GoKawiilFerrari’s share price has dropped after it revealed a long-awaited first electric vehicle, with a minimalist look created by the former Apple design chief Jony Ive that departs from the Italian manufacturer’s petrol sportscars.
The Luce, starting at $640,000 (£545,000), has a range of 329 miles (530km) thanks to its battery capacity of 122 kilowatt hours, the company said, with four motors that can accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in 2.5 seconds, with a top speed of more than 310km/h (193mph).
The launch was hotly anticipated, given the world’s most valuable sportscar maker’s totemic status among car and Formula One racing fans.
However, the Luce’s saloon-like design immediately proved divisive, with some analysts questioning whether it lived up to Ferrari’s sportscar heritage.
The carmaker’s share price dropped by as much as 8% in morning trading on Tuesday in Milan, before recovering to a 6% decline, suggesting investors were unsure whether it would prove to be a hit. The carmaker, which produces all its cars in Maranello, northern Italy, was valued at €56bn (£48bn) before the launch.
The Luce is the first Ferrari to have five seats, and only the second to have four doors, suggesting it is pitched towards super-wealthy families rather than sportscar enthusiasts. Ferrari’s other four-door model is the Purosangue, an SUV launched in 2022.
Ferrari, founded in 1939, said the car’s design was “simplified and rationalised in service of the driving experience”, and emphasised that was creating an “entirely new Ferrari”.
The company last year scaled back its ambitions to shift from petrol to electric. It is aiming to have a 2030 lineup of 40% internal combustion engine models, 40% hybrids and 20% fully-electric. In 2022 it had planned for 40% electric, 40% hybrids and 20% petrol models by 2030.
View image in fullscreen The Luce was developed in partnership with Jony Ive’s LoveFrom studio. Photograph: Ferrari/Reuters
Benedetto Vigna, the Ferrari chief executive, said: “We are convinced that a company demonstrates its leadership when it has the courage to dare and to take on the challenge of new technologies. Ferrari Luce was born precisely from this challenge, offering our unprecedented vision of electrification.”
... continue reading