How the Ferrari Luce Missed the Mark (and What We Can Learn)
- Adam Bernard
- Jun 8
- 5 min read
There’s no shortage of controversy – or opinions—surrounding Ferrari’s new EV. Things get more interesting when you compare and contrast what Ferrari did versus other brands’ strategies in the ultra-luxury EV space.
First, I should say I don’t think the Luce is a complete disaster. It certainly has taken advantage of the EV powertrain – so, no need to package a giant hunk of internal combustion-related steel or aluminum – to come up with a more dramatic proportion. The claimed Cd of 0.254 is respectable (though not as good as the BMW iX3 or Porsche Cayenne Electric), but I don’t think you can really blame aero for how the Luce looks. In fact, you could argue the exterior is completely appropriate for a vehicle with the sort of interior the Luce was gifted with: rational, logical, and exquisitely constructed with premium materials. What it appears to lack, unfortunately, is (for lack of a better word), a soul. At Ferrari’s Capital Markets Day last October, the company said, “Each of our cars is designed to stir emotions, to offer exceptional driving thrills, to engage and delight.” Unfortunately, the emotions being stirred by the Luce seem to be frustration and annoyance.
Some of the critics have complained that Ferrari should have stayed away from electric vehicles, or that their first EV should have been a supercar. As far as the first point, Ferrari has been slowly moving in this direction for years, starting with the unveiling of the SF90 Stradale plug-in hybrid launched seven years ago, and I think the target of 20% of their volume being EVs in 2030 is realistic given a slowdown in – but not abandonment of—EV adoption. To the second point, I don’t think the technology is there to support a reasonably priced (for Ferrari) electric supercar. You can write a seven-figure check for a Lotus Evija, Rimac Nevera or Pininfarina Battista today, but Ferrari wasn’t looking to enter this market with an ultra- limited-run hypercar. The mass and packaging challenges of today’s EV hardware are nontrivial, and Ferrari’s choice to go with a four-door model—a configuration they have already shown they can execute in line with Ferrari’s ethos in the form of the Purosangue—acknowledges the current limits of EV technology.
To Ferrari’s credit, and in line with their heritage of innovative engineering and technology, there are a few items worth noting in the Luce:
All the EV hardware was developed in-house (leading to 60 new patents), including motors that spin up to 30,000 revolutions per minute, about twice the average of a typical EV
“The control of each wheel’s motion in every direction and in any dynamic condition.” Each wheel has an actuator for traction and regeneration, one for steering, and one for vertical movement. Theoretically, this should lead to an appropriately Ferrari-esque driving experience.
“The authentic approach to sound.” There’s a lot of debate about what an EV should sound like, and Dodge has taken some criticism for their synthetic Hellcat sound used on the Charger’s Fratzonic exhaust. Ferrari’s decision to use the actual sound generated by the electric motors is unique in the industry (and, hopefully, can be deactivated if it sounds too off-putting).
The rest of the package, including the Vehicle Control Unit (updating performance targets 200 times per second) and new aluminum chassis, are about what you’d expect from Ferrari. Unfortunately, the final performance numbers—329 miles WLTP range, 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds, and 350kW charge time—are, well … adequate. There are other EVs out there—all of them more affordable, and some sexier-looking—that perform better. And, unfortunately, unlike Jaguar—who have already let journalists drive the Type 01 – no one’s been behind the wheel of the Luce, so no one knows how this vehicle will drive. Because of that, all the commentary has been around the design. If Ferrari had let people drive the prototype first, it might have softened the blow when the vehicle was fully revealed.
Now, Ferrari’s not the only brand to venture into this space. If you look at what other brands have done, you can see four interesting and different strategic approaches:
REBOOT: Many have compared the Luce to the Type 01, which I think is not quite apples-to-apples. Jaguar was rather clear in stating they were completely rebooting the brand, from design cues to typefaces, and there’s no doubt the Type 00 concept didn’t look anything like what people expected. It seems like the production Type 01 won’t be as extreme as the concept, but we’ll have to wait until September to see it.
EXTEND: I believe the Porsche Taycan is the closest analog to what Ferrari was trying to do. Having already built the Panamera, Porsche extended their brand into the EV space with a four-door coupe – but did so without sacrificing the brand values. As Car and Driver simply stated: “Looks Like a Porsche, Corners Like a Porsche.”
ENHANCE: Rolls-Royce’s approach was a bit different from Ferrari's; the Spectre was designed to be a Rolls-Royce first and an EV second, and they seem to have succeeded. If I didn’t tell you the Spectre was electric, you’d have a difficult time figuring it out based solely on its appearance; it looks like a suitably stately internal-combustion-powered coupe. As it turns out, their all-EV vision for 2030 is now off the table, but even with a significant drop in volume in 2025, it was the brand’s second-best seller.
BUILD: Cadillac, like Rolls, had also targeted an all-electric future for 2030 and has since abandoned it, but they did decide to take a significant risk with the Celestiq (and it’s not clear yet if that will pay off). Cadillac has, for years, been attempting to position itself as a Tier One luxury brand, and so Celestiq was intended to stretch the brand up beyond the $150,000 Escalade V. Adding bespoke capability also adds a bit of street cred, and Cadillac appears to be leveraging that into very limited runs like the CT5-V Blackwing F1 Collectors Series (26 units at $260,000 apiece).
What does the future hold for the Luce? It’s not as if Ferrari hasn’t engaged in the occasional misstep in the past. The Mondial, FF, and 308GT4 all took their share of design-related criticism, but the company continued to build vehicles to satisfy the Ferraristi, and I don’t expect that to change. Yes, the stock dropped when the Luce was unveiled, but it’s since recovered most of its value in less than a week. Ford survived the Edsel, Pontiac survived the Aztek, and Tesla survived the Cybertruck, and so the best one can hope is that Ferrari leadership will learn from this experience.