You know things are bad when the Pope gets involved. No doubt reeling from a launch that somehow went down even worse than Ferrari itself anticipated, the Italian carmaker sought to get the endorsement of none other than His Holiness Pope Leo XIV for its first EV, the Luce.
Guided by Ferrari chairman John Elkann and senior Ferrari executives, in a hillside town about 15 miles southeast of Rome, the pontiff sat in the driver’s seat and listened patiently as test driver Raffaele De Simone explained the vehicle’s controls and driving modes as if he really was speaking to a man clearly in the market for a 1,000-horsepower electric car capable of hitting 62 mph in 2.5 seconds.
Meanwhile, as Pope Leo was no doubt pondering how the Luce could boast one of the largest batteries in any production EV yet still only manage a maximum 329 miles, or how an accelerometer on the rear axle somehow worked like a guitar pickup to create in-cabin sound like an “instrument,” the market was speaking. On seeing the $640,000 car design, not by Ferrari, but LoveFrom, the agency founded by Jony Ive in 2019 upon his exit from Apple, the carmaker’s share price dropped 8 percent in morning trading in Milan, while New York-listed shares fell by 5.1 percent, wiping billions off Ferrari’s value.
Remarkably, Luca di Montezemolo, who was Ferrari’s chairman until 2014, went on camera to share his disgust. “We risk the destruction of a legend,” he said. “I just hope someone removes the prancing horse from that car. This is certainly a machine that the Chinese won’t copy—they won’t need to.”
In social posts echoing the recent calamitous Swatch X AP launch where disappointed watch fans used AI to fashion a product they really wanted from the collaboration rather than a pocket watch, within minutes the furious Ferrari faithful were posting not only AI-generated “fixes” on Ive and LoveFrom’s vision, but also barbed AI images and videos of the Luce in Fisher-Price mode or as a giant automotive Apple mouse, upturned with a USB cable plugged into its underside.
Having changed tune on posts asking followers “What do you think?”, gleefully smelling blood in the water, initially hesitant but now emboldened car commentators and YouTube hosts are piling on, secure in the knowledge of which way the wind is blowing on the Luce.
But I like the Luce. I find it attractive. I like the purity of its design and how it shows Elon Musk what might have been had he bothered to facelift his Teslas properly. Thankfully, I’m not alone (in the good company of James May, no less). Dale Harrow, chair and director of the Intelligent Mobility Design Center at London’s Royal College of Art, advocates that we should all take a longer view. “I see the haters are saying it’s the end of Ferrari. I’m not so sure,” he says. “It’s very different from the evolutionary path that Ferrari has been following, but this is less emotional, more thoughtful, and appealing to a different audience and owner.”
Harrow says the Luce reminds him of early projects from LoveFrom co-founder Marc Newson’s portfolio, such as the Ford 021C, which received criticism from designers when first shown but now looks much better with age, as well as the Kelvin40 jet. “In both, you can see a clarity to the concept, clean proportions and surfaces, and use of contrast graphics and shutlines that are all evident in the Luce,” Harrow says.
Admittedly, Harrow also says the Luce is “a very difficult package” with the battery size, giving the electric vehicle “ungainly proportions that make it very difficult to make a beautiful car.” Harrow adds that, if you employ Ive and Newson to design a car, “you have some of the best designers that have ever practiced,” and that the Luce will likely attract a different type of high-wealth customer. “It may not be what everyone expects from Ferrari, but its clarity and confidence show an additional direction for the brand. I can’t wait to see it for real,” Harrow says.
Not what everyone expects from Ferrari. Harrow is right. I don’t particularly care that this isn’t what received wisdom states is what a Ferrari should look like. I may even like it more because of this very fact. As a WIRED writer, I also like it because it reveals what the world might have got had Apple made good on its automotive ambitions, scratching an itch those of us following the Cupertino company’s motoring machinations have been suffering with for more than a decade.
Apple spent 10 years, and reportedly more than $10 billion, developing an EV, codenamed Project Titan, before scrapping it in 2024 to focus on, yes, AI. More than 2,000 people were supposedly working on it when Apple pulled the plug, including engineers who had worked for NASA and Porsche. And no one has ever seen it.
With Ive only departing Apple in 2019, he had years at the company before he and a core team left to form LoveFrom, the agency that Ferrari very much placed in the driving seat to craft its first-ever EV. The Luce, with its considered rounded corners, brushed aluminum, and sculpted “glass-house” exterior, has all the hallmarks of the products that Ive spent decades perfecting at Apple.
Is the Luce Apple’s never-made EV in all but name? To its already vociferous social media critics, it certainly is. With its hints of Alfa and Tesla, it has landed a long way from the brand’s lauded stable of iconic cars. Ive himself has described the Luce as “still clearly a Ferrari,” but cannily admits that it represents “a different manifestation based on some of the beliefs around simplicity.”
A different manifestation indeed, one that—had it arrived as the Apple car, and not costing a staggering $640,000—would have likely been universally praised as a triumph. And remember, aside from Newson’s concept, this is from a team that has never designed a car before.
Crucially, you cannot blame Ferrari for actually trying something new here. Luxury EVs are bombing, with Mercedes’ electric G-Wagon being a particular disaster. Lamborghini has pushed its first EV back to 2029. Bentley moved its all-electric deadline from 2030 to 2035. Porsche, at enormous expense, has remapped its immediate future back to combustion.
The cross-pollination of Ferrari and LoveFrom could yield amazing things, and we need innovation in a skittish Western automotive space at the mercy of whatever record comparatively infant Chinese makers decide to take next. Just look at how this union has created not only a genuinely stunning interior for the Luce but a truly amazing steering wheel.
Ferrari hopes the Luce will receive a warmer reception when people see it first-hand, one that matches the EV’s pre-reveal anticipation. Behind the pomp and bluster of the Luce launch, there are more than a few nervous automotive executives. And if evidence were needed of this, Ferrari’s second EV has now been delayed till 2028.
Yes, the Luce isn’t red-blooded enough for the Tifosi. But it wasn’t made for them. The Luce offers a bittersweet glimpse into an alternative reality, a look at what might have been had Apple stayed the course and brought us its own electric car. The raging EV battle between east and west might look very different now if it had.
The post I Like Ferrari’s Luce EV. But This Is Why It’s Heartbreaking appeared first on Wired.
