Ferrari’s first foray into electric vehicles has sparked an intense backlash from fans and investors, with shares falling sharply after the unveiling of its new battery-powered Luce.
Created in collaboration with former Apple chief designer Jony Ive, the car’s futuristic shell-like form, silent engine and £475,000 price tag were always going to be “controversial”, said Politico. But Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari’s former chairman, spoke for many “purists in Italy” when he said it “risks destroying the myth” of the legendary cars and should be stripped of the company’s prancing horse logo.
‘Polarising’
Montezemolo was far from alone in his assessment.
“The Luce does not look like a Ferrari. It looks like the concept for a Honda Hydrogen vehicle from 2002,” said Luke Plunkett on Aftermath. “It looks like one of the ‘this is what the future will look like from the 90s’ cars from ‘Demolition Man’, only worse.” It looks like “anything but a Ferrari”.
It has even managed to unite Italy’s fractious politics. Far-right transport minister Matteo Salvini slammed it on X, while centrist opposition politician Carlo Calenda called it an “aesthetic and technological insult to anyone who loves Ferrari”.
Even Ferrari’s chief design officer, Flavio Manzoni, admitted that the design was “polarising”, but he’s confident fans will embrace the new car with time.
Investors, however, were not so sure. Ferrari shares fell nearly 8% in Milan on Tuesday, amid fears the Luce launch “could become a repeat of Jaguar Land Rover’s controversial failed rebrand” in 2024. That was when the luxury British carmaker “tried to shift the marque away from its traditional ‘Jag man’ image towards ultra-wealthy customers”, said The Telegraph.
‘Energy transition challenge’
The Luce has had a “rather long gestation period”, with a Ferrari EV in the works for “a few years” before development officially started in 2021, said Car magazine. At the time, “EVs were riding high and increasing in popularity in the premium, sport and luxury space” but “the world slightly reassessed that overly positive attitude to EVs not long after and so did Ferrari”.
Since then, mass-production brands like Ford, GM, Honda and Volvo have “all retreated from their EV initiatives in one way or another as consumer demand plummets, profit falls and policy makers deprioritise moving away from traditional gas power”, said Forbes.
“Luxury and performance brands have done the same”, with Lamborghini scrapping its first planned EV, Porsche opting for hybrid and McLaren steering clear entirely.
“Underscoring the energy transition challenge for luxury carmakers”, the “initial negative reaction to Ferrari’s new model was not surprising”, said the Financial Times. But according to analysts, “the key challenge for the company was to fill the order book with the highly specific clients it had targeted for the Luce”.
As far as the Italian brand’s executives are concerned, “whether most current Ferrari customers think the Luce is cool is irrelevant,” said Scott Sherwood, an independent analyst of luxury carmakers. “If it tested well enough with the tech crowd to fill the order book, that’s all they are concerned with.”
Controversial EV ‘risks destroying the myth’ of luxury carmaker as investors fear another Jaguar rebrand failure