[rickdeckard]

Makes sense from corporate perspective to hire the "Apple Designer" to craft the interior experience, it's fresh input from a very respected UX design-lead of another industry.

But handing over responsibility for the exterior is quite questionable IMO.

To me, the exterior has lost almost all of Ferrari's identity. It's a nice car-design, but if you'd tell me it's a Hyundai, Lexus or BYD I would believe you.

I wonder what political struggle was behind that within Ferrari. I can't imagine this design was received well, and I doubt that Ferrari actually asked for help on exterior design. It's more likely that Jony Ive demanded it...

(Also the fact that they presented the interior much earlier than the exterior could be an indicator for internal disagreements...)

[ahmedfromtunis]

I lived through similar dynamics (though not at Ferrari, of course).

The management knows that they need something new and out of their comfort zone. Someone (from within or without) suggests an idea that would never been accepted in the olden days.

The management, for the sake of their company, would suppress every instinct they have built over the years, often over-correcting. This inevitably results in some questionable choices seeping in, in the name of openness to new paradigms.

And not every time this goes well.

I'm not saying this is what's happening here. These are world-class engineers and designers, but nobody is immune from a bad decision or two.

[rickdeckard]

Exactly, I've experienced the same a few times, in different industries.

That's why I can imagine Ive's company wowing the management with an early interior concept pitch, but then demanding also exterior design ownership as part of the agreement because "it needs to be a coherent design, like an iPhone".

Sounds perfectly reasonable and easy to vouch for. Management feels like they are anyway in control because they decide whether to launch the product or not.

But if the product starts to shift over the course of the development, someone in management has to make the call. And that's a very expensive call to make.

I've personally been with companies which had such big-name collaborations that "deviated" from expectations in very advanced development-stages.

I've seen companies successfully intervening, but more often than that scale-down the project or cancelling the entire collaboration and ending the project, as no partial solution could be agreed on.

The latter was especially common with Design Companies (e.g. Porsche Design, Prada, the earlier LVMH), as their contracts were not phrased for collaboration but for creative control. I would assume Jony Ive sees himself in the same bracket...

[xorcist]

This happens all the time. Ferrari taking inspiration from BYD is certainly brave, but it there is a fine line between bravery and good old stupidity.

As the saying goes: It's good to keep an open mind, just not so open your brains fall out.

[tim333]

Ironically BYD's 300 mph looks a bit like a trad ferrari (https://www.autotrader.co.uk/content/news/byd-builds-world-s...)

[KoolKat23]

They needed something bold for their first foray into this market, but this is wrong direction bold lol

[skeeter2020]

honest question: is there any difference between this and the Pontiac Aztek? I guess time will answer that one...

>> the Aztek was to signal a design renaissance for GM, and to "make a statement about breaking from GM's instinct for caution. One designer said that during the design process, the Aztek was made "aggressive for the sake of being aggressive." Peters, the Chief Designer said "we wanted to do a bold, in-your-face vehicle that wasn't for everybody."

[bombcar]

The Pontiac Aztek was at least bold, and like the Nissan Cube, people didn't like the looks, but those who bought it really seemed to love it inordinately.

This thing isn't even bold, it's just ... a generic car?

If they had made it outrageous (think: teardrop which is most efficient aerodynamically or something) it'd make more sense.

[abtinf]

> Pontiac Aztek was at least bold

How bad does a design have to be that this is a valid attack?

The Luce is so generic it borders on nihilism - destroying the very concept of Ferrari precisely because Ferraris are good.

[trhway]

i'd say BMW i8 is more Ferrari than the Luce.

The Luce is stated to hit 190mph. I honestly doubt the reality of getting that speed on real track. Having battery in the floor helps stability of course. Yet it still looks to be too high for such performance. Look at similar EV - Porsche Taycan - top speed from 155 to 190mph for the top model. The 190mph model has similar horsepower, and much better aerodynamics and sits lower.

