike. It’s not even unique enough to be ugly. It’s the safest, most inoffensive looking Ferrari ever, and that is what makes it offensive.
showed this to my wife this morning and said “guess what, thats a Ferrari.” Her response with zero control was just “O no, no that cant be a Ferrari”, I chuckled and went back to my coffee, then about 5 mins later she goes “but you know what this means Hun? we might be able to afford a Ferrari in a couple of years.”
That is… not a good looking car. The EV specs aren’t anything to write home about, either.
On the positive side, if this is the direction Ferrari is going I don’t have to worry about any FOMO or wasting time daydreaming about buying a new one.
Found one for sale on ebay already. No electronics though…
https://www.ebay.com/itm/257487646118
Before I saw the Luce, the last Ferrari I was interested in was the 550 Maranello. After I saw the Luce, that is…still true.
The Apple car finally happened, it just came out of left field. Temu Ferrari.
And in other news, today’s main newstitles :
**GOD, IT’S UGLY**
**MILD GRAVITY ANOMALY DETECTED NOT FAR FROM ENZO’S GRAVE**
(Witnesses state high-rpm spinning vibrations detected within)
**NISSAN MAX-OUT SEEN CRYING**
(Claims likeness was stolen)
It looks cheap, from its plastic interior & pivoting iPad infotainment center to the “they came from Temu” wheels. Even the instrument cluster is just an LED screen with a plastic cover pressed on it, to simulate individual instruments. Ferrari is bragging about it (calling it “phygital”) when it’s been on Lotus cars for a while now.
Is the real Ferrari inside this plastic shipping container? If not, I’m glad they were bold enough to bring back Saturn!
Looks like there’s a 2003 Chevy Impala inside that container.
For all the comments I see on every new car about “enough with the iPads slapped on the dash” I’m seeing a lot of praise for the interior here. An interior that features what appears to be two literal iPads just tacked onto the dash.
FWIW I think this car is an utter and complete failure from top to bottom, and the only people suckered into buying this are ones desperate to get an F80 Aperta allocation. The depreciation on these is going to be steeper than the crash of a rug-pull crypto token 12 hours after the liquidity pool gets unlocked.
The steering wheel is cool. Good job on that.
Not discounting the amout of technologically neat things going on to make a 5k pound EV a blazing quick corner carver, but it you told me this was a Honda, or a Kia, or a Hyundai, I’d believe you. For a pedestrian commuter car it actually looks good imo (given modern car design), but this reminds me of the Balenciaga version of a the blue Ikea tote bag.
Jesus! That. That thing in the pictures. That’s a Ferrari? Somebody kill this timeline with fire.
Oh, cool, something to get half a million credits from when I get it in a Wheelspin and immediately put it in the auction house in FH6.
The problem with modern supercars in general seems to be that there’s so many new models or trim levels coming out every year, they all seem to be on three platforms from the manufacturer so they all look the same, and I can’t keep up with the latest GTR Maranello Edition Tricolore by Manthey AMG. Like a manufacturer lucky to make 10,000 cars in a year needs to somehow generate FOMO.
At least I won’t forget which Ferrari this one is.
Finally, something makes the Lotus Eletre seem like a sensible option.
Maranello weeps…
I gotta say… I like it. Very clean design. Definitely not going for the nostalgia market. I wonder if people would recognize it as “Ferrari” easier in Maranello red?
Luckily you’ll be able to pick one up in five years for new mustang money.
Maybe I could afford to maintain an electric Ferrari? ‘Cos I think an oil change on the gas ones is about what I pay for some of my hobby cars.
We can hope. Knowing Ferrari they’ll make it require an “electoflush” for $4500 every 1800kwh.
Omg, this is totally Jony Ive’s
“The Homer” moment. This thing looks comically terrible.
It’s a nice looking car, but it looks more like a 2024+ Prius with a weird body kit than a Ferrari. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But as the lede paragraph pointed out, Ferrari is in a weird place of just not being desirable or aspirational.
I’m not super wealthy and likely never will be. So I’m their target demographic. But there’s always been them “man, I’d like to have one of those if I could” fantasy aspect. That went away for me twenty plus years ago with Ferrari. I would rather have a McLaren, Bentley, or even a Rolls.
Oh and for this car, I’d rather have the Prius, even if the interior on this is a lot nicer.