How Ferrari bungled the design of its first EV | The VergeSkip to main contentThe homepageThe VergeThe Verge logo.The VergeThe Verge logo.TechReviewsScienceEntertainmentAIPolicyNotificationsNotificationsHamburger Navigation ButtonThe homepageThe VergeThe Verge logo.NotificationsNotificationsHamburger Navigation ButtonNavigation DrawerThe VergeThe Verge logo.Login / Sign UpcloseCloseSearchTechExpandAmazonAppleFacebookGoogleMicrosoftSamsungBusinessSee all techReviewsExpandSmart Home ReviewsPhone ReviewsTablet ReviewsHeadphone ReviewsSee all reviewsScienceExpandSpaceEnergyEnvironmentHealthSee all scienceEntertainmentExpandTV ShowsMoviesAudioSee all entertainmentAIExpandOpenAIAnthropicSee all AIPolicyExpandAntitrustPoliticsLawSecuritySee all policyGadgetsExpandLaptopsPhonesTVsHeadphonesSpeakersWearablesSee all gadgetsVerge ShoppingExpandBuying GuidesDealsGift GuidesSee all shoppingGamingExpandXboxPlayStationNintendoSee all gamingStreamingExpandDisneyHBONetflixYouTubeCreatorsSee all streamingTransportationExpandElectric CarsAutonomous CarsRide-sharingScootersSee all transportationFeaturesVerge VideoExpandTikTokYouTubeInstagramPodcastsExpandDecoderThe VergecastVersion HistoryNewslettersArchivesStoreVerge Product UpdatesSubscribeFacebookThreadsInstagramYoutubeRSSThe VergeThe Verge logo.How Ferrari bungled the design of its first EVNotificationsNotificationsComments DrawerNotificationsCommentsLoading commentsGetting the conversation ready...TransportationCloseTransportationPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TransportationDesignCloseDesignPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All DesignTechCloseTechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TechHow Ferrari bungled the design of its first EVThe Luce could be the most universally disliked Ferrari ever unveiled. How did the Maranello-based automaker get it so wrong?by Abigail BassettCloseAbigail BassettFreelancerPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Abigail BassettMay 29, 2026, 2:00 PM UTCLinkShareGift Image: FerrariTransportationCloseTransportationPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TransportationDesignCloseDesignPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All DesignTechCloseTechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TechHow Ferrari bungled the design of its first EVThe Luce could be the most universally disliked Ferrari ever unveiled. How did the Maranello-based automaker get it so wrong?by Abigail BassettCloseAbigail BassettFreelancerPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Abigail BassettMay 29, 2026, 2:00 PM UTCLinkShareGiftFor nearly 80 years, Ferrari occupied a unique cultural space where its cars were aspirational, even for people who resented those who could afford them. The price, the exclusivity, and the opacity of the buying process allowed Ferrari to sail above ordinary criticism. You might not be able to afford one, but you still wanted one.With the launch of the all-electric Luce this week, however, the company fell down to earth, drawing the ire of the internet in the form of derision, mocking memes, and AI slop. People compared it to a vacuum, a Magic Mouse, and, most insultingly, a Nissan Leaf.The Luce has arrived in a moment where wealth inequality and corporate excess have rarely been this visible or this resented. In that environment, a car that costs more than most people earn in a decade, yet looks like something bland and mass market, was always going to land hard. Ferrari has always sold desire across class lines. The $640,000-plus Luce homogenizes the aesthetic while keeping the Ferrari price, enraging loyalists and fans alike.“The reaction illustrates how intrinsically the brand identity, expectations, and design are tied together,” Derek Jenkins, the SVP of Design and Brand at Lucid, told The Verge. “I can see a couple of things in the exterior design that still reference the brand. The taillights for one, the red color option, and finally, the logo. Everything else — proportions, lack of visual agility, even the expression of performance — is missing from the exterior. The face of the car isn’t identifiable… It’s a mismatch with the brand.”“The face of the car isn’t identifiable… It’s a mismatch with the brand.”— Derek Jenkins, SVP of Design and Brand at LucidThe vehicle was designed in partnership with famed Apple designers Jony Ive and Marc Newson, through their firm LoveFrom, and boasts four motors, 1,035 horsepower, and around 500 km of electric range. Ive has been notoriously critical of car designers in the past, saying that he found some modern looks “shocking,” but recently admitted that he was surprised by how difficult it was to design a car.The Luce is the longest Ferrari ever built, eschewing the brand’s traditional sharp, aggressive lines for a more sweeping, aerodynamic profile. It’s also Ferrari’s first five-seater, with a low stance that almost makes it seem like a hatchback. It looks as though its sleek, dark “glass house” cabin is nested inside a separate, chunkier aluminum shell. And instead of a traditional grille, it features an S-duct swoop that drops down. It’s baffling to look at.As Raphael Zammit, chair of transportation design at the College for Creative Studies in Michigan, explained, industrial design and