[sleepybrett]

My cousin bought a brand new aztek off the lot for way way below sticker like 60% because they sold so poorly because of how ugly they were perceived to be. I think the people who love them probably love them because of how cheap they were.

[martinvol]

Isn't this how the Jaguar fiasco came to be?

[hliyan]

When I first saw the third generation Nissan Primera [1] many years ago, this is the thought that occurred to me: some bold, enterprising designer somehow managed to convince the organization to push through a radical, risky departure from their usual aesthetic. The 2010 Nissan Juke too, felt similar (I owned one myself). In my view, both models worked out. I don't think Ferrari was that lucky.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Primera

[danudey]

Well I'll say this for the design (as a non-designer):

1. It doesn't look like any other car, though it still obviously looks like a car

2. The buzz, good or bad, is going to mean people hear about it, talk about it, and see it

3. If you see it in public you're likely to recognize it; whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen

[rickdeckard]

But doesn't it look simply like "every sports car", like a dilution of all sports cars?

To me it's like how a sports car would look in a video game which has no license to use actual cars.

A "McLovin Testosterona"...

[wildzzz]

To sports car enthusists, there is a certain flavor in each car produced by the major companies that one can recognize without seeing the badge. Even the SUVs carry over that recognizable design language like with the Cayenne and Urus. This doesn't look like a Ferrari, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with coloring outside the lines. But then again, this is not something Ferrari fans (with money to buy a Ferrari) would expect from the House of Pininfarina, it looks like an iPad. Maybe that doesnt matter, maybe Ferrari is more angling towards the kind of buyer that wants a Ferrari but also needs something he can take the kids to school in. Maybe the kind of person with Ferrari money but Tesla sensibilities.

Think of it like this: even the most expensive iPhone isn't that much more than the base model. There's a limit on what you can buy, anyone with a decent job can afford the same phone that billionaires use. But what if there was something even more premium? Something that's higher performance and looks better, would you buy it if money was no issue?

[ethbr1]

> Maybe that doesnt matter, maybe Ferrari is more angling towards the kind of buyer that wants a Ferrari but also needs something he can take the kids to school in.

If Ferrari wanted to build a Cayenne, I'm sure they could have just leaned on Porsche's expertise in slapping badges on beige SUVs for boring upper middle class suburbanites...

[rpozarickij]

I wonder whether the mere-exposure effect [0] could also be at play here.

For me, the first reaction to the Ferrari Luce was utter shock, but after looking at it again several hours later I'm starting to see some of its exterior elements differently (although my brain finds it hard to call the car "beautiful" in the same way as some of the other recent Ferrari models).

It looks like a decision was made to depart from the "modern"-looking Ferraris, but the direction of that departure seems to be very different from what the competitors are doing and what the general public is looking for visually in such a car (but it's worth keeping in mind that members of the general public aren't really customers of this car).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect

[rickdeckard]

Just to clarify: I'm not saying the car is ugly, it's a good looking design.

But it's not a Ferrari design, it dropped almost all of the brands' identity and design language in favor of becoming a more "uniform sportscar design".

To me personally this is quite on-brand for Jony Ive's past work, where the exterior design of the product is diluted to the "least-offending version of its kind", a vessel to the high-quality interior experience which is focused to "excite the user".

In the mobile phone space this was disruptive, because (accidentally) it created the "normalized mobile computing platform" needed to transform the industry into a Smartphone industry.

But I'd say the sports car industry is different, I don't see a benefit in having the "most normalized sports car"...

[rahoulb]

I've only ever sat in a Ferrari, never driven one, but the interior looks exactly like what I'd expect from a modern Ferrari.

As for the exterior, I really don't like the front - but I think that's because a tall Ferrari is just wrong (for example, I think the Purosangue looks incredibly generic too).

[bombcar]

Exactly - it's a "fine sedan" for Kia, Honda, even Apple to release (I'm sure someone has put an Apple logo on it already).

But it doesn't scream "Ferrari" nor does it scream "look at me I'm driving a half-million euro car".

