With 500+ units sold, what are we missing?
It has been a few months since Ferrari, Sir Jony Ive, Marc Newson and LoveFrom unveiled the electric Luce. My initial reaction to the car was shock - it didn’t look like a Ferrari inside or outside. It didn’t look familiar. I rejected it immediately. I thought to myself, “why didn’t they just take an existing Ferrari body and add electric motors to it? Surely that would have been the smartest thing to do.”
I dug into my negative thoughts. Why was I thinking like this? What can Ferrari see that I can’t? It took me back to my initial reaction when I saw the Apple Watch for the first time, or the Liquid Glass in iOS - but now I love these.
The future is unfamiliar. That’s why this car is so difficult to make sense of - it doesn’t feel anything like the past. The best ideas that propel humanity forward sound and look stupid at first. Most people don’t like change and don’t know what they want until you give it to them. Except the Jaguar Type 00 - that is awful.
So I took some time to read and watch everything I could find about the Luce, and then, all of a sudden I understood it. It is perhaps the most functional car ever created.
If you are the type of person that prefers physical buttons on their hob instead of capacitive ones, a washing machine that doesn’t have Wi-Fi, and buttons that click when you press them, then this may be the car for you.
I watched a review of the Luce by Top Gear and afterwards the YouTube algorithm auto-played a video featuring the interior of a new model from a different Italian car brand. It looked very dated. I could see the functional issues happen in real time as the person was driving it. This took me right back to the same feeling I had in the early 00s when I had a Windows PC. I didn’t know any different, but then the Mac came along with its thoughtful design, typography and quirkiness, and I knew that was it. Today I have the same feeling about Omarchy.
So with the yearly sales target of 500 units already achieved two months in, here’s what I love about the new Luce.
The Steering Wheel
It’s a beautifully simple three-spoke steering wheel, precision-machined from 100% recycled aluminium with an intentionally exposed structure that echoes the classic design of 1950s and 1960s Ferraris. Place your hands on the wheel and you’ll be transported back to the early era of racing.
The Key
When docked and pressed into the centre console, the yellow “drains” to near-black, transferring the colour into the drive selector, and the key visually integrates into the console. Magical!
The Dashboard
The instrumentation mixes analogue needles, hands and switches with digital elements like dual layered displays, creating a cockpit that feels both classic and futuristic. It is mounted directly to the steering column and moves with the steering wheel as you adjust. This keeps the dials perfectly aligned with the driver’s line of sight. Makes sense, why wasn’t it like this before?
The buttons are self explanatory and you only need to glance at them once to know how they work and what they do. It’s just like the iPhone - you don’t need to read a 300-page manual that lives in every other car’s glove compartment.
The Sound
Then, there is the magic of amplifying real noise produced by the car, instead of making a fake one. Ferrari put a very sensitive vibration sensor on the rear axle. The sensor listens to the mechanical vibrations that the electric motors and gears make while they’re working. That vibration signal is then cleaned up - annoying high-pitched whines are filtered out while the more interesting and more musical frequencies remain, which are then amplified. In the quieter modes the car stays almost silent. In the more aggressive modes the sound becomes stronger and more expressive.
The Handles
In the back of the car, check out the perfectly formed anodised aluminium grab handles that are integrated into the roof. Most people will never notice them until they have to grab them, and then imagine how the generosity of the size and finish will make the passenger feel safer and more confident. There is so much emotion transfer happening.
Launch Mode
The driver can reach up and pull a satisfying physical handle mounted in the overhead control panel. The cabin responds instantly: the power dial shifts to orange and expands, the multigraph becomes a five-second countdown, and the systems prepare maximum torque and stability. It’s one of those things you’ll rarely use but feel warm and fuzzy knowing it’s there. Pure theatre.
Where We Go From Here
This electric car from Ferrari will feel magical to drive. It has so many unique new ideas and technology in it that, just like the Apple iPhone changed the phone industry, the Luce will change the car industry. I hope that many of the ideas from the Luce will make their way into the other Ferrari models, such as the mixed analogue and digital dashboard, the physical switches and the screen with handle. Perhaps the interface should be consistent across the entire range? Just like Apple products.
Once you sit in the Luce and drive it, you will understand. You’ll wish that every car had the same human-computer-vehicle interface that the Luce has. Going back to a conventional cockpit after the Luce will feel like returning to Windows after macOS.
