Ferrari's first fully electric car "Luce" in this handout image obtained by Reuters.Ferrari/Reuters
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is credited for this maxim. Were Trotsky alive to see Ferrari’s May 25 unveiling of the Luce, its first fully electric vehicle, he might have come up with another memorable aphorism that flips the saying.
“You may be interested in Ferrari’s first EV,” the chief architect of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution might have said. “But it’s unlikely Ferrari is interested in you.”
This fact hasn’t stopped anyone with a brain and the ability to communicate from voicing their opinion of Ferrari’s foray into the EV market.
The Ferrari Luce (pronounced Loo-Chey) means “light” in Italian. Starting at 884,000, it is a four-door, five-seat, all-wheel-drive EV designed by the LoveFrom design collective led by ex-Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive. The Luce boasts a 122-kilowatt-hour battery and has four electric engines (one per wheel). It offers more than 1,000 horsepower, has a top speed of 310 kilometres an hour and can go from zero to 100 km/h in 2.5 seconds. In terms of look, the Luce is what might happen if you bred a 1984 Ferrari Testarossa with an iPhone 17. It was launched at a media event held at the Vela di Calatrava – Città dello Sport in Rome, 79 years to the day since Ferrari won its first ever victory in Rome in 1947. Pope Leo XIV had a chance to experience the Luce on May 26.
Pope Leo XIV and Ferrari chairman John Elkann posing by Ferrari's first fully electric model 'Luce' during the car's presentation to the Pope at his residence in Castel Gandolfo.Supplied/Getty Images
The Luce’s launch ignited a firestorm online. Not since Bob Dylan played a rock-and-roll set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival has there been this much consternation about an iconic performer going electric. Reuters reported that Ferrari’s Milan-listed share price fell 8.4 per cent and New York-listed shares were down by 5.1 per cent.
The Ferrari Luce triggered the gag reflex in traditionalists.
Italy’s right-wing Transport Minister Matteo Salvini loathed it. “Aesthetically speaking,” he wrote on social media, “it speaks for itself … It looks like anything but a [Ferrari] car. And is that supposed to be ‘innovation’? I wonder what Enzo Ferrari would say?"
The Guardian reported that former Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo told the Italian media, “If I had to say what I really think, I would be hurting Ferrari. We’re risking the destruction of a legend, and I’m truly sorry about that. I hope they at least remove the prancing horse [logo].”
Some of the response from your average online gearheads and car bloggers has been venomous, with one Reddit commentator saying the Luce is “giving Waymo” vibes and headlines such as “Look How They Massacred My Ferrari” and “Somehow Worse than I could ever have imagined.”
So, why all the consternation?
Ferrari is not merely a car brand. It occupies a place in the human consciousness. Ferrari is a state of mind. Ferrari’s “Rosso Corsa” (Racing Red) is a hypnotic transcendent flame. Ferrari is speed, style, romance, sex, history, joy and mystery. A Ferrari is the car you’d buy if you won the lottery. Critics claim the Ferrari Luce violates this sacred tradition.
That’s where Leon Trotsky comes in. The vast majority of those furious about Ferrari’s new EV have not and will never sit in a Ferrari of any sort, let alone own one. In 1985, Coca-Cola introduced “New Coke.” Customers were furious. A Seattle retiree formed “Old Cola Drinkers of America” and threatened to sue. Today, some Ferrari fans are angry about the new EV. Back in the 1985, pretty much anyone who wanted could buy a can of New Coke and then decide whether they hated it.
With the Ferrari Luce? Not so much.
The Luce haters aren’t angry because they planned to purchase Ferrari’s new EV and now – disappointed by the design must buy a Lamborghini – but because Ferrari messed with their dreams of manufactured identity. Trotsky might argue that a world populated by John Steinbeck’s “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” is deeply vexed by a new Italian sports car because they need their luxurious distractions to remain firm and unchangeable so that they can happily set about the business of their own oppression.
He might also add, “Yeah, the Luce is a strange-looking Ferrari.”
The critics need to relax. The Ferrari Luce was created to be divisive. At the launch, Enrico Galliera, Ferrari’s chief marketing and commercial officer, told the Financial Times it was meant to be “polarizing.”
“To my petrolheads that I meet,” Galliera said. “I always tell them, please don’t buy [the Luce]. The key driver the carmaker is targeting is someone who already owns an electric car.”
It’s a luxury car for the ultra rich who are spending millions turning classic cars electric. “This is a Ferrari for people who would previously never consider a Ferrari,” car critic Alistair Charlton wrote in Forbes. “It is for a new generation of ultra-wealthy individuals who don’t shout about their bank balance, but who know a luxury product when they experience it.”
The Luce looks ready to go after the Asian market, where EVs have taken over. Ferrari seems to be aiming directly at China. Business Insider noted that, at an investors meeting in October 2025, Ferrari chief executive officer Benedetto Vigna “namechecked China as a critical market for the company’s first EV, which was then known as the Elettrica.”
“China can be a good opportunity for Elettrica,” Vigna said. “Because the clients are already used to electric cars and because there is an appetite for our Ferrari.”
For now, Ferrari Luce haters and enthusiasts alike seemed blinded by the light.
No one should lose sight of the fact that regardless of public opinion, Ferrari will almost certainly sell out of the Luce. Ferrari is one of the world’s most exclusive brands. Anyone with the budget and good character can buy one of its regular production models, for example, a Ferrari Portofino or Ferrari Luce. If you want to buy a limited edition or special series (think: 812 Competizione or LaFerrari), you must demonstrate loyalty to the Ferrari brand and that means proving loyalty. What better way to do so than snapping up a brand new Ferrari Luce.
Keep buying those lottery tickets.
Ferrari/Reuters