[carefree-bob]

When I saw the design, I thought "This looks like a Tesla".

I'm sure it's an awesome car, and also a high quality premium experience. The question is whether it can command supercar prices - they are selling it for $650,000, and I don't quite understand the value proposition of a superior Tesla selling for that much.

Now you can say, well what is the value proposition of the other ICE Ferraris selling for that much? And that's the point, when they first came out, they didn't sell for such high prices, it was a long period of decades in which collectors were bidding up the prices due to their interest in collecting Ferraris and reselling them, at which point the cars became an investment and collectible item, rather than just "expensive high end vehicles".

So when you break from that tradition, but assume you can carry over the collector premium -- particularly for a disposable tech-heavy EV -- then that is where Ferrari made a mistake, and not only Ferrari, but there is a reason none of the EV supercars have sold well, or will sell well. Tech and collectables don't mix.

If you want an example of a brand that is doing this well, look at Rolls Royce. Rolls is selling actual luxury experiences, and their prices reflect the unique ownership experience, not the collectible value, as all Rolls Royces suffer massive depreciation, and have always suffered massive depreciation. No one buys a Rolls Royce expecting it to go up in value, it's understood that in 30 years, you can pick it up for less than the cost of the tires on the brand new model. In that environment, EVs work very well, and Rolls is having success with their high priced EVs that none of the automakers are having in the hypercar market.

[mlhpdx]

Rolls knows their customers, as absurd as it may seem. The electrics hit the Royce brand first because it is the car “in which you are driven” and likely the reasons you state. Bentley, the car “you drive” has a different customer base and will be closer to the “normal” hypercar experience.

[mebizzle]

And the experience makes sense for what Rolls aims to do. Riding in a Spectre feels way more like riding in other Rolls' than it does an EV.

[AquinasCoder]

Where is the Ferrari in this at all? I completely agree that they missed the mark in design. While the interior is 100% Jony Ive, the exterior screams "design by committee."

An electric Roma successor would have been much better received and possibly cheaper for them to develop (who knows?).

The silver lining in all this is that it means that the EV arm will not cannibalize their ICE cars.

[giobox]

The exterior screams asian-EV design langauge to me - which may not be an accident. Ferrari have made no secret of their hopes this car will succeed for them in China.

> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-09/ferrari-s...

> https://archive.is/ilT3d

[KoolKat23]

No it doesn't, it screams 2026 Nissan Micra.

It looks a little like the BYD seal too perhaps that's why you say this. The Asian sports cars look nothing like this, only practical sedans.

[KennyBlanken]

No Chinese EV looks anything like this?

It looks like the EV version of Apple widgets and the iPhone home screen. There's so much rounded squares /rounded rectangle bullshit...it looks like something that was designed in 2010 and is about to get the shit sued out of it by Apple.

Every automaker is desperately trying to chase Chinese buyers. Most of them are too stupid to realize the Chinese can just....buy better Chinese EVs, and if they're not buying a chinese EV, it's because they don't want a Chinese EV, they want the foreign company's design and cachet.

Peopel don't buy Ferraris because they look like Chinese EVs. People buy them because they look like Ferraris and are exclusive.

Audi is doing stupid shit, too. They recently started making cars under the "AUDI" brand. Yeah. "AUDI". Versus "Audi" with rings.

If Ferrari wanted to sell more cars in China they could just stop be absurd dicks about a)who can buy their cars b)what people can do with them.

Things like "prohibit people from lending them to reviewers so Ferrari can game the review by putting on different tires and tuning the suspension for the specific track the reviewer will be using." Although might actually impress Chinese buyers since it aligns with them so well, culturally.

[giobox]

Ain't just me who thinks it looks like an Asian EV:

> https://www.euronews.com/next/2026/05/26/ferraris-550000-ele...

> https://nypost.com/2026/05/26/business/ferraris-new-640k-ele...

> https://www.barrons.com/articles/ferrari-stock-price-luce-ev...

> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/05/26/ferraris-475...

etc

[rickdeckard]

I agree as well.

