Ferrari Luce News

The internet can be a horrible swamp, and the comments surrounding Ferrari’s unveiling were particularly, though predictably, brutal.“Great thing Enzo can’t see this garbage,” read one. “He’ll be rolling in his tomb,” said another. “This is such a cynical marketing product purely conceived to make money for the company. It hurts me on a cellular level to see Ferrari stoop so low,” wrote another user who clearly needs to get outside more. Fun fact, though. Those comments had nothing to do with the Luce, Ferrari’s first EV that was revealed to much fanfare and even more furore this week. That was actually the reaction to the Purosangue, the brand’s first SUV, and the model that would – according to the internet at least – definitely, absolutely and entirely destroy the fabled Italian marque.That didn’t happen, though, did it? I recently met an Australian buyer who’d dropped $1.1m on his Purosangue, and he had to wait almost two years for his production slot to open up, such was the demand. It is a massive driver of Ferrari profit, too, and is consistently among the brand's best-selling models, despite a production cap.The point is, the internet was wrong. And I suspect this same Luce storm will die in the teacup in much the same way.Now, I’d be lying if I said my eyebrows didn’t shoot skywards when I first clapped eyes on the Ferrari Luce at its unveiling event in Italy. I can’t say for sure what I expected, but I can say for sure that it wasn’t this. But having now spent some time with it, and even more time digesting it, I can tell you that the internet is wrong once again.The point has been so painfully missed by the Ferrari Facebook army, who seem to have been expecting an 849 Testarossa with a battery. Ferrari has made it clear this isn’t a vehicle designed to appeal to Ferraristi faithful. It’s designed to appeal to an entirely new audience, and that is not an audience with a poster of a petrol-powered Prancing Horse on their wall.The Luce had to look different to everything else in the Ferrari range, both to appeal to a new buyer, but also (and I suspect more importantly) to ring-fence the rest of the Ferrari range and preserve their fuel-exploding mystique. I think that's also why the Luce is slower than the fastest Tesla and lacks the brand's angriest driving modes – it can't have its EV outshine the lustier, brand-defining models."This is a different kind of Ferrari. And that was the point. That was the entire purpose of the exercise," LoveFrom (the firm who penned the Luce) co-founder Mark Newson told me.This wasn't supposed to be in the mould of other Ferraris.But I actually think the more pressing question is, if not this design, then what? Is the issue with the Luce, or is merely the fact that it’s electric?If it’s the former, then tell me what design could have possibly pleased the traditionalists? Something more like a Rimac Nevera? Perhaps, but I would argue Ferrari already has cars like that, and that plonking a couple of electric motors on a 12Cilindri would have only riled the web up worse.If it’s the latter – and I think it definitely is – then what the hell is everyone so upset about? There is one electric Ferrari, and nine petrol-powered options in the brand’s regular range in Australia. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it – the fleet is still 90 per cent in your favour. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder – or whoever is behind the keyboard – but I can tell you this; the exterior design has continued to grow on me. It is undeniably forward-looking, and I think a pretty bold vision of what a family friendly Ferrari EV can be. Is it my favourite-looking Prancing Horse? No, but it doesn't have to be. And if the exterior of the Luce is controversial, the cabin isn't. The interior is spectacular, blending elegance and tech in a way that feels really, really special.Will I buy one? Irrelevant, I'm afraid. I can't afford it. And that's one thing the internet masses and I have very much in common.

The pile-on continues days after Maranello revealed its first electric car, with Lamborghini's CEO implying Ferrari has made a misstep with the new model.The 2026 Ferrari Luce debuted this week, designed by Jony Ive (of original iPhone fame) alongside Australian design veteran Marc Newson, and the internet has not reacted well.Nor has Ferrari’s customer base and investors - a drop in stock price of more than 6 per cent punctuated markets opening the day after the reveal.After that, external criticism from notable figures in the media and wider industry now includes Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann.While not the same direct admonishment as was handed down by former Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo who said he hopes “they at least remove the prancing horse from that car”, Winkelmann told CNBC plug-in hybrids are “the right way to go”.While he wouldn’t be drawn on directly commenting on the Luce as “ speak about its competitors”, he said “by observing the market ... we saw that the acceptance curve for our type of customers is not increasing, and that therefore we decided to move away from a full-electric car into a plug-in hybrid”.“Every brand, every company has to decide for themselves.”Lamborghini recently reversed plans to build a new model EV, the Lanzador, as well as an electric Urus, in favour of PHEV technology.Ferrari, on the other hand, went ahead with the move.Winkelmann’s comments and the more direct criticism from di Montezemolo aren’t the only high-profile snippets of ‘feedback’ aimed at Maranello, with Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister (and Transport Minister) Matteo Salvini having taken to X (formerly Twitter) to say “electric, incredibly expensive (€550,000!), and aesthetically speaking, it speaks for itself... It looks anything but a Prancing Horse car”.“And this is supposed to be ‘innovation’? I wonder what Enzo Ferrari would say…," he said.The technology under the Luce hasn’t been as widely criticised as its design departure from Ferrari’s tradition - 772kW and 990Nm from four electric motors and a 0-100km/h sprint in 2.5 seconds would be welcome in most other stables.

