Ferrari’s first electric car has caused a meltdown, and honestly, what did they expect?

Ferrari has finally done it. The company that built an empire on screaming engines, red paint and the sort of noise that makes small dogs reconsider their life choices has revealed its first fully electric car, the Luce. And the reaction has been about as calm and measured as a pub debate about cyclists, speed cameras and the price of a pint. 

The Luce is not a tiny weekend toy either. It is a four door, five seat, all wheel drive electric Ferrari with a reported price of around £480,000, which is quite enough to make your tea go cold. It was unveiled in Rome, designed with help from LoveFrom, the agency founded by former Apple design boss Sir Jony Ive, and it has instantly become one of the most controversial cars Ferrari has made in years.

A quick note on the pictures

We have not used Ferrari’s official Luce press images here because, tempting as they are, they are still Ferrari’s images. The pictures used with this article are original editorial images created to reflect the wider story: the launch, the debate, and the rather awkward moment when the world’s most emotional car maker plugs itself into the wall.

The internet has not exactly sent flowers

Some people love it. Some people admire the bravery. Some people are calling it the future. But a very loud chunk of the motoring world has looked at it and made the same face you make when someone says they have improved tea by adding oat milk and chilli oil.

The criticism has mostly landed in three places: the looks, the price and the question of whether an electric five seat Ferrari should exist at all. Former Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo reportedly said he hoped the Prancing Horse badge would be taken off the car. Italy’s transport minister Matteo Salvini also had a pop, calling out the price and suggesting it looked like anything but a Ferrari. When politicians and former Ferrari bosses are joining the comments section, you know the launch party has gone a bit spicy.

It is fast, clever and very difficult to love at first glance

On paper, the Luce is not some half hearted compliance car wearing posh shoes. It is understood to have four electric motors, one for each wheel, with more than 1,000 horsepower available, a claimed 0 to 100 km/h time of around 2.5 seconds and a top speed of about 310 km/h. Ferrari has talked about in house engineering, an advanced drivetrain, a 122 kWh battery, an 800 volt electrical system and long term support for high voltage components.

The trouble is that Ferrari has never really been judged on paper. A Ferrari is not supposed to be a spreadsheet with leather. It is supposed to make your neck hairs stand up before the thing has even moved. The Luce may be clever enough to make a NASA engineer nod approvingly, but if half the room thinks it looks like a designer kettle with a mortgage, Ferrari has a problem.

The design is doing most of the damage

The Luce does not look like the Ferrari many people have stored in their heads. It does not have the long bonnet drama of a Daytona, the wedge shaped mischief of a 308, or the theatrical excess of a Testarossa. Instead, it has a smooth glasshouse, a swollen aerodynamic body and the kind of minimalist confidence that usually arrives with a very expensive chair nobody is allowed to sit on.

That is probably the point. Electric cars live and die by airflow, weight and range. Ferrari and LoveFrom appear to have started with the problem of making a big electric Ferrari cut through the air cleanly, then wrapped the body around that answer. The result may be technically honest, but beauty has never been a committee meeting between drag coefficient and battery efficiency.

Ferrari says customer interest is strong

Chief executive Benedetto Vigna has defended the Luce, saying customer interest is strong and that some customers have already put money down. He has also pushed back against the idea that Ferrari is suddenly going all electric and abandoning petrol engines, saying the Luce does not replace the combustion and hybrid cars that still form the emotional backbone of the brand.

That matters, because Ferrari can survive a social media tantrum if the order book is healthy. The internet can call a car ugly until its thumbs need physio, but Ferrari only needs a relatively small number of extremely wealthy people to say yes. And let us be honest, Ferrari has sold plenty of cars to people who already own several Ferraris and quite possibly buy them with the same emotional intensity most of us reserve for choosing biscuits.

Are the orders real love or Ferrari politics?

This is where it gets interesting. Strong customer interest does not necessarily mean every buyer has looked at the Luce, clutched their heart and whispered, “take me to Maranello.” In the Ferrari world, buying the difficult or unusual model can sometimes help maintain a useful relationship with the factory, especially for collectors who want access to the really rare stuff later.

That does not mean the Luce will fail. It means early deposits should be treated with a raised eyebrow, not a brass band. Some buyers may genuinely love the technology. Some may want the first electric Ferrari because history will remember it. Some may be keeping their place in the queue. Some may simply have a garage so large that one controversial electric Ferrari can hide between a Daytona SP3 and something with no roof.