But that's not because Asian EVs have a specific identity, but because the Luce's design has NO identity. It has no heritage, like a sports car from a company that didn't exist 15 years ago.

At the moment I don't even see alot in it to BUILD a design-heritage upon, not many accents you could carry onwards to other cars.

The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is also an Asian EV. But it has character, it has accents, it has "rough edges". I can see aspects of it carrying onwards to the point that I see a van on the street and instantly know "it's a Ioniq". I don't see much of that in the Luce right now...

[justinclift]

It's be super funny if it has more usb ports than a macbook too. :D

[CamperBob2]

It wouldn't even have been that hard to make it recognizable as a Ferrari. https://old.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1to71ad/jony_ive_de... looks pretty darned good in comparison.

[dnpls]

The exterior is just a magic mouse! At least those switches in the dashboard are real switches, not touchscreen buttons.

[tclancy]

I feel like the real story is Jony Ive’s deep love for the Subaru SVX on display here.

[xattt]

Hey, leave the SVX alone!

[tclancy]

Must have been their sales pitch.

[bcatanzaro]

Underrated comment

[amelius]

> The exterior is just a magic mouse!

I hope they didn't put the charging socket on the bottom.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jwU1ZvVFMXw

[atombender]

Like this? https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/1taf5uw/apple_car_ch...

[tcp_handshaker]

This is a disaster for Ferrari. You buy the brand, the car and its lack of reliability is well known and the difficult handling also well known. But its La Ferrari.

This is the type of car that will be seen in the hands of people buying Cybertruck or the UK chavs that now buy Rolex. The moment that happens your brand is dead. Your customers will flock away back to Buggati and Aston Martin.

Massive Ferrari mistake.

[wildzzz]

Ferrari doesn't need to sell a massive number of these to keep the lights on, they can sell as few or as many as they want. Remember that this thing costs $500k, the market is relatively small compared to all of the other EVs for sale, even the luxury models.

[mc32]

I agree on the aesthetics drastically breaking from legacy but I very much doubt charvers will afford this car.

[tibbydudeza]

Some UK soccer players

[vablings]

The clientele for the lower trim Ferrari is not the same pool as Bugatti purchasers.

[tcp_handshaker]

The actual correctness of your statement, and that I agree with, is irrelevant to the point I was making.

[BrokenCogs]

IMO this is a risk worth taking. The Ferrari brand is rather stagnant and not innovative. They need to do something like this to drive more attention and sales. Even if this particular model does not sell well they can refine and make better selling EVs down the line.

[tcp_handshaker]

>> They need to do something like this to drive more attention and sales.

The objective of a luxury brand is not volume sales.

There is the well known anecdote of somebody asking André Heiniger, then chairman/president of Rolex: "How is the watch business?" and he answering something along the lines of: "I have no idea. Rolex is not in the watch business..."

[butlike]

According to one of the recent Acquired (podcast) episodes, they could ramp up production to increase sales at any time, they just don't in order to keep brand value and desire high, so I'm not sure it's that.

[turtlesdown11]

> The Ferrari brand is rather stagnant and not innovative. They need to do something like this to drive more attention and sales.

Wild assertion. Ferrari is currently #8 largest market cap for a car manufacturer. They're valued above Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen and every other Euro car brand.

They couldn't be more successful as a small automaker if they tried. But you think they need to do something like this to drive attention and sales?

[BrokenCogs]

the world is shifting to EVs and Ferrari doesn't want to get left behind. It's making a bold statement with this model

[laserlight]

What is bold about this cheap design?

[zeroc8]

It's bold to offer something as ugly as this for that kind of money. Jony Ive should stick to designing aluminium cubes. That's where his talents are.

[BrokenCogs]

It's completely different from the other Ferrari models (much like the Cybertruck for Teslas)

[turtlesdown11]

which has nothing to do with your (wild) statements about how Ferrari is stagnant and desperate to boost sales...

