Ferrari Luce: the brand’s first electric car arrives with 1,050 hp, 530 km of range, and Jony Ive’s design signature

Ferrari introduced the Luce on May 25 in Rome, its first 100% electric car in 78 years of history. The presentation took place at the Vela di Calatrava, within the Città dello Sport, and put a Ferrari on stage unlike anything before it: a four-door, five-seat sedan with 1,050 hp distributed across four motors, 530 km of range, a 122 kWh battery, and an 800V architecture. The exterior design, interior, and interface were entrusted to LoveFrom, the studio led by Jony Ive and Marc Newson. It starts at €550,000, and 2027 production is already sold out through reservations.

What the Ferrari Luce is: Maranello’s first EV

Maranello took almost eight decades to truly electrify. There had been hybrids (SF90, 296), but no series-production Ferrari had done without a combustion engine until now. The Luce is not a special series or a limited edition: it is a range model, set to coexist with today’s V8 and V12 cars with continuous production starting in 2027. It is also the first four-door Ferrari, the first with five real seats, measures five meters long, and has a 600-liter trunk: figures closer to a Porsche Taycan or a Lucid Air than to a classic GT.

Benedetto Vigna, Ferrari’s CEO, framed it as proof that a company shows leadership when it embraces a technological challenge: the Luce is the result of more than 60 new patents. John Elkann, chairman, described the launch as the opening of a chapter that turns a vision into reality.

Exterior design: the LoveFrom language

This is the first time in Ferrari history that the exterior design of a road car has not been led by the Centro Stile headed by Flavio Manzoni. Maranello delegated it to LoveFrom, the creative collective Ive and Newson established in San Francisco.

The result is the most polarizing aspect of the car. The silhouette is a fastback with a descending roofline that flows into a short tail. The most distinctive element is the "glasshouse": a continuous panoramic glass surface that runs from the windshield to the rear window across the roof, with no visible interruptions. The body uses no steel at all; it is entirely aluminum, much of it recycled. At the front, a thin horizontal LED bar serves as the lighting signature; at the rear, two pairs of circular halos act as taillights, a deliberate nod to the Testarossa and F40. Ferrari says it has the lowest aerodynamic coefficient of any road car from the brand.

There is an engineering detail few outlets pointed out: the modular architecture. The front axle, battery pack, and rear axle can be removed independently. For a €550,000 electric car, that is not an aesthetic whim; it is real maintainability: a collision affecting one axle does not force the rest of the car to be disassembled, and a battery replacement during the vehicle’s life cycle becomes a contained procedure.

The color palette also breaks with convention: in addition to the requisite Rosso Corsa, Ferrari also showed the Luce in a two-tone light blue rarely associated with the brand (the color chosen for the official exterior renders). The choice is deliberate: the Luce is not meant to read as a classic Ferrari from the sidewalk.

Interior: glass, recycled aluminum, and physical buttons

If the exterior divides opinion, the interior is where LoveFrom’s signature becomes most recognizable. The cabin explicitly rejects the convention imposed by Tesla and replicated by Mercedes EQS, Lucid Air, and nearly every premium EV: the giant touchscreen that replaces almost all physical controls. The Luce does exactly the opposite.

The palette: recycled anodized aluminum, Corning Gorilla Glass, and leather. Precision-machined aluminum, tempered Gorilla Glass, and Samsung Display OLED screens: the recipe is exactly that of a premium Apple product, which makes sense because the hand behind it is the same one that defined how an iPhone feels for two decades.

There are four screens, all custom Samsung OLED panels: 12.9", 12", 10.1", and 6.3". The driver cluster combines two overlapping OLED panels with physical mechanical needles sandwiched between the two glass layers: the needles are real, motor-driven, and move over digital graphics that change according to the driving mode.

Another functional nod to space: there is no transmission tunnel. The floor is flat because there is no gearbox or longitudinal driveshaft, so the fifth passenger can use the rear center seat without contortions. In a Ferrari, that is historic. The audio system is called Ferrari Audio Signature: 21 speakers, 24 channels, and 3,000 W of amplification.

Steering wheel, multigraph, and the Jony Ive signature

The steering wheel has three spokes, a flat bottom, and none of the button-heavy cluster seen in the SF90 or 296. There is a red manettino on the right with the classic positions (Ice, Wet, Dry, Sport, ESC Off) and a left selector for the power mode (Range, Tour, Perfo). The center carries the cavallino on a yellow background, nothing more.

The cabin’s most discussed detail is the paddles behind the steering wheel. In a combustion Ferrari, they control gear changes. In the Luce there is no gearbox: Ferrari has renamed them Torque Shift Engagement. The right paddle controls five levels of power delivery, while the left controls five levels of regenerative braking. Entering a corner, the driver uses the left paddle to modulate how much negative torque is applied; exiting, the right paddle calibrates how much power is deployed. This is not simulated shifting (Porsche and Hyundai have already done that): it is a type of dynamics control impossible in a combustion car.

On the center console there is a panel Ferrari calls the "multigraph": an OLED screen surrounded by an anodized aluminum analog needle that changes function depending on context (clock, chronograph, compass, or launch control). The needle is real and motor-driven; the graphics behind it change. It is one of Newson’s most characteristic design gestures, rooted in watchmaking.

The Luce key deserves its own paragraph. It is made of Corning Gorilla Glass and features a bistable E Ink display. When the driver inserts it into its dock, the display changes from yellow to black, the gear selector lights up, and a light choreography begins throughout the cabin. It is exactly the kind of ceremonial detail Ive championed throughout his career. The final gesture, in the same spirit: a physical lever on the roof to activate Launch mode.

Powertrain: 4 motors, 800V, and a structural battery

The Luce uses four permanent-magnet synchronous motors with radial flux, derived from the F80. One per wheel: the rear motors spin at 25,500 rpm with a combined 620 kW; the front motors reach 30,000 rpm with a combined 210 kW. Total output: 1,050 hp (772 kW) and 990 Nm of torque.

Each motor is controlled individually through a Vehicle Control Unit (VCU) that updates wheel-torque targets 200 times per second. Combined with active suspension derived from the F80 and independent rear-wheel steering, the Luce injects or removes power wheel by wheel in real time: a level of control impossible in a combustion car.

The battery has a nominal capacity of 122 kWh, 210 cells in series, NMC chemistry, co-developed with SK On and assembled in Maranello. It operates at 800V (in the same league as Porsche Taycan or Lucid Air) and supports fast charging up to 350 kW: it recovers around 70 kWh in 20 minutes, equivalent to 10–80% during a coffee stop.

The most interesting figure is not capacity: it is integration. The pack acts as a structural element of the chassis, contributing 20% of flexural stiffness and 40% of torsional stiffness; the body-in-white plus battery assembly weighs 10% less than the segment average, according to Ferrari. The center of gravity sits 95 mm lower than in the Purosangue: the brand claims the dynamic behavior is equivalent to driving a car 400 kg lighter. That is a manufacturer claim (the press will verify it), but the low center of gravity is objective and will be noticeable.

The tires are Michelin Pilot Sport S energy. Ferrari cites more than 60 new patents and 120,000 hours of R&D dedicated to the electric powertrain. The package figures: 0–100 km/h in 2.5 seconds, 0–200 in 6.8, a top speed above 310 km/h (electronically limited), range above 530 km on a WLTP-equivalent cycle, and a curb weight of 2,260 kg with 47:53 weight distribution.

Sound: the accelerometer that replaces the V12

The entire industry, from Porsche to BMW, has addressed the absence of a combustion engine by synthesizing fake sound through speakers. Ferrari rejects that approach. The Luce carries a precision accelerometer mounted at the center of the rear axle that captures the real vibrations of the motors, gears, and rotating components. The raw signal is filtered, equalized, and amplified before being sent to the 21 internal speakers and to external speakers. Ferrari compares it to an electric guitar amplifier: the string truly vibrates, the amplifier makes it audible, but the sound originates from real physical movement. There are five presets via the e-Manettino, and it can be silenced. It is not a simulated V12: it is an acoustic signature derived from the Luce’s own physics, one of the most coherent approaches any manufacturer has taken so far for sound in a performance EV.

Price, availability, and Maranello’s bet

The Luce starts at €550,000 (about $640,000 USD at current exchange rates). Reservations opened on the day of the presentation and, according to Ferrari, the production allocated for 2027 is already sold out. It is not a limited edition: it coexists with the current V8 and V12 models and will be built continuously. Ferrari maintains its goal of making 20% of its production electric by 2030, a figure it has already reduced from a more ambitious previous target. The Luce is not aimed at Maranello’s traditional customer: it is targeting a new buyer, possibly a first-time Ferrari owner, possibly in markets such as China where luxury EVs have stronger cultural acceptance.

The financial market’s reaction on announcement day was lukewarm: Ferrari shares fell as much as 8% during the Milan trading session before trimming losses to around 6%, a sign that investors did not read the launch as an unqualified success. That reading, together with the conversation the car’s design sparked on social media as soon as the curtain was lifted, deserves a separate analysis.

Conclusion: a Ferrari that breaks its own rules

The Luce is not trying to be a Ferrari for the traditional ferrarista, and that seems deliberate. What defines it is not the raw figure of 1,050 hp or the 530 km of range (Lucid Air and Porsche Taycan are already in that zone). What defines it is the design decision: rejecting the dominant touchscreen, keeping physical needles and mechanical buttons, capturing the real sound of the motors instead of synthesizing it, and delegating aesthetic direction to an outside studio for the first time in its history.

That LoveFrom bet is what will determine whether the Luce ages well. Cars designed around giant touchscreens start to look outdated when the screen falls two generations behind; cars with physical interfaces and noble materials tend to hold up better. The open question is not whether the Luce works technically — the 60 patents and F80 lineage suggest the engineering is covered. The question is whether the new customer Ferrari is seeking will pay the Maranello premium for a car unlike any previous Ferrari, and whether the traditional customer will accept a V12 coexisting with a five-seat electric sedan in the same catalog.