31/05/2026
Press, clients, and colleagues have all been asking for our thoughts on the Ferrari Luce. A long read:
First, the fact that it is electric.
For some, that alone is enough to dismiss the car. In their minds, Ferrari and EVs can never coexist. We are not interested in debating the politics of electrification. The reality is simple: manufacturers must build EVs if they want to continue selling cars in Europe and many other markets. This car was always going to happen.
What is far less forgivable is the ex*****on.
An electric car can be beautiful, engaging, and entirely faithful to a brand's DNA. There are numerous examples. The Porsche Taycan remains one of the strongest interpretations of a traditional performance-car manufacturer entering the EV era. Its proportions, surfacing, and character are exceptional. It feels entirely new, yet unquestionably Porsche. It sits naturally within a lineage that includes the 911, Panamera, Cayenne, and Macan while contributing something genuinely fresh.
The Luce does not.
Its proportions are remarkably naïve. The wheelbase appears too short, the front overhang excessively long, and the overall stance awkward despite massive wheels. As an exercise in EV packaging, it is certainly interesting, but not for the right reasons. It is difficult to understand how these fundamentals survived beyond the earliest sketch stages.
Then there is the simple fact that it is ugly. Not merely different, just simply poorly designed. Some defenders claim the backlash comes from people resisting change. That argument misses the point entirely, although this is a conservative market. Good design and bad design are not separated by novelty. The Luce demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of automotive aesthetics: proportions, surfaces, jewellery, but also brand heritage. The overhangs are excessive, the wheel-to-body relationship weak, and the surfaces lack the sophistication expected of any premium manufacturer, let alone Ferrari: this car does not live in a vacuum.
This is not a question of taste, but one of competence. For those who argue that "different is good," it is worth remembering that different is only valuable when it improves upon what came before. Different for the sake of being different is not innovation. A Michelin-starred chef serving food that has been vomited onto a plate is still serving vomit.
Ferrari's passionate online following surely not all will be customers, but they remain highly relevant to the brand. They influence perception and aspiration. More importantly, many actual Ferrari owners appear equally disconnected from the Luce. Several of our own clients have expressed surprise, disappointment, and disbelief at the result.
Others suggest the design succeeds because it is more rational. That is a curious argument for a company whose entire identity has been built on creating gloriously irrational machines. And even if that would have to be the case, the next chapter in Ferrari's history did not need to become an ugly box.
Even if Ferrari wanted to reinvent itself as a technology brand, there was no reason for the outcome to be this weak. And if the intention truly was to appeal to an entirely different audience, Ferrari itself already demonstrated a better solution decades ago with the creation of the Dino brand. A new proposition does not always need to wear the Ferrari badge.
Yet even judged independently from Ferrari's heritage, the Luce remains deeply disappointing. It is not merely disconnected from Ferrari; it is disconnected from contemporary OEM design quality altogether.
The most frustrating aspect is that the market already proves this can be done well. Vehicles such as the Lucid Gravity, Cadillac Vistiq, XPeng G9, Rivian R1S, and NIO ET9 demonstrate that large electric SUVs can be distinctive, desirable, and well-resolved. Whether one likes their styling or not, they all display a level of design discipline entirely absent here.
Some commentators have framed the criticism as traditional automotive designers resisting the influence of industrial designers. Again, that misses the point. Marc Newson and Jony Ive have created products of immense significance in other fields. Yet expertise does not automatically transfer. The Luce feels less like a bold reimagining of the automobile and more like an exercise conducted with little regard for the accumulated knowledge of over a century of automotive design and over nearly eighty years of Ferrari history.
Car designers have successfully embraced product-design thinking before. The first-generation Audi TT and Audi A2 are excellent examples. The reverse journey has proven far more difficult. Automotive design is a specialised discipline with its own rules, constraints, and body of knowledge. The Luce serves as a reminder of that reality.
If the exterior is disappointing, the interior is only marginally better. There are positives. The return of proper switchgear, tactile controls, and more physical interaction is welcome. These are qualities many modern vehicles have abandoned to their detriment.
Yet the ex*****on remains weak. The various components feel unrelated to one another. The dashboard, doors, and major volumes lack any cohesion. Gaps between forms are entirely unresolved. The steering wheel attempts to reference Ferrari's racing heritage from the 1950s and 1960s, but does so in a manner that feels weak and contrived rather than authentic. As with the exterior, the problem is not the intention, but the quality of the ex*****on of the design.
Ferrari's first electric vehicle should have been a landmark moment: a bold reinterpretation of the brand for a new era. Instead, the Luce feels like a project that ignored the very principles that made Ferrari one of the world's most admired automotive names in the first place.
On a more positive note, despite the fact that the Luce's underlying architecture is not particularly remarkable from an engineering standpoint, it could prove to be an excellent canvas for improvement through the art of coachbuilding.