[BrokenCogs]

When was the last time the world talked about Ferrari like this? They've been stagnant for that long

[gt0]

I thought the same. If it had a Kia badge on it, it wouldn't shock me, and I think Kia make some quite nice cars now.

I don't like the interior. I think this style can work for some things, it reminds me of a NuPhy keyboard, blocky plastic that looks nice in some circumstances.

For me this is not a Ferrari-standard of car, Ferraris are strikingly beautiful, and this just isn't.

[Mikho]

Ferrari Luce is the nicest KIA design ever.

[rickdeckard]

Or a fairly nice evolution of Honda maybe...

[TylerE]

Never buy a Hyundai/Kia. They make the dumbest cost cutting decisions, like their recent immobilizer fiasco. The dealers are also, largely without exception, terrible.

[seabass-labrax]

Several Kia models produced around 2005 incorporated the questionable design of having the engine control electronics located below the oil sump - as I've seen first-hand what that does to the vehicle's maintenance costs, I'm inclined to agree with you!

[Copernicron]

I know a number of people with this view on Kia and Hyundai. "They were garbage back in 199X or 200X so they're still garbage now." Except that was twenty or thirty years ago and from what I've heard they made advances in design and quality since then.

[TylerE]

The immobilizer issue I mentioned effects virtually every Kia built between 2011 and 2021.

They also do not do well in CR's annual surveys.

They're still bad, and there is ample objective evidence.

[Copernicron]

Most of what I've heard is about the electric vehicles they produce, not the ICE cars. My understanding is their EVs are different beasts and much better.

[bombcar]

Kia has some competitive vehicles in niches that not many seem to want to service, and I suspect many of their buyers do not live in areas where immobilizers are going to be a major issue.

Our dealer was fine, and it's been fine. It's a car car, not really doing anything amazing.

Brands, but especially Asian ones, seem to go through cycles - this thing is absolute shit, nobody buy it, company fixes the problems and gets reliable, but still thought of as crap, company keeps improving, people start to notice, becomes known as a real good and reliable deal, company starts charging more and more. Kia's on the ascendant right now, where Toyota was 20+ years ago.

[BoingBoomTschak]

The immobilizer thing isn't due to stupidity, but corner cutting taken to ridiculous extremes. I don't think a company can recover from being run down by bean counters.

[Jblx2]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hyundai+iccu

[lukan]

Maybe, but anecdotically people I know who bought new Kia's also got rid of them, after trying different models that all had interesting problems.

[lbreakjai]

Kia is pretty much well regarded in Europe. It was the first company to offer a 7 years warranty. I've been very happy with mine.

[turtlesdown11]

They offer (still I assume) a ten year warranty in the States. They offer such a long warranty because the perceived reliability of their vehicles is so low.

[vlucas]

The dealer issues are true, but we have been very happy with our 2021 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy after owning it for 5+ years and 82k miles. Budget luxury with pretty good handling and performance. It's a great value package if you need a 3rd row vehicle (I have 4 kids).

[baq]

Doesn’t matter as long as it isn’t ugly. Porsche made the cayenne and the panamera, too. The V12 buyer won’t even look at this, but the luxury EV buyer now has a new thing to consider.

[TylerE]

No, the V12 buyers will buy these in droves. Ferrari is incredibly elitest. You’ve got to buy multiple lower tier vehicles to even be allowed to maybe eventually buy a build slot for one of the high end cars.

[LanceH]

Worst case Ferrari will make people buy these so they can buy something else.

[rubyn00bie]

They’ll likely have to buy several of these, in different colors, and agree to sell them back to Ferrari at a massive loss… only for Ferrari to repeat the process over and over.

The shenanigans manufacturers like Ferrari and Porsche are allowed to get away with is so frustrating. But when people treat cars like collectibles and never even intend to drive them, I suppose there’s little reason not to.

[NetMageSCW]

Porsche cars are designed to be driven and they are.

[wiseowise]

Panamera is a beaut, though.

