Eight years is a long time to wait for a car. Back in January 2018, at the Detroit Auto Show, then-Ferrari chief Sergio Marchionne dropped a hint that sent the automotive world into a frenzy. He suggested Ferrari would build an electric supercar to take on Tesla. “If there is an electric supercar to be built, then Ferrari will be the first,” he said. The internet exploded. This was going to be the prancing horse’s answer to the Model S Plaid, the Lucid Air Sapphire, the whole electric performance revolution.
Ferrari wasn’t first. Not even close. But what it delivered with the Luce might be worth the wait.
This piece draws on reporting from WIRED, so hat tip to them for chasing this story through the years of teasers, leaks, and manufactured anticipation.
The Long Game
Let’s be honest: Ferrari’s rollout strategy for the Luce has been masterclass in building hype. They called it “Elettrica” first, a nickname that stuck in the press. Then came the powertrain reveal last October. Then, in February, the interior dropped—and it was clear this wasn’t your grandfather’s Ferrari. Jony Ive and Marc Newson’s lovechild was sitting inside a Maranello product, with brushed aluminum, a pivotable passenger screen, and a gear-shift knob with 13,000 laser-etched holes. It looked like what the canceled Apple car might have become if it had lived.
Today, the exterior is finally out in the open. The Luce is here.
Numbers That Matter
Here’s the part that gets car people excited. Four motors. One per wheel. Over 1,000 horsepower in Boost mode. The rear axle alone churns out 832 hp and 7,750 Nm to the wheels—numbers that would have seemed impossible a decade ago. Zero to 62 mph in 2.5 seconds. Top speed of 192 mph. And it seats five, which is a first for Ferrari. Yes, five. The back of this thing isn’t just a token rear seat; it’s an actual usable space, something the Purosangue proved was possible.
The battery is a 122 kWh unit—one of the largest in any production EV—and it charges at up to 350 kW on an 800-volt system. Ferrari claims over 329 miles of range. The curb weight sits at 4,982 pounds, or about 2,260 kg. That’s only 200 pounds heavier than the Purosangue, which is remarkable given the battery pack this thing is hauling around.
Each wheel gets its own independently controlled power, braking, suspension, and steering. The rear wheels can steer up to 2.15 degrees. Ferrari calls this the future of handling, and honestly, given what the Purosangue accomplished with its all-wheel steering, I’m inclined to believe them.
The Sound Thing
Now here’s what I appreciate: Ferrari didn’t just slap a fake engine note through the speakers. Instead, they fitted an accelerometer to the rear axle that works like a guitar pickup. It senses vibrations from the motors, filters out the whine, and feeds the resulting audio into the cabin. Their sound quality manager, Antonio Palermo, called it “an instrument.” That’s either brilliant marketing or genuinely clever engineering. Maybe both.
LoveFrom Takes Over
The most controversial move wasn’t the electric powertrain—it was Ferrari letting outsiders design the car. LoveFrom, the design agency founded by Jony Ive after he left Apple, was brought in to shape both the interior and, as we’ve now learned, the exterior. This is unusual. Ferrari has its own design studio led by Flavio Manzoni, a man who has defined modern Ferrari aesthetics for years. Giving Ive’s team creative freedom was a gamble.
The exterior shows it. The Luce doesn’t look like any other Ferrari. The windscreen stretches down to the nose in what Ferrari calls “the glass house,” an uninterrupted shell-like form that extends below the belt line. The wiper blades live on the A-pillars, not at the base of the windshield—a detail that sounds trivial until you see the car in person. The front and rear light panels are transparent. The wheel sizes are staggered—23 inches front, 24 inches rear—the largest on any series-production Ferrari road car.
It’s aerodynamic, too. Ferrari claims the Luce has the lowest drag coefficient in the history of Maranello’s road cars. That matters for range, but it also matters for the cool factor.
Whether this looks wins over the Ferrari faithful or repels them remains to be. Ive described the Luce as “still clearly a Ferrari,” but added it represents “a different manifestation based on some of the beliefs around simplicity.” That’s a diplomatic way of saying this car divides opinion.
The Market Reality
Let’s not ignore the context here. Lamborghini pushed its first EV back to 2029. Bentley moved its all-electric deadline from 2030 to 2035. Porsche has been remapping its future back toward combustion. Ferrari is pressing forward, but even they announced in June 2025 that their second EV is delayed till 2028, citing weak demand for electric luxury cars.
The Luce costs roughly $640,000, with production starting in late 2026 and deliveries in early 2027. Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna has been at pains to call this an addition to the lineup, not a pivot. Their 2030 target is just 20 percent fully electric, with 40 percent hybrid and 40 percent combustion. That’s not a company betting the house on EVs. That’s a company dipping a toe while its core customer base still wants V12s.
In October last year, Ferrari’s shares fell more than 16 percent on disappointment over the brand’s long-term financial targets. The market isn’t exactly rewarding the EV pivot, at least not yet.
The Luce arrives with more fanfare than any electric car in history, but also with more scrutiny. It has to convince buyers that an electric Ferrari is still a Ferrari—not just in badge, but in soul. The sound system helps. The driving dynamics will need to prove themselves. And the looks, well, that’s a matter of personal taste.
What I know is this: eight years of waiting produced something that feels genuinely new. Not everyone will love it. Some will hate it. But at least it’s not boring.
