Ferrari has not faked its engine noise. When I wrote about the AMG GT's elaborate playlist of recorded V8 samples last week, I was genuinely depressed at where the industry is heading. The Luce does something genuinely different. An accelerometer on the rear axle captures the actual mechanical vibrations from the motors, inverters and drivetrain, and the vehicle control unit amplifies and projects those real frequencies both inside the cabin and outside the car, the same way an electric guitar amplifies a physical string rather than playing back a recording. Ferrari calls it not fake. They are right. It is not fake. That matters, and it deserves to be said before the rest of this piece.
Now. About the way it looks.
Ferrari unveiled the Luce at Rome yesterday and it is the most significant departure this company has made in its history, 79 years of it. It seats five across four doors, runs a 122 kWh battery, four motors producing 1,035 horsepower, a 0 to 60 time of 2.5 seconds, and a top speed of 310 km/h. It weighs 2,313 kilograms. It costs more than €500,000. And the exterior was designed not by Ferrari's own studio, under Flavio Manzoni, but by LoveFrom, the design collective founded by Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson. Ive is the man responsible for the iPhone, the iMac, the MacBook Air, the Apple Watch, and most of the visual language of the last quarter century of consumer technology. He is not the man anyone outside Apple's boardroom would have chosen to design a Ferrari.
The result looks like exactly what it is: a very beautiful, very expensive, very considered object designed by someone who thinks about objects the way a product designer thinks about them, not the way an automotive designer thinks about them. It is clean. It is restrained. It is built around what Ferrari calls a glass house, a large glazed cabin structure with aerodynamic wings floating around it. The tail lights are a deliberate nod to the 360 Modena and 458 Italia, which is the one moment where you think: yes, that is a Ferrari. The rest of the time you are looking at something that could have come from a Californian technology company, which is not a coincidence.
I have been writing about THE PIG, Jaguar's Type 00 concept and what I see as the abandonment of everything that made those cars matter. The Luce arrives just as that conversation was still running and it is a different problem, but the same instinct. These are great companies with extraordinary histories deciding that the only way forward is to look like nothing they have ever looked like before.
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Ferrari has been careful to say the Luce is not instead of everything else. Chairman John Elkann said they are redefining the limits of what is possible. CEO Benedetto Vigna has built an entire new facility at Maranello to produce it. Ferrari has already delayed a second electric model to at least 2028, citing weak demand, and Lamborghini has abandoned its own EV programme entirely. Ferrari does not expect the Luce to sell in huge numbers. Industry analyst Felipe Munoz of Car Industry Analysis said Ferrari needs to make a move and define what luxury electrification looks like before someone else does.
That is a rational argument. It may even be correct. But it does not answer the question of whether anyone who bought a Ferrari because of what a Ferrari is will feel anything when they see this one.
The sound system will project real drivetrain vibrations at the driver's request. The e-Manettino dial, Ferrari's nod to the traditional Manettino on the steering wheel, can silence it completely in Range mode. Physical buttons are throughout the cabin. The steering wheel is a recycled aluminium design with three spokes, inspired by the classic Nardi wheel of the 1950s, and weighs less than the standard Ferrari unit. The interior is genuinely remarkable. If you told me this was the Apple Car that Apple spent a decade failing to build, I would believe you, and I mean that as a compliment to the cabin.
The exterior is the conversation. CarBuzz said it looks akin to something a tech startup might release. Carscoops asked whether it should be wearing a Dino badge instead of the Prancing Horse. These are not fringe opinions. These are the first responses from people who cover this industry every day.
The combustion cars are not going anywhere, Ferrari says. The V12 still exists. The 296 still exists. The Purosangue still exists. The Luce is an addition, not a replacement.
That is what they said about the first iPhone too. A year later, the camera was gone.
Sources
- CarExpert — Ferrari Luce revealed: First electric Ferrari takes bold design approach
- Carscoops — Ferrari's Luce Is A Four-Door EV Designed By The iPhone Guy
- Automotive News — Ferrari amplified electric sounds to give Luce EV its own roar
- Man of Many — Ferrari Luce Revealed as 1,036 HP Five-Seater EV Designed By Tech Bros
- SupercarBlondie — Ferrari Luce unveiled: everything you need to know
- Reuters via Manila Times — Ferrari's Luce leads bold leap into uncertain electric era
- Autoblog — Ferrari's First EV Has an Interior Designed by an Apple Visionary
- 9to5Mac — Ferrari Luce EV debuts with Jony Ive-designed cockpit and familiar design cues
- CarBuzz — Ferrari Luce Revealed: It's Time To Meet The First Electric Ferrari