[robotresearcher]

Compared to the Cayenne I’m with you. Compared to a 911 though…

[baq]

we'll have to agree to disagree I guess ;)

[xiphias2]

Not really, I love the original Taycan. It's too bad the second generation looks a bit more like BYD/Model 3, I wish they would have stayed with the original design even if it means staying with lower range.

[discreteevent]

The back of the car is ugly.

[kleiba2]

I suppose by "back" you mean the whole car?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy22rddy5no

[flohofwoe]

Sheesh, it looks like its own Chinese knockoff if that clichee were still a thing :D

[IshKebab]

Mm... yeah I guess except the weird front grill it's doesn't look exactly bad... but then you scroll down to the other Ferrari at the bottom of the page... "oh".

[dietr1ch]

At least it tries to look like a Ferrari a bit more than the rest of the car. It's a rounded F40 without the wing

[mapcars]

Define ugly

[wiseowise]

Ferrari Luce ugly.

[LgWoodenBadger]

Ferrari has historically worked with outside designers. Pininfarina being probably the most prominent. Bertone, as well. Ferrari brought design in-house relatively recently.

[dotancohen]

  > To me, the exterior has lost almost all of Ferrari's identity. It's a nice car-design, but if you'd tell me it's a Hyundai, Lexus or BYD I would believe you.

I think that is the idea. Ferrari presented a plausible EV exterior, albeit one that will not appeal to Ferrari's target market (and budget). The resulting non-sales could be used to justify the position that Ferrari's target market is not interested in EVs, should the need arise.

[rickdeckard]

But justify to who?

Ferrari already got their exception from the EU regulation for CO² reduction via the E-Fuel loophole, which was tailored for them and allows them to continue selling V8 and V12 ICE-based cars beyond 2036 if they only use synthetic e-fuels.

This secures their existing business model for customers who insist on ICE-based cars and are willing to pay the premium for it.

A portion of their addressable market shifts to EV-based sports cars though, they are shooting themselves into the foot by not establishing a BOLD identity in this space soon. A bland product with a "we used to be big in ICE" brand won't cut it there

[Volker-E]

Wasn't tailored for Ferrari, or at least not for Ferrari alone. Porsche is a much bigger player revenue – 5x the annual revenue.

[rickdeckard]

it was created after lobbying/intervention of Italy and Germany, so yes, also for Porsche.

But Porsche has a much wider palette of cars, if ICEs would be banned without exception they could adapt.

Their concern was that Ferrari could be exempted entirely from the regulation due to their low total volume, with Porsche ending up unable to compete on ICE sports cars with them because they're no longer allowed to build one.

Hence the "Ferrari loophole". Not just for Ferrari, but BECAUSE of Ferrari

[mattlondon]

I thought a similar thing too.

"Look, we tried to create an EV and no one bought it. So we need to retain that carve-out in the regulations that mean we do not have to electrify our entire product line or we will go out of business entirely."

I'd totally buy this car if it looked like that and was from a mainstream manufacturer (i.e. priced normally), but yeah I cannot see a typical ferrari owner buying one.

[aenis]

Its a divorce car. You get to keep your real ferrari(s), and buy her one of those. Good for school/grocery runs, has the right badge, probably will drive like a normal car. There exists a demography for those kinds of cars. Lots of people dont care one bit about the style, its all about the brand. (I doubt anyone would consider Bentley SuVs as good looking, for instance - yet they seel well).

[dotancohen]

That was the deal with the Aston Martin Cygnus as well. It wasn't meant for enthusiasts. It was generally sold to wives who bought them alone - much to the fury of husbands later that day. Some Aston Martin salesman once mentioned this in an interview, mentioning that otherwise there was no way to move that vehicle.

[Cyan488]

> Aston Martin Cygnus

Googling this ruined my day

[w4der]

Wasn't the Cygnus just an emissions compliance vehicle?

[dotancohen]

They still had to sell it.

[dontlaugh]

There’s nothing wrong with them going out of business either, though.