Did Ferrari have to build an EV? Yes, but not in the simple pub argument way

You asked whether Ferrari had to include at least one EV in its range, and the answer is yes in the strategic sense, but not quite in the blunt legal sense. Europe’s emissions rules have been moving towards much tougher targets for years, including the 2035 zero emissions direction for new cars. There are also small volume manufacturer carve outs, e fuel debates and recent proposals to soften the rules, so it is not as simple as Brussels kicking the doors in and shouting “build a battery Ferrari by Monday.”

But Ferrari is a global business, not a museum with a gift shop. It sells in markets that are changing at different speeds, and its boss has previously said Ferrari wants customers to choose between combustion, hybrid and electric cars. That is the grown up answer. An EV gives Ferrari a seat at the table, protects it against future regulation, keeps investors calm in theory and lets the engineers learn before they are forced to learn in a panic.

Lamborghini is watching from across the road with popcorn

The timing is awkward because Lamborghini has gone the other way. Its chief executive Stephan Winkelmann has said the company’s decision to move away from a full electric model and focus on plug in hybrids was the right approach for Lamborghini, because the acceptance curve among its type of customers was not increasing.

That does not automatically make Lamborghini right and Ferrari wrong. It simply shows that even the loud, expensive end of the car world has no single answer. One company thinks a full EV is a step too far for its customers right now. The other has decided the best way to control the future is to build the awkward thing first and argue about it afterwards.

The real problem is not electricity, it is emotion

Classic car people are often accused of hating change, which is unfair. We do not hate change. We hate change that feels like it has been focus grouped by people who say “mobility solution” instead of “car.” We like engineering. We like progress. We like cleverness. What we do not like is being told that soul has been replaced by a software update and a charging curve.

Ferrari’s problem is that its brand is built on irrational emotion. Nobody needs a Ferrari. That is the whole point. A Ferrari is a ridiculous, expensive, glorious thing that exists because the world is better with a bit of drama in it. If you remove the noise, the smell and the mechanical violence, you have to replace them with something equally intoxicating. “It charges quickly” is not going to cut it.

There is a chance we are all being a bit premature

Here is the uncomfortable bit. The motoring world has a long and proud history of getting cross about cars that later become accepted, respected or even loved. The Ferrari 308 GT4 was not exactly adored by everyone when it arrived. The Testarossa looked outrageous enough to upset the curtains. The Porsche Cayenne was treated like heresy, and then it helped keep Porsche fat, happy and able to build sports cars.

The Luce might be one of those cars. It might look better in person. It might drive with such ridiculous control and pace that everyone who mocks it ends up pretending they were “always interested in the engineering.” Or it might remain the car that proves even Ferrari can wander too far into lifestyle futurism and forget that desire is not the same as novelty.

My verdict: brave, necessary and possibly a bit wonky

I do think Ferrari needed to make an EV. Maybe not this exact EV, and maybe not one that has made half the internet reach for the smelling salts, but Ferrari could not just sit there polishing V12 memories while the rest of the industry changed around it. A first electric Ferrari was always going to happen. The surprise is that Ferrari chose to make it a big, practical, five seat statement rather than a low slung two seat missile.

That may prove clever. A two seat electric Ferrari would have been compared directly with the petrol icons and probably battered for lacking sound. A larger, more luxurious EV gives it a different job. It does not have to replace the 296, the 12Cilindri or anyone’s fantasy of a red V8 at full chat. It has to be the Ferrari for people who want electric performance, daily usability and the bragging rights of owning the first of its kind.

The badge is strong, but not bulletproof

The danger is that Ferrari starts believing the badge can carry anything. It cannot. The Prancing Horse is one of the most powerful symbols in motoring, but it works because it usually sits on cars people want before they can explain why. If the Luce has to be explained too much, Ferrari has a design problem rather than a technology problem.

Still, this is Ferrari, and Ferrari rarely does anything by accident. The Luce is not aimed at the bloke in the comments calling it a toaster from his diesel estate. It is aimed at people who can wire a deposit while the rest of us are still arguing about whether the front looks happy or confused. The backlash is real. The criticism is deserved in places. But if Ferrari sells every one it builds, Maranello will not be crying into its espresso.

So is the Luce a disaster or the beginning of something?

Right now, it is both. It is a public relations wobble, a design grenade and a useful reminder that even Ferrari cannot electrify emotion with a press release. But it is also a serious piece of engineering, a signal that Ferrari is not pretending the world will stand still, and a car that may make far more sense from behind the wheel than it does on a phone screen.

The Luce has done what controversial cars always do best. It has made everyone talk. The next job is much harder. It has to make people want it for the right reasons. Not because it keeps them sweet with Ferrari. Not because it is first. Not because it is expensive. Because it feels, somehow, like a Ferrari. If it manages that, the meltdown will become part of the legend. If it does not, well, at least it will be a very fast way to arrive somewhere while everyone whispers, “what on earth is that?”