automotive design are two very different disciplines, and the skills from one do not consistently translate to the other. Ive’s Apple iPhone design made the physical phone disappear, Zammit said, and was “100 percent appropriate for a digital communication device that you hold in your hand.” But a Ferrari is not an iPhone.Ferrari’s decision to hire LoveFrom was a choice with a built-in logic, Zammit argued. “Ive is a brand,” he said. “When you hire Brad Pitt, you expect to get Brad Pitt.” The interior of the Luce has been praised for its blend of analog and digital touchpoints. But the interior language would likely be much more at home in a small premium city car, he added, such as a Fiat 500 or a Cinquecento, not a supercar that retails for half a million dollars.Ferrari shares fell about 8 percent in Milan and 5.3 percent in New York the day after the unveiling, and hovered around that level through Wednesday, with analysts citing a mix of “design hate” and investor concerns about R&D costs and return on investment. Despite the public blowback, Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna said on Thursday that “interest was strong” in the Luce, especially with new customers, and the stock has since risen back to the prelaunch levels.Stephanie Brinley, automotive analyst at S&P Global Mobility, said that the blowback has intensified as a direct result of the economic and political moment we’re living through. “It might end up being a blip on Ferrari’s overall history,” she continued, “I don’t see why this particular vehicle needs to destroy the Ferrari legacy.”Image: FerrariA moment of collective trollingThe design criticism has come from far and wide, including harsh words from Italian officials and even the former president and chairman of Ferrari. It’s even spread beyond automotive media and Wall Street, landing on general culture sites, political accounts, and feeds with no particular interest in cars.Luca di Montezemolo, the former president, said the Luce risks “destroying a myth,” adding: “I hope they at least take the prancing horse from that car.” Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini echoed the sentiment. Ferrari declined to comment on either. Competitors in the supercar world were also watching. Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann, without commenting directly on the Luce, said his company’s decision to cancel its EV plans and focus on plug-in hybrids was “the right way to go,” adding that innovation should not be made for its own sake or forced on customers.Among automotive designers, the criticism is no less blunt. “It is brutally bland, actually. It really does look as if it was designed by AI. It’s like a mathematical averaging of many different themes,” Zammit said, adding that, “it’s almost alarmingly vacant of identity.”There’s a lot that critics hate about the Luce. The stance and proportions, for example, are all wrong for Ferrari, which is known for its lithe and aggressive lines. The front end of the vehicle is generic, even with the air vent over the front glass (a video of executives showing the car to Pope Leo demonstrates that you can pass your entire arm through it).“It’s not a sports car, it’s not a city electric, and it’s not really luxury,” Zammit said. “It seems like they might have gotten a little bit snowed or oversold by LoveFrom… The strategy is very muddy, because of what they’re doing versus what they’re saying on different parts of the vehicle.”A play for China?Ferrari may have an ulterior motive in its design choices. The company has been open about wanting to expand its presence in China, where electric vehicles are mainstream, large gasoline-powered cars face significant taxation, and many Chinese vehicles look a lot like Ferraris.Chinese buyers have typically accounted for around 10 percent of Ferrari’s overall sales, but that share has declined in recent years. The Luce, with its large glassy surfaces, minimal/maximal interior, and polarizing exterior, reads less like a Ferrari and more like something designed to compete in a market where China’s domestic brands are launching ultraluxury EVs at volume.If that calculation sounds familiar, it should. BMW spent the better part of a decade enlarging its kidney grilles to proportions that drew near-universal mockery in Western markets. BMW’s design chief, Adrian van Hooydonk, eventually acknowledged plainly: “In certain areas in the world, like China, it is good; people are still asking for big grilles.”BMW has since moved on with its Neue Klasse design language, a global reset intended to resonate everywhere rather than optimize for one market. The lesson most automakers learned from BMW’s move was that when a brand built on a specific emotional identity makes an abrupt pivot toward a different buyer, the original audience notices immediately and tends to take it personally.Benedetto Vigna, a former semiconductor industry executive, took over Ferrari in 2021, and has described the Luce as a “Leapfrog moment” in the company’s history, saying he considers himself fortunate to be leading through it. That conviction may be well-placed on the engineering side, but whether the physical design lives up to the Ferrari badge is another question.An anonymized FerrariFerrari’s whole cultural function, as a signal, a provocation, an investment, depends on being unmistakably true to itself, its heritage, and, most importantly, its design.When you remove the engine, the most emotionally resonant element in Ferrari’s history, you have to replace it with something compelling, Zammit points out, and the Luce’s design doesn’t do that.Despite the design flop, Zammit was careful to separate it from the brand’s long-term health, calling it “a bit of a stumble, both in concept and in execution,” but said Ferrari had too strong a record to be permanently damaged.One thing is clear in the face of all the negative coverage: In trying to signal a new era for Ferrari, the Luce has made everyone suddenly more interested in the old one.