It’s hard to think of a person more connected and invested in the Ferrari brand than Luca di Montezemolo, but even the man who led the company from 1991 to 2014 and was Enzo Ferrari’s personal assistant in the early 1970s can’t abide the Prancing Horse’s new all-electric model.Having viewed the Ferrari Luce’s unveiling at this week’s Confindustria public assembly in Rome, Montezemolo told Italian outlet askanews, “If I were to say what I think, I would be hurting Ferrari. “It risks destroying a legend, and I'm deeply sorry. “I hope they at least remove the prancing horse from that car."It is definitely a car that at least the Chinese won't copy," he said.One of Italy’s most high-profile business and sporting personalities, Montezemolo went from the world of Ferrari, including close management of its Formula 1 efforts, to become Chairman of Alitalia and now sits on the board of McLaren Group.And Montezemolo is not alone in fearing Ferrari’s iconic status may be eroded thanks to the Luce.Speaking on X, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister (and Transport Minister) Matteo Salvini commented on Montezemolo’s views.“Electric, incredibly expensive (€550,000!), and aesthetically speaking, it speaks for itself... “It looks anything but a Prancing Horse car. “And this is supposed to be "innovation"? “I wonder what Enzo Ferrari would say…," he said.Former iPhone designer Jony Ive, who was commissioned by Ferrari to develop the Luce through his LoveFrom consultancy, has seemingly raised the hackles of Ferrari Tifosi around the globe.CarsGuide’s own coverage of the newcomer’s arrival has drawn fierce commentary on social media with feedback like, “Obviously, the designers are not car enthusiasts. Fire the CEO! Better yet, fire them all.  As well as, “One million??? For that Roomba???? Enzo is spinning in his grave!”  And perhaps most cuttingly, “The Ferrari design that became a global laughingstock.” It’s also worth noting Ferrari’s share price plummeted more than six per cent from €309.20 on the morning of the Luce’s launch to €290.00 by the evening’s close and currently sits at €283.75.

Silent and heavy. Two words that usually stalk any big-battery EV. And the two words Ferrari has spent five years, and untold millions, trying to banish from its new and potentially brand-defining electric vehicle, the Luce.The Luce is arguably the biggest gamble Ferrari has taken in decades. It’s no secret that savage, sonorous exhaust notes and fuel-exploding engines are staples of the supercar world. Which is likely why so many supercar makers — including Lamborghini, Aston Martin and McLaren — have either cancelled, delayed or walked back their EV plans.Ferrari, though, has continued at full throttle. The five-year project has at last reached its zenith, with the covers coming off the Luce in Rome ahead of its Australian arrival next year.The project has been shrouded in near-complete secrecy, but the veil has finally been lifted, with the Luce now detailed in full.We now know the Luce isn’t just staggeringly powerful, but will also be among the world’s most expensive EVs, with a price tag expected to sit above one million dollars in Australia.There is a litany of firsts here, too. The Luce is Ferrari’s first EV, the first model the brand has produced with seating for five, and the first vehicle since 2010 to have had its design entirely outsourced.Instead of being penned by Ferrari’s in-house design studio, the Luce was designed — inside and out — by LoveFrom, the US-based design collective founded by former Apple chief designer Jony Ive and Australian Marc Newson.As a result, it bears almost no resemblance to Ferrari’s supercar family. Instead, it adopts a mostly familiar four-door EV silhouette, complete with a sizeable glasshouse designed to look as though it sits beneath the Luce’s outer shell, as if the bodywork has been lowered from above.There are still several truly Ferrari elements, though, like the razor-sharp nose and the deep aero channel that funnels air over the bonnet and beneath the boot spoiler. Then there are the massive staggered alloys – 23 inches at the front and 24 inches at the rear – and spellbinding in the new Turbine wheel design, machined from a solid piece of aluminium.“The concept that we came up with very, very early on — which became kind of the overarching philosophy of part of the exterior design — was this idea that you had an interior glasshouse, which is basically this large, black glasshouse area,” says Marc Newson.“That’s essentially surrounded by the body of the car, which at the end of the day is probably doing most of the aero work.“The reason we identified that as a really interesting direction, or an interesting sort of philosophy to pursue, was that it gave us the opportunity to create some very clean and very unique forms.”But there is no escaping the fact this is unlike anything else in the Ferrari portfolio. And that, Newson says, is no accident.“This is a different kind of Ferrari. And that was the point. That was the entire purpose of the exercise,” he says.The other thing that still feels very Ferrari is the power and performance on offer. Ferrari hasn’t quite reinvented the wheel here, but it has made each of them a hell of a lot more powerful, fitting every corner of the Luce with its own electric motor.Yes, that’s four motors in total, producing a combined 772kW and 990Nm. And that has exactly the effect on performance you might expect, with the Luce clipping 100km/h in 2.5 seconds and 200km/h in 6.8 seconds.In fact, there is a lot going on at each of the Luce’s corners, with every wheel able to deliver power, capture regenerative energy, provide steering inputs or dictate vertical movement to improve contact-patch grip.