All the news about Ferrari’s polarizing Luce EV

Ferrari fans don’t like the design of the new Luce EV, an electric four-door sedan that just doesn’t look like the Ferraris of old.

It was designed with help from Jony Ive’s LoveFrom, but what worked for Ive at Apple isn’t working for Ferrari. The Luce’s launch immediately preceded a stock drop that even an appearance by the Pope hasn’t been able to turn around so far.

Stephan Winkelmann didn’t comment directly on Ferrari’s EV, but told CNBC that his company’s decision to cancel its EV plans in favor of hybrids was “the right way to go.”

…we saw that the acceptance curve [of EVs] for our type of customers is not increasing, and that therefore we decided to move away from a full-electric car into a plug-in hybrid.

It may be the NBA playoffs but right now Ferrari is getting dunked on more than anyone. Whether they own a Ferrari or just have a poster of a Testarossa on their wall, fans in the Ferrari-verse are frothy about the Luce, the company’s first all-electric vehicle. According to one highly rated Verge commenter: “looks like a Polestar had a one-night stand with a Prius.”

Whatever. The competition should steal this design.

The Vatican and Ferrari go way back, so a little cross promotion of the all-electric Luce is to be expected. But not even divine intervention will pacify Ferrari fans eager for a return of sharp, aggressive lines. Still, I think we can all agree that it looks better than the all-electric G-Class popemobile which also cost half a million dollars.

That was Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, former Ferrari president, commenting on the recent reveal of the polarizing electric Luce. He continued (translated from Italian):

There is a risk of destroying a legend. I am very sorry. I hope… I hope to… I hope they take the prancing horse off that car, at least… This is definitely a car that, at least, the Chinese won’t copy.

The automaker’s RACE stock is down over 7 percent, while its US-listed shares are down 4 percent, according to CNBC. It would seem Ferrari fans are not the only ones disappointed by the Jony Ive-designed Luce.

Ferrari makes some of the fastest cars on the planet, so it’s anyone’s guess how the Italian automaker ended up being so incredibly late to the EV party. Long after most automakers have drastically scaled back their EV ambitions, canceled battery-powered models, or curtailed factory plans, Ferrari emerges from the shadows with a real weird one: the all-electric Luce.

Ferrari unveiled the Luce Monday at the Vela di Calatrava, a massive architectural sporting complex located on the outskirts of Rome. In many ways it’s the most anticipated and also the most over-hyped EV to come out since battery-powered models first arrived on the scene. An electric Ferrari! This is a huge deal!

After months of teasers, Ferrari is offering the first full view of its Luce electric vehicle. The Luce is notable not just for being Ferrari’s first EV, but for being designed in collaboration with Jony Ive and Mark Newson at their collective LoveFrom. It’s also going to be Ferrari’s second four-door car and its first five-seat one.

We already knew Ive and Newson were working on the Luce’s interiors, which were shown off earlier this year. Now Ferrari says LoveFrom was allowed to “define the design direction of the project from the outset,” inside and out.

Car and Driver doing the important tests of the new EV’s Jony Ive-designed interior.

Ferrari released the first interior images of the company’s first all-electric supercar, called the Ferrari Luce (“light” in Italian). This is the second time the Italian automaker has teased the Luce (formerly Elettrica) without showing us the actual car, or even a silhouette. But the interior images should suffice given the bold-faced name of the designer: Jony Ive.

Ferrari decided to outsource the work of designing the Luce’s interior to Ive and his partner Marc Newson, who together run the design shop LoveFrom. Ive, obviously, is well known for his work as Apple’s former chief designer, overseeing such iconic products as the iMac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Now he’s turning his attention to a vehicle from Ferrari — and perhaps, in the process, giving us an idea of what an Apple car could have looked like, had the tech giant decided to pursue its secretive Project Titan instead of spiking it.

Meet the Ferrari Elettrica. Well, meet some of it.

The Italian supercar maker lifted the hood on the technology that will power its hotly anticipated first electric vehicle, the Elettrica. At an event at its Maranello headquarters, Ferrari showed reporters the chassis and powertrain of the upcoming EV, including its battery pack and motors. No actual vehicle was revealed, though.

Here’s a sneak peak at the all electric Ferrari wearing full camouflage and making a simulated Ferrari rumble ahead of its launch later this year. As noted by Electrek, the prototype shows some exposed wiring and brackets up front and fake tailpipes glued to the back.