Everyone seems to be furious about Ferrari’s first electric car.
Dubbed Ruth, it was revealed on Monday that the design of the five-seater was primarily driven by Jony Ive and his design company LoveFrom, which he runs with Marc Newson. While it ticks many of the boxes on the spec sheet, it also boasts 1,000 horsepower and the ability to reach 60 mph in just over two seconds, making it the most ridiculed new car since the Cybertruck.
Widespread disapproval of the Nissan-like wedge-shaped car seems to run the gamut, from the typically flimsy reaction to the aggressively vitriolic. The company’s stock price has fallen, and even some of the most downstream news outlets have acknowledged it in their own way. (Bloomberg said Ruth was “quite a stretch.”)
The question underlying all this immediate backlash is a singular one: Who is Ruth for?
Certainly, that’s not the case for me, nor for most people reading this. The Luce costs around $650,000, but this is Ferrari we’re talking about, so even if they had that kind of money, can you say they’re selective about their customers?
Is it for existing Ferrari owners? Usually the answer is yes. Of the 14,000 people who bought a Ferrari last year, more than 80% already own a Ferrari vehicle. It’s hard to imagine that crowd being sufficiently excited about a car that lacks all of the fierce Ferrari angles that have graced bedroom walls for decades.
Is it for other car designers? probably. Car companies are always borrowing ideas, and the interior certainly has a lot of thought put into it, with plenty of clicky buttons and knobs, which is groundbreaking for me, but personally I’d like to see it replicated elsewhere.
Is it for regulators? Well, maybe. The European Union has set strict limits on the sale of new cars equipped with internal combustion engines by 2035. Luce could be Ferrari’s first step towards a line-up that complies with these looming regulations.
In fact, during my interview with Cleo Abram, I learned that this outside pressure seemed to be weighing heavily on Ive. Abram was given access to one of the four “secret” books I created when I started the project. The book combines moodboard-style images with text written by the iPhone designer himself.
Quoting Ive, Abram likens the task of designing an electric Ferrari to how Swiss luxury watchmaker Patek Philippe adapted in its evolution from mechanical power to crystal oscillators. Ive writes that Patek Philippe has survived “largely because it has survived and thrived in a period of transition” by producing a mix of traditional watches and watches with batteries and quartz movements.
But then he added: “If it were legislated that Patek Philippe had to transition its entire product line to quartz, the resulting challenges would look similar to the transition facing Ferrari.” tell!
Still, it’s hard to believe this is a purely conformist car. The company said Luce expects to profit from the jump. And Ferrari’s own chief marketing and commercial officer told the Financial Times that the company wants to “polarize” Luce.
He also acknowledged again in that interview that Ferrari’s Luce’s main target is people who “already own an electric car.”
This statement is almost as radical as Luce’s design. By definition, that likely means Ferrari is not counting on the majority of Luce’s sales to its current owner.
From here, perhaps the most real answer is China. Chinese buyers typically account