Ferrari’s first electric car isn’t for you

It seems everyone is mad about Ferrari’s first electric car.

The car is called Los and was unveiled on Monday. The design of the five-seater (gasp!) was largely led by Jony Ive and the design company he runs with Marc Newson, LoveFrom. Although it has a lot of specs – it has 1,000 horsepower and the ability to hit 60 mph in just over two seconds – it is considered the most ridiculous new car since the Cybertruck.

This widespread disapproval of Nissan’s wedge-shaped car seems to cover the entire spectrum as well, from typically lame reactions to positive scathing comments. The company’s stock price has fallen, and even some of the more modest media outlets are admitting this in their own way. (Bloomberg said Los is “overstretched.”)

The question behind all of this backlash is a unique one: Who is Luce for?

Certainly, this is not for me, or for almost anyone reading this. The Luce will cost around $650,000, and this is a Ferrari we’re talking about, so even if you have that kind of money, you’re dealing with a company that, shall we say, selective About its customers.

Is it for current Ferrari owners? The answer is usually yes, as more than 80% of the 14,000 people who bought a Ferrari last year already own one. It’s hard to imagine this audience being enthusiastic enough about a car completely devoid of the ferocious Ferrari angles that have adorned bedroom walls for decades.

Is it for other car designers? maybe. Car companies borrow ideas all the time, and there’s certainly a lot of ideas inside – which features lots of clickable buttons and knobs, a notable departure for Ive – that I’d personally like to see replicated elsewhere.

Is it for organizers? Well, maybe. The European Union sets strict limits on the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines in 2035. The Los could be Ferrari’s first step toward a lineup that complies with those looming rules.

In fact, during an interview with Cleo Abram, we learned that this outside pressure seems to have taken a toll on Eve. Abram was given access to one of the four “secret” books I created when the project began, which contains a mix of mood board-like images and text written by the iPhone designer himself.

Abram quotes Ives comparing the task of designing an electric Ferrari to how Swiss luxury watchmaker Patek Philippe adapted while evolving from mechanical power to quartz crystals. Yves wrote that Patek Philippe survived “primarily because it survived and grew during the transition period” by making a mix of traditional watches and watches with batteries and quartz movements.

But he then added: “If it were legislated that Patek Philippe would have to convert its entire production line to quartz, the resulting challenge would look similar to the transition faced by Ferrari.” I say!

However, I find it hard to believe that this is a purely compliance car. The company said it expects Luce to be profitable from the jump. Ferrari’s chief marketing and commercial officer told the Financial Times that the company wanted the Los to be “polarizing”.

He also made another admission in that interview, saying that Ferrari’s main target with Los is someone who “already owns an electric car.”

This statement is almost as radical as Luce’s design. By definition, this likely means Ferrari is not looking to current owners to make up the bulk of Los’s sales.

Which brings us to what maybe The most honest answer: China. While Chinese buyers typically make up only about 10% of Ferrari’s total sales, those numbers have declined in recent years, and the automaker’s executives have not been shy about their desire for their first electric car to shake things up in the world’s largest battery-powered car market.

Through this lens, the Lucy’s design makes more sense, because – to my eyes – it certainly resembles some of the designs that have come out of China’s booming auto industry over the past few years.

So perhaps a more appropriate question to ask is: Will Chinese buyers, currently awash in affordable high-performance, high-tech options, be interested in paying the price for the prestige of a prancing horse on the hood?