Ferrari, the company that has spent decades convincing the world that a car should look like a furious horse about to trample you, has unveiled its first electric vehicle: the Luce. It’s a sleek, aerodynamic hatchback that seats five - which is Ferrari’s way of admitting that even billionaires occasionally need to pick up friends. The Luce starts at $640,000, produces over 1,000 horsepower, and goes from zero to 60 in about two seconds. It also looks, depending on who you ask, like an aerodynamic suppository or the car Apple would have made if it hadn't given up on cars after spending a billion dollars a year for a decade.
The design comes courtesy of LoveFrom, the consultancy run by former Apple design chief Jony Ive and Marc Newson. Yes, the same Jony Ive who gave us the iMac, the iPhone, and the Apple Magic Mouse - the one you have to plug in upside down to charge, rendering it useless during the process. Social media was quick to spot the parallel: one mock-up shows the Luce on its back with a charger in its underside, captioned with the same energy as a teenager’s bedroom-poster Ferrari, but now it’s a meme.
Traditional Ferrari fans, or “Ferraristi,” are not thrilled. The New York Times reports they are struggling to embrace the Luce’s “bubblelike exterior.” Former Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo told The Wall Street Journal, “At least, I hope they take the horse off that car.” The stock dropped as much as 8 percent after the reveal, which is the market’s way of saying it prefers its luxury cars to look like they’re mid-pounce, not mid-sneeze.
This is all happening against a backdrop where the supercar market has been cooling for a decade. Tesla’s Model X could keep pace with a Ferrari back in 2015, but no teenager ever pinned a picture of a Model X on their bedroom wall. Lamborghini dropped its all-electric Lanzador after deciding demand was “close to zero.” Pagani scrapped an electric Huayra because EVs “lack the emotion” of internal combustion. Aston Martin, Porsche, and Lotus have also scaled back their electric ambitions. Meanwhile, Ferrari appears to have concluded that electric is the future - even if that future looks like a suppository.
Silicon Valley’s design ethos - minimalist, frictionless, anonymous - has finally triumphed over the old world of automotive desire. The Ferrari Luce is the final victory of the smartphone over the supercar. It’s functional, smooth, and emotionally deodorized. But then again, the tech sector’s ultrawealthy are one of the few markets left for a $640,000 car, so perhaps Ferrari is just designing for its actual customers: people who want their car to disappear into the background, just like their iPhone.