Ferrari's first EV is panned by fans, but here's why that might not matter

Ferrari's number one to the full electric gondola car has through something unusual for a vehicle that can go from zero to 60 in about 2.5 seconds: It has stopped Italian car traditionalists in their tracks.

The new Ferrari Luce — "light" in Italian — was unveiled this week in Rome. Even Pope Leo got a peek.

"Is this the first four-door Ferrari?" the Pope asked as he was shown the car. "The first five-seater," came the reply from Ferrari executive chairman John Elkann.

Its look, by noted Apple product designer Jony Ive, is pale blue, round and glassy, with enough room for the kids. It runs without the roar that helped make Ferrari a symbol of Italian speed and masculine glamour. And it rings in at close to $900,000 Cdn.

Gone is the low-slung body, sharp line and racing red of past models.

For many of its fiercest critics, particularly older Italian men raised on the sound, smell and mythology of Ferrari's combustion engines, the whir replacing the roar is not progress. It feels like an insult.

"In my opinion, it's a disaster. It looks like a common car from China or Japan, with no particular design. It's …" Ferrari fan Davide Giachetti, 61, from Florence, said before trailing off into a groan.

Online, Ferrari fans have mocked the Luce as more Apple Magic Mouse than Italian stallion, referring to the carmaker's immediately recognizable prancing horse logo. One commenter joked about the design and decision to go all-electric, saying that if this is Ferrari's way of "seeing the light," then they'd be donning sunglasses.

But beneath the jokes is a deeper anxiety: whether a Ferrari can still be a Ferrari if it is electric, family sized and shaped by the designer behind the iMac, iPhone and iPad.

"I think the sheer amount of vitriol over the new Ferrari indicates they're doing something right, pushing boundaries," said Alf Rehn, professor of innovation, design and management at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense.

Rehn says reception to the Luce among younger online commentators and in parts of the Asian automobile press has been far warmer.

He calls the stripped-back, minimalist interior and tactile button, switch and dial design by British industrial designer Ive, "absolutely magnificent. Just lickable."

Ferrari's 1st EV panned by fans

But he doubts many Italian critics will get past the exterior.

"If your identity is tied up with the classic Italian Ferrari look, I get it," Rehn said. "But Ferrari is still a corporation that needs to sell cars. And the classic Ferrari guy is a limited market. There are far more billionaires in China than in Italy. And the super-rich are skewing more female, younger and less white."

If that's the case, then it's likely no accident that Ferrari's launch interview was with female YouTuber, Cleo Abram, a former Vox producer who now creates tech explainers on her channel. Speaking to Abram, Ferrari chief designer Flavio Manzoni said the company knew it was taking a risk.

"There is no design without innovation," he told her, "so that means also to risk."

Former Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo said the company took a risk, all right — it risked destroying a legend, he told reporters on Tuesday. 

Investors were not thrilled, either. Ferrari shares fell more than eight per cent in Milan after the launch, a sharp reaction for Europe's most valuable carmaker.

"The fact that it breaks so completely with Ferrari's design language makes me believe they actually want this car to fail," said Vincenzo Rosei, who runs a car dealership near Ravenna, in northern Italy. 

The theory, not one Ferrari would endorse, is that the Luce lets the company show it is responding to Europe's push toward electric cars while allowing Ferrari to say the market, not the company, rejected the idea.

The backlash comes at a delicate moment for luxury electric cars. Porsche and Lamborghini have both scaled back some electric ambitions, citing weaker demand. Chinese automakers are also putting pressure on European brands, especially in the electric vehicle market.

Ferrari, which had a net profit of €1.6 billion ($2.6 billion Cdn) with more than 13,600 cars sold in 2025, insists the Luce is not a retreat from its past but an expansion of what the brand can be – and that it will continue to make gas and hybrid cars alongside this first fully electric model.

The Luce will make up a tiny per cent of Ferrari production, and, says Rehn, even if it fails, the data will be useful for the company.

But he also says there are plenty of wealthy people who might like the Luce precisely because it offers Ferrari status while steering clear of the "middle-aged millionaire in a red sports car" stereotype.

"There are a lot of people who would have considered the classic Ferrari a beautiful piece of art in its own way but wouldn't be caught dead in one."

Rome correspondent

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