“The car has an agility that you don’t expect, that you cannot link with your perception of the dimensions of the car,” says Raffaele de Simone, Ferrari’s head of test development and test driving.“The feeling of the Luce is based on the fact that at these four corners, the four motors are managed by a control unit that decides how to satisfy in a very harmonic way. You don’t perceive which system is working on the four corners, you just have to turn the wheel, to place the car where you want on the road, and the car goes there.”The power can flow naturally in automatic mode, or the driver can take more control through the gearshift-style paddles behind the steering wheel. Ferrari’s take on a simulated gearbox doesn’t actually deliver a shift-like step in power, but instead controls torque flow and regenerative braking, effectively delivering more power or more stopping force with each pull of a paddle.“On the left side, you increase the engine braking, exactly like a combustion-engine car. On the other side, you unleash power,” de Simone says.“The more you go on the left, the more you have engine braking. The more you go upshift, the more you release power. These power stages are called Torque Index.“Supposing that you are approaching a tight corner, on the exit you will have the chance to exploit only part of the power of the car, because it’s a way to better control the huge amount of torque. And this helps the driver to be connected with the throttle, with the limitation in power to find the right sensitivity on throttle.“It’s something that, with electric powertrains, was not possible. You were driven by computers, managing in your place the stability of the vehicle. Now you are back to driving, you are back to control, and this is a tool to control it.”Ferrari has also controlled almost every part of the EV build process, including assembling the battery. In this case, it is a 122kWh NCM unit that the brand says delivers a driving range of more than 500km, though there is a catch.Given the power on offer here, gentleness is required to maximise range. Ferrari makes that part easy by limiting output in its different drive modes to preserve the battery. In Range mode, power is capped at 320kW, with the grunt fed through the two rear motors. In Tour, all four motors contribute a total of 460kW. Finally, Performance delivers 725 kW and, presumably, drains the battery very, very quickly.Ferrari says the battery is designed not only to be repaired, but also fully replaced. If, as expected, battery chemistry improves significantly in the next 10 years, the Luce’s 122kWh unit could be swapped out for better tech.Perhaps the biggest change, though, is in the cabin, which feels less like a traditional Ferrari interior and more device-like and tech-focused. It is a beautifully appointed, modern-feeling space, and one in which screens are supplemented by tactile controls.A thin, elegant steering wheel frames a new, ferociously high-tech and layered driver display, in which the top screen has circular cut-outs, creating a gauge-like impression for the screen behind. Physical needles are then attached, rising and falling with your inputs.The central screen is a thing of beauty, too. It is hinged so it can be angled towards the passenger if required, while the switches and toggles beneath are exclusively aluminium or glass. In the top right corner, another needle-adorned digital gauge can cycle through a clock, stopwatch or compass.Also fun is the launch-control function, accessed via a fighter-pilot ejector-seat-style handle mounted next to the driver’s head.“It’s a fusion between digital and analogue, and the physical world,” Ferrari says.But back to the idea of weight and sound — or the lack of it. Ferrari knows the importance of a soundtrack, and it has developed an in-house solution it likens to an electric guitar, and that it says makes a driver feel like Jimi Hendrix.There are no fake Jetsons sounds here. Instead, a sensor and accelerometer capture the sounds and vibrations of the e-motor, match them to your driving inputs, and then amplify them inside and outside the cabin.The system took five years of work and 40,000km of dedicated track testing to develop, with the result, Ferrari says, being an almost rock-star sensation for owners.“Now one might wonder, ‘Okay, but you are amplifying, so it’s fake, right? It’s fake, you’re amplifying,’” says Antonino Palermo, vehicle NVH and sound engineer at Ferrari.“If we think to the musical parallel, an electric guitar musician — Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour — when they are playing, they have expressivity. When they play the guitar you can feel the human aspect, the intention.“Here the musician is you. It’s your driving.”The second key element is the positioning of the battery, and the design of the vehicle itself, with a laser focus on lowering the Luce’s centre of gravity. Ferrari says it is 95mm lower than in the Purosangue, helping the Luce feel at least 400kg lighter when cornering than its actual 2260kg kerb weight. The claimed driver experience, then, is akin to a car that weighs closer to 1700kg.“You look at the car on the outside, you go into it with a forecast of what a big car could be like to drive. You have your background experience that says where the SUVs are and where the sedans are, and then where the rear mid-engine Ferrari is,” de Simone says.“Where to place in this scenario the experience of the Luce? The car has an agility that you don’t expect, that you cannot link with your view of the dimensions of the car.“For this type of car, in terms of size, roominess and versatility, there is no connection with the handling of the car. This ratio has been completely rewritten.”