Ferrari Unveils Their First EV — and Biggest Risk

Sergio Marchionne, who ran Ferrari as CEO of its parent company, was once asked if the brand would ever make an SUV. “You have to shoot me first,” he said. Mr. Marchionne died in 2018, and Ferrari announced the Purosangue — probably the most capable performance SUV on the market, despite Ferrari denying that it’s actually an SUV.One wonders what Mr. Marchionne would make of the Luce, Ferrari’s first fully electric car, which will be shown in full later today. “Luce” means “light” in Italian — an ironic choice for a four-door, four-seat sedan packing a 122 kWh battery, four electric motors producing more than 1,000 horsepower, and a price reportedly around half a million dollars.It’s a strange car for Ferrari to build, but it serves two pretty obvious purposes:To lower the company’s carbon output, thereby warding off nosey European regulators.To court Chinese buyers, a market where Ferrari lacks the cachet of its rivals, and where electric cars are expected rather than merely tolerated.It may also work to attract new, younger customers to the brand — Rolls-Royce says the average incoming first-time buyer for its electric Spectre is just 35 years old, and that 40 percent of Spectre buyers are new to the brand.But electric propulsion is a natural fit for the lounging luxury of Rolls, whereas the Luce won’t have the same athleticism that defines its gas-burning Ferrari siblings. So Marenello, the home of Ferrari, is hoping to make it a status symbol through other means: namely, design excellence and distinction.Ferrari Luce Interior. Courtesy of FerrariMonths ahead of its full unveiling, the company showed off the interior of the car, designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson, the famed Apple designers. Their design collective, LoveFrom, has spent five years working with Ferrari’s design team between Maranello and San Francisco, shaping the inside and outside of the car, and what Ferrari has shown so far is one of the most striking car interiors in years.It is minimal and chunky, built from anodized aluminum — in gray, dark gray, or rose gold — and clever uses of glass. The steering wheel draws from 1960s F1 cars — with three slim spokes, and small dials below — and the overall feel is more of a restomod than the busy, dial-cluttered interiors that usually come out of Maranello.Ferrari Luce Interior. Courtesy of FerrariWhat makes it genuinely interesting, though, is how tactile and physical everything is. In an industry that has been steadily stripping cabins down to touchscreens, LoveFrom went the opposite direction, festooning the Luce with toggle switches, dials, and glass knobs. Air vents click shut with an audible snap. There are metal paddle shifters to adjust the regenerative braking. A launch control switch sits aircraft-style above the driver’s head.Ferrari Luce Interior. Courtesy of FerrariBeing a modern electric car, it doesn’t have physical dials, but they do have a physical needle, and the digital instruments are designed to look a bit like the Veglia and Jaeger gauges of vintage Ferraris. Every interface looks gorgeous; a reminder that software can be beautifully designed, despite how rare that is in modern cars.Ferrari Luce Interior. Courtesy of FerrariThe center console may be the most novel element, though: a 10.12-inch perforated OLED screen, surrounded by toggle switches and a glass volume knob, mounted on a swivel. The pivoting-console idea has been in concept cars for decades — for example, the 1988 Cadillac Voyage concept — but has never reached production until now.The key is also fantastic. Rather than use the standard Ferrari module, it’s a glass fob with a yellow E Ink panel that inserts magnetically into the center console, and when it slots in, the glow transfers through the glass shifter surround.The interior isn’t just inherently interesting; it looks like no other EV on the market. And though its current silver-and-black presentation is a little cold, speccing it in warm leather colors should soften that considerably.But the cabin alone won’t sell the car. For the Luce to work, the exterior has to be achingly beautiful; the car has to drive like a Ferrari, rather than merely accelerate like an EV; and it has to be cool.In the past, you would never bet against Ferrari, but they have stumbled in recent years, and it’s hard to think of a tougher segment than high-end electric sedans. They don’t sell well, they depreciate even faster than they accelerate, and Ferrari has lost its knack for perfectly managing supply and demand, even among its more conventional models. The SF90 should have been a flagship car, and yet not only were they widely available, they now trade hands, virtually new, for half of their retail price. The 12cilindri is stylish, powerful, and brand new, and they already trade hands below MSRP.Maybe they can buck the trend; maybe they can’t. What’s certain is that the Luce will be by far the most interesting car of the year. We’ll find out what it’s like today.

Ferrari Unveils Their First EV — and Biggest Risk

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