- Ferrari has presented the Luce, its first electric car
- It is designed in part by former Apple design guru Jony Ive.
- The design has received mixed reactions online.
We had our first look at the Ferrari Luce’s cockpit back in February, and now the entirety of Ferrari’s long-awaited first electric vehicle has been revealed, accompanied by a rather mixed reaction from drivers.
As Motor1 reports, the car was designed in part by LoveFrom, the luxury design company run by Jony Ive of iPhone and iPad fame. It includes four electric motors and up to 1,050 horsepower, and sells for €550,000 and up (around $640,000/£475,000/AU$895,000), but it’s the design that attracts the most attention.
One commenter on Reddit described the car as “giving Waymo vibes,” while another says the design is “somehow worse than I ever imagined.” Another comment sums up the general reaction we’ve seen online: “Ferrari has completely and completely lost its mind.”
The reaction from the rest of the industry has not been so positive either. It looks like a “mix between a Honda Accord EV and a Tesla 3,” according to analyst Pierre-Olivier Essig of AIR Capital, Bloomberg reports. “We are lost in the translation of Ferrari’s new strategy.”
It’s fair to say that the Luce’s aesthetic hasn’t met with universal approval, but Ferrari knows it doesn’t necessarily have to appeal to the masses on Reddit. The manufacturer sells fewer than 14,000 cars a year, and as long as enough people are captivated by the charms of this new model, it will work just fine.
‘Multi-touch shouldn’t be in a car’
In an interview with Cleo Abram, Jony Ive and Ferrari chief designer Flavio Manzoni went into more detail about the thinking behind the Luce’s design. In particular, Ive talks about moving away from the multi-touch design of the Apple products he designed, which can be seen on the large dashboards of cars from companies like Tesla.
“I think multi-touch shouldn’t be in a car,” Ive says, while stating that it’s a “fabulous technology” that fits into the user interfaces of phones and tablets. “If you have to do basic things, by definition it requires, of course, that you’re not looking where you’re going, but that you’re looking at a screen.”
Luce has a central touchscreen, but it’s reasonably compact in terms of size and only requires one touch, guided by a handrail at the bottom. There are also plenty of dials and switches throughout the cabin for more direct touch control of the car, with some clever lighting effects attached.
It is a vehicle that can reach 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour in 2.5 seconds, with a top speed of more than 310 kilometers (193 miles) per hour. Range on a single charge is estimated at 530 kilometers (329 miles). For those drivers who are wowed by the looks and specs, initial orders are now open.
“The obvious thing, or certainly the easiest and laziest thing, would be to imitate what people know,” Ive adds. It’s certainly a bold and divisive design, which has received a lot of ridicule, but let us know what you think in the comments below.
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