Ferrari has revealed the Luce, its first fully electric car, built around five seats and a hatchback body rather than the midship supercar format the brand has used for decades. The exterior and interior were designed by LoveFrom, the studio led by Jony Ive and Marc Newson.
Form and Packaging
The Luce carries a shape that has no precedent in Ferrari's production history. Its profile is a tall, upright one box silhouette with rear hinged doors and seating for five. Circular rear lamps reference details from earlier Ferrari models, but the overall form bears no resemblance to anything the company has built before.
Ferrari began developing the concept in 2019. The engineering team concluded early that adapting an existing midship platform to electric power offered no genuine advantage. Swapping an engine and fuel tank for battery cells and motors does not recover the weight distribution or inertia characteristics that make a midship layout useful. The team designed the Luce from a clean sheet. Ninety five percent of its components are new. The battery pack is integrated into the body structure, contributing directly to torsional rigidity.
Ferrari also evaluated an electric version of the F80 during development. That approach was dropped after testing showed the battery would be exhausted within two thirds of a lap of the Nordschleife. The packaging and aerodynamic compromises involved made it an unsuitable foundation.
The body is built from 75 percent recycled aluminium. Ferrari says the Luce produces the lowest aerodynamic drag of any car it has manufactured, though no drag coefficient figure has been released. Rear wheels measure 24 inches in diameter; front wheels measure 23 inches. The car uses separate subframes for the first time in Ferrari production history, connected to the body through elastomer bushes to reduce noise and vibration transmission.
Powertrain
The Luce uses a 122 kWh battery and four electric motors, two at each axle. Front axle output is 282 horsepower. Rear axle output is 831 horsepower. Combined peak output reaches 1,036 horsepower. Rear wheel torque stands at 5,900 lb ft. The front motors spin to a maximum of 30,000 rpm.
A new vehicle control unit updates its target values 200 times per second and performs individual wheel control across all three axes. Sound in the cabin is generated from the natural frequencies produced by the rear inverters, without synthesised audio.
Interior and Design
The three spoke steering wheel is milled from recycled aluminium and assembled from 19 CNC machined components. The dashboard spans the full cabin width as a single piece of machined aluminium rather than stamped sheet metal. Physical climate controls are retained. The speedometer uses a conventional analogue needle.
The centre console is built around a glass panel developed by Corning. The car key docks into a dedicated recess in the console and uses an e-ink display. A custom typeface named LF Maranello was created specifically for the car.
Ferrari has confirmed that six cylinder, eight cylinder, and twelve cylinder models will continue in production alongside the Luce. The company has not described the Luce as a replacement for any existing model line.