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Abigail BassettCloseAbigail BassettFreelancerPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Abigail BassettAppleCloseApplePosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All AppleDesignCloseDesignPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All DesignElectric CarsCloseElectric CarsPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All Electric CarsTechCloseTechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TechTransportationCloseTransportationPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TransportationMost PopularMost PopularKia’s flagship EV has a battery problemThe golden age of handheld gaming is already overThey’ve finally made the Oura Ring smaller and lighterWhat’s next for Microsoft’s Surface PCs?Valve raises Steam Deck prices by more than $200The Verge DailyA free daily digest of the news that matters most.Email (required)Sign UpBy submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice. 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The unveiling of Ferrari's first all-electric vehicle, the Luce, generated significant public derision and criticism, leading to widespread mockery that challenged the brand's long-standing cultural position. For nearly eighty years, Ferrari maintained an elevated status based on exclusivity and aspirational pricing, but the introduction of the Luce, priced above most people's lifetime earnings, juxtaposed this legacy with mass-market aesthetics, causing outrage from loyalists and investors. Critics likened the vehicle to mundane objects such as a vacuum or a Nissan Leaf, highlighting a perceived homogenization of the aesthetic that contradicted Ferrari's identity.

The design decisions behind the Luce sparked serious debate among automotive design experts concerning the translation of industrial design principles into high-performance automotive design. Derek Jenkins, SVP of Design and Brand at Lucid, noted that while some elements referenced the brand, the overall exterior design lacked recognizable Ferrari features, such as aggressive proportions or visual agility, resulting in a mismatch with the established brand identity. Raphael Zammit, chair of transportation design at the College for Creative Studies in Michigan, argued that the skills from industrial design do not always translate effectively to automotive design, noting that whereas a digital device like an iPhone design is inherently appropriate for its function, a Ferrari is fundamentally different. He suggested that the interior language, while praised for blending analog and digital elements, would be more suitable for smaller premium city cars rather than a half-million-dollar supercar.

The Luce itself represented a departure from Ferrari's traditional aesthetic, adopting a more sweeping, aerodynamic profile and featuring a low stance, resembling a hatchback, which contradicted the brand's history of sharp, aggressive lines. This design was realized through a partnership with Jony Ive and Marc Newson of LoveFrom. Zammit posits that this collaboration presented an inherent tension, as Ive, despite his critical stance on previous car designers, prioritized functional digital design, leading to a design that felt "brutally bland" and vacant of the specific identity associated with Ferrari. The vehicle's design choices were viewed by some as a mathematical averaging of themes rather than an expression of inherent brand essence, leading to the conclusion that the design was a stumble in both concept and execution.

Furthermore, the design choices were perceived as potentially strategic, possibly aiming for expansion into the Chinese market where electric vehicles are dominant and domestic luxury brands are emerging. The vehicle's large glassy surfaces and polarizing exterior were seen as less characteristic of a Ferrari and more aligned with the aesthetics of the mass-market competition in that region. This mirrors past industry lessons, such as BMW's adaptation of kidney grilles, where a change in market orientation causes the original audience to perceive a personal slight. Despite the intense backlash, the CEO of Ferrari, Benedetto Vigna, maintained that there was strong interest in the Luce, which contributed to a recovery in stock levels. Ultimately, the experience demonstrated that for a brand whose cultural function relies on being unmistakably true to its heritage, the physical design must align with its emotional identity, a requirement that the Luce, in this instance, struggled to meet.