[JetSetIlly]

Ferrari have long worked with third-party coachbuilders such as Pininfarina. I'm not sure how much autonomy Ive had over the final design, but if it's anything like the relationship with Pininfarina, etc. the design would have been a collaboration.

[rounce]

Though Pininfarina, Zagato and others have a long history of designing beautiful car bodies, many of which have more than stood the test of time.

[rickdeckard]

And the press-release [0] sounds like Ferrari had very limited creative control:

"Introducing a team from outside the Ferrari Design Studio led by Flavio Manzoni invited a new perspective and cross-fertilisation, enabling a new design language to be introduced."

"LoveFrom was given the creative freedom needed to define the design direction of the project from the outset, translating this design language into an authentic Ferrari experience."

[0] https://www.ferrari.com/en-US/corporate/articles/ferrari-luc...

[bombcar]

Sounds to me like LoveFrom didn't spend enough time learning about Ferrari first.

[loolatrix]

"(Also the fact that they presented the interior much earlier than the exterior could be an indicator for internal disagreements...)" - not necessarily, they did similar already back in the 1990ies, when the new line of front-engined GTs as successors to the mid/rear-engined Testarossa came up. At first some appetizers about the new way of building chassis (Ferrari had a decades old legacy of building rather outdated tubular space frame chassis), followed with tidbits about exterior and interior designs of at first the 456, and then the actual two-seater successor to the Testarossa, the 550.

[darau1]

Maybe I'm being silly, but I felt a strange existential dread watching the video. I asked myself: who is being marketed toward? In my head, it's Apple lovers that want to larp as car people, and having the money to waste on such an endeavor.

edit: I just realized, I don't know the price, but I've basically described tesla people. I wonder how many of these buyers already own one...

edit 2: price is around 600,000 USD -- it's a super tesla!

[rawoke083600]

I do get a lot of "plastic" vibes and "high quality raching sim gear"

[jm4]

It looks like a Polestar.

The performance is certainly what you would expect from Ferrari, but it doesn’t matter. This isn’t a car that should have a Ferrari emblem on it. This will go down as one of the all time automotive blunders.

I think Jony Ive is done too. He was responsible for those awful MacBooks that generated a class action lawsuit and now this. It’s hard to come back from two consecutive flops.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> It looks like a Polestar.

I don't agree. Polestar has their own "design language", they do not look the same.

I think that I prefer the look of a Polestar 5 to this Ferrari. Of course, I've never seen either vehicle in person, so what do I really know.

[PaulHoule]

I felt the web site was "lights on nobody home", I think the interesting fact about this vehicle is that it is electric and even though you can pick different colors and a heated steering wheel as an option there isn't a single word about power train.

Just being a legendary brand like Ferrari doesn't mean that 100% of us understand 100% about 100% of your products.

[badc0ffee]

> Just being a legendary brand like Ferrari doesn't mean that 100% of us understand 100% about 100% of your products.

This attitude probably alienates the next generation of potential Ferrari buyers, too.

[mrandish]

> what political struggle was behind that within Ferrari ... could be an indicator for internal disagreements.

A while back I read a couple books on the history of Ferrari and came away with the clear sense that Enzo was one of those unique iconoclastic entrepreneurs who was brilliant, flawed and irreplaceable. After Enzo, Ferrari's management has mostly hovered between being inconsistent and incomprehensible. From the racing team to road cars, the company has become legendary for political fiefdoms and internal conflict.

I agree the Luce exterior may be the least Ferrari-looking Ferrari ever. I suspect it's going to be a disaster for the brand.

[newsclues]

Ferrari has certainly outsourced design of the exterior before, often to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pininfarina

[pge]

To what extent is the design a response to the constraints imposed by the electric drivetrain? The car is built around the engine. An EV has a large battery and small motor(s), while a gasoline sports car has a big engine in the front. I'm curious how much of the Luce design is a direct result of having to work around the drivetrain (noting that the Mustang Mach E also deviated significantly from the classic designs of past Mustangs in some of the same ways as the Luce deviates from past Ferraris).

[bombcar]

EVs generally have more "freedom" to design the car the way they want, as it's usually motors (in the wheels, which you probably need to have anyway) and then the battery (which can be a giant slab, but that's for cost and maintenance reasons; there's nothing stopping a $650k car from having batteries custom laid to fit however they want).

[c0de517e]

I kinda doubt it. Ive doesn't have that much pull, most people don't know him, definitely not as much pull as Ferrari, one of the most recognizable brands in the world. And I bet Ferrari was into this, they make a ton of new models anyways, and they probably know that sport car enthusiasts would not have jumped to an EV no matter what. Much better to try to make something very different than their lineup than just an engine swap.

[caycep]

Exterior has frequently been Pininfarina w/ a distinct design language...changing it up wholesale would necessarily result in something quite different

[amelius]

The problem with cars is if you take all design constraints into consideration you will always end up with something that looks similar.

[browningstreet]

You sound like my old man who swears all coffee tastes the same. Folgers is Starbucks is Blue Bottle.

[amelius]

Think again ...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46173798

[nelsonic]

100% looks like a BYD/Hyundai; the front (exterior) is hideous. Surely this isn't the production version of the vehicle? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[WarmWash]

(Conspiracy) Plot twist:

Teams inside Ferrari despise EV's (because they lack 10,000 moving parts and loud noises), so they pushed hard for this design, ensuring a flop, and giving ferrari cold EV feet for the foreseeable future.

[UltraSane]

I like how it looks but it does look like a BYD car instead of a Ferrari.

[make3]

it looks like a generic cop car from a sci fi game

[Spooky23]

It’s a brilliant design. Everyone here is complaining about it, and hardly anyone is saying “EV is no true Ferrari”.

The whole point of Ferrari is high enough volume to print money, low enough to make almost bespoke cars whose sheet metal can change quickly. If the platform is adaptable for that purpose, it will be a success.

[deepvibrations]

I think the front of the car (arguably the most impactful part) does not really reflect the true Ferrari character which is a shame.

Agree that the Interior and rest is all nice enough though.

[pegasus]

Is this so unusual for Ferrari and do we need to blame it on Jony Ive? Ferrari's been selling an SUV since 2024, after all...

[NetMageSCW]

And the Purosangue’s design runs circles around this appliance.

[alfalfasprout]

The interior is also, frankly, very meh.

[concinds]

Edit: ignore

[chrisan]

There's a difference between picking a car out of a lineup to play in a game and taking (a lot of) money to buy a Ferrari.

I too would pick fun/weird stuff to play, but if I had Ferrari money I wouldn't be touching this.

[King-Aaron]

I just feel they were required to start an EV offering to comply with EU standards, but have designed something of a joke entry to protest being dragged into the EV game.

That, or they truly have insight into where consumer trends will go, and like the F50 etc, this will be better received in a decades time than now.

[tpm]

They can easily afford to pay the fleet emission fines even if they apply to them (I'm not sure since they are a small volume manufacturer and there might be exceptions for them). And they have produced hybrids since 2013 already.

[rickdeckard]

I doubt this is a joke entry by any means.

As many legacy brands, Ferrari is looking to refresh itself in order to stay relevant to a new generation of buyers, and not "die out" together with their existing customer base. They need to do this rather sooner than later while still standing on a pillar of good legacy identity, to not end up like Jaguar does...

What is the "EV game"?

[TylerE]

Ferraris situation is absolutely, 100%, totally NOTHING like JLR

[rickdeckard]

*yet

[King-Aaron]

> What is the "EV game"?

Partaking in the production and sale of electric vehicles.

[NetMageSCW]

Since those regulations apply to sales, a joke entry that doesn’t sell is just a waste of money.

[voidmain0001]

If you don’t like it then you’re not the demographic they’re targeting. Let me say that I think it’s bland but I won’t say I don’t like it. The market they’re targeting is probably young and can’t afford it but those that can afford it will buy it to appear young, as if they belong to the demographic.