How Ferrari screwed up the design of its first EV

For almost 80 years, Ferrari has occupied a special place in the culture where its cars have been desirable, even for people who hate and can afford them. Cost, stability, and change Transparency of the purchasing process allowed Ferrari to rise above the common opposition. Maybe you can’t afford one, but you still want one.

It is the establishment of Luce is all electric this weekhowever, the company fell flat, drawing the ire of the Internet in the form of an insult, laughing memesand The decline of AI. People compared it to a vacuumMagic Mouse, and, most ironically, and Nissan Leaf.

Luce has arrived at a time when economic inequality and corporate growth have not seen this or been frowned upon. In that environment, a car that costs more than most people will earn in a decade, yet is seen as a low-cost and mass-market product, is always the hardest hit. Ferrari has always sold passion in classes. The $640,000-plus Luce exudes elegance while keeping the price of a Ferrari, angering believers and fans alike.

“These developments show how identity, expectations, and structure go hand in hand,” Derek JenkinsSVP of Design and Brand at Lucid, he said Seaside. “I see several things in the exterior design that still refer to the brand. The rear lights for one, the red color, and finally, the logo. Everything else – the volume, the lack of intelligence, even the shape – is not missing from the outside. The face of the car is not recognizable … It is inconsistent with its brand.”

The car was developed in collaboration with the famous Apple designers Jony Ive and Marc Newson, through their company LoveFromand it has four motors, 1,035 horsepower, and about 500 km of electric range. Ive been very critical of car manufacturers in the past, saying that he he found the modern form “amazing,” but recently admitted that he was surprised by it how hard it was to make a car.

The Luce is the longest Ferrari ever built, focusing on the brand’s sharp, aggressive lines for a sweeping, airy look. It’s also the first five-seater Ferrari, with a low profile that makes it look like a hatchback. It looks like a dark “glass” cabin inside a very different aluminum shell. And instead of a traditional grille, it has an S-duct swoop that goes down. It’s confusing to look at.

Like Raphael Zammitchair of transportation design at College for Creative Studies in Michigan, he explained, industrial design and car design are two very different disciplines, and skills from one do not change the translation of the other. Ive’s design for the Apple iPhone made the phone stand out, Zammit said, and was “100% appropriate for a digital communication device that you hold in your hand.” But a Ferrari is not an iPhone.

Ferrari’s decision to write LoveFrom was a conscious decision, Zammit argued. “I have a race,” he said. “When you hire Brad Pitt, you hope to get Brad Pitt.” Luce’s interior was praised for its combination of analog and digital. But the interior language might be more at home in a small city car, he added, like a Fiat 500 or Cinquecento, rather than a big car that sells for half a million.

Ferrari shares it fell by about 8 percent in Milan and 5.3 percent in New York the day after the Unveiling, and circled around that level until Wednesday, when analysts called the mix of “to create hatred” and investor concerns about R&D costs and return on investment. Despite the blowback at the public, Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna said on Thursday that “interest was strong” in Luce, mainly with new customers, and the stock has risen back to the original levels.

Stephanie Brinley, car specialist at S&P Global MobilityHe said that this duplication has increased because of the economic and political times in which we live. “It may be unprecedented in the history of Ferrari,” he continued, “I don’t see why this car needs to destroy Ferrari’s heritage.”

A moment of stomping together

Criticism of the design has come from far and wide, including harsh words from the Italian authorities and even the former president and chairman of Ferrari. It even spreads beyond the automotive media and Wall Street, reaching culture sites, political news, and auto junk food.

Competitors in the supercar world were also watching. Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann, without commenting directly on Luce, said His company’s decision to shelve its EV plans and focus on plug-in hybrids was “the right move,” adding that innovation should not be automated or forced on customers.

Among car designers, criticism is no longer unheard of. It looks like it was created by AI. It’s like the math of a lot of different topics,” Zammit said, adding, “it’s frighteningly close to nobody.”

There’s a lot critics hate about Luce. The shape and volume, for example, are all wrong for a Ferrari, which is known for its lithe and aggressive lines. The rear end of the car is normal, even with the air vents above the windshield (movie The authorities show the car to Papa Leo showing that you can pass your whole arm).

“It’s not a sports car, it’s not a city car, and it’s not luxury,” Zammit said. “It looks like they’ve snowballed a little bit or sold a lot with LoveFrom… The process is very muddy, because of what they’re doing versus what they’re saying in different parts of the car.”

Ferrari may have ulterior motives in its decisions. The company has been open about wanting to expand its presence in Chinawhere electric cars are common, large gasoline-powered cars face high taxes, and many Chinese cars closely resemble Ferraris.

Chinese consumers often count in circles 10 percent of all Ferrari sales, but that share has declined in recent years. The Luce, with its large mirrors, narrow interior, and polarizing exterior, reads less like a Ferrari and more like something designed to compete in a market where Chinese manufacturers are launching high-end EVs.

If that calculation sounds good, it should. BMW spent the better part of the decade developing its kidney grilles that earned it a lot of scorn in Western markets. Head of BMW Design, Adrian van Hooydonk, finally agreed clearly: “In other parts of the world, like China, it’s fine; people are still asking for bigger grilles.”

BMW has continued to push forward with its Neue Klasse language, repositioned globally to resonate across the board rather than cater to a single market. The lesson that many car manufacturers learned from BMW’s approach was that a brand based on a certain concept creates the impression of a certain buyer, the first audience recognizes it immediately and tends to adopt it themselves.

Benedetto Vigna, a former head of the semiconductor industry, took over Ferrari in 2021, and described Luce as “Leapfrog moment” in the company’s history, saying he feels privileged to lead.” This determination can be confirmed on the engineering side, but whether the design is compatible with the Ferrari badge is another question.

The whole nature of Ferrari, as a symbol, offensive, money, it depends on being clearly true to himself, his heritage, and, most importantly, his design.

When you remove the engine, the most exciting thing in Ferrari history, you have to replace it with something compelling, Zammit points out, and the Luce design doesn’t do that.

Although the design was made, Zammit was careful to separate it from the long-term health of the brand, calling it “a bit of a stumbling block, both in concept and in execution,” but said Ferrari had too strong a reputation to be completely destroyed.

One thing is clear in the face of all the negative press: In trying to show off the new era of Ferrari, Luce has suddenly made everyone interested in the old one.