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Italy’s most famous carmaker pulled back the curtain on the Ferrari Luce on Monday, its first fully electric car and at €550,000, one of the most expensive EVs on the market.
Ferrari chairman John Elkann considered it worthy of a visit to the Quirinale on Tuesday, where he presented the car to Italian President Sergio Mattarella. Social media was not impressed.
In the days since the unveiling, the Luce — Italian for “light,” and designed in collaboration with former Apple design chief Jony Ive — was being compared online to a Nissan Leaf and a budget Toyota.
“The new Ferrari Luce looks less like a supercar and more like a budget Nissan or Toyota,” ran one widely shared post. Ferrari shares fell as much as 7.8% in Milan trading.
The pile-on was not limited to anonymous accounts.
Carlo Calenda, a former Italian industry minister who once worked at Ferrari, called the Luce “an aesthetic and technological insult to anyone who loves Ferrari” and then used the moment to deliver a sweeping verdict on John Elkann’s record.
Elkann, who chairs both Ferrari and the Agnelli family’s holding company Exor, has presided over the steady dismantling of Italy’s industrial heritage, Calenda argues.
Auto parts maker Magneti Marelli was sold to private equity and is now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Robotics unit Comau was divested in 2024 and truck maker Iveco is being demerged.
Fiat itself, as an autonomous Italian car brand, effectively ceased to exist when Fiat Chrysler merged into Stellantis in 2021. Exor is also in advanced talks to sell La Repubblica and La Stampa, two of Italy’s most prominent newspapers.
On the track, Ferrari’s Formula One team has not won a world championship of any kind since 2008.
Not your grandfather’s Ferrari
The Luce does at least go fast. Its four electric motors, one per wheel, produce more than 1,000 horsepower, hitting 100 kilometres per hour in 2.5 seconds and topping out at more than 310 kph.
It seats five, has a 600-litre boot and, Ferrari promises, does not sound like a washing machine: the company spent five years developing an acoustic system that captures and amplifies the hum of the motors rather than synthetically mimicking an engine roar.
The smooth, glassy exterior, designed with Ive’s LoveFrom collective, marks a sharp departure from Ferrari’s traditionally muscular silhouette.
Ferrari, for its part, is unmoved by the noise — online or otherwise.
“Ferrari Luce is not a response to change,” Elkann told journalists at the Rome launch. “It’s a decision, a deliberate decision, to lead what comes next with clarity, with courage.”
Buyers could begin placing orders on Monday and deliveries are expected before the end of the year.