Ferrari’s first EV is not for you

Everyone seems to be mad about Ferrari’s first electric car.

The car was called Luce and it was to be revealed on Monday. The design of the five seats (gasp!) was mainly directed by Jony Ive and the design company run by Marc Newson, LoveFrom. Although it ticks a lot of boxes – it has 1,000 horsepower and can hit 60 miles per hour in just two seconds – it’s on track to be the most underrated new car since the Cybertruck.

The widespread rejection of the Nissan-esque looking car also covers the whole spectrum, from weak-kneed reactions to downright vitriolic ones. The company’s stock price has fallen, and even some of the lowest news are acknowledging it in their own ways. (Bloomberg he said Luce is “very broad.”)

The question that is about to return soon is one: Who is Luce?

It’s certainly not about me, or almost anyone reading this. The Luce will cost around $650,000, and this is a Ferrari we’re talking about, so even if you have that kind of money, you’re dealing with a company that, say, choice about his customers.

Is it for existing Ferrari owners? In most cases, the answer is yes – more than 80% of the 14,000 people who bought a Ferrari last year already own one of its cars. It’s hard to imagine that the crowd is excited enough for a car that doesn’t have the fierce corners of Ferrari that have graced bedroom walls for years.

Is it for other car manufacturers? Maybe. The car industry borrows ideas all the time, and there’s a lot in the interior – with lots of jump buttons, Ive’s famous departures – that I’d like to see replicated elsewhere.

Is it for the controller? Well, maybe. The European Union is imposing a ban on the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines in 2035. The Luce could be the first step Ferrari takes to comply with the upcoming regulations.

Basically, on time interview with Cleo Abramwe learn that this external pressure seems to have weighed heavily on Ive. Abrams was given access to one of the four “secret” notebooks that Ive created when he started the project, which contains a mix of board photos and notes written by the iPhone maker himself.

Abrams quoted Ive as comparing the process of creating an electric Ferrari to how luxury Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe made the transition from mechanical power to quartz crystals. Ive wrote that Patek Philippe survived “mainly because it survived and thrived in the revolution” by creating a mixture of old-fashioned watches with batteries and quartz movements.

But he added: “If it had been established that Patek Philippe would change its entire line to quartz, the coming crisis would seem to be similar to the change of Ferrari.” To tell!

However, I find it hard to believe that this is a custom car. The company said it expects Luce to stay beneficial in jumping. And Ferrari’s head of sales and marketing told the Financial Times that the company wants Luce to be “disruptive.”

He also admitted to another interview, saying that the main target of Ferrari and Mr. Luce is someone who “already has an electric car.”

Those words are very similar to Luce’s designs. By definition, this means that Ferrari is not looking to existing owners to make up for Luce’s sales volume.

Which brings us to what perhaps being the correct answer: China. Although Chinese buyers only make up about 10% of Ferrari’s total sales, that number has declined in recent years, as have car executives. you are not ashamed about wanting their first EV to turn things around in the world’s largest battery-powered vehicle market.

Viewed through this lens, Luce’s design makes perfect sense, as – in my eyes – it’s comparable to other designs that have come out of China’s booming industry over the past few years.

So perhaps the right question to ask is this: Will Chinese consumers, who currently have high-tech, high-tech, low-cost options, care about the popularity of the jumping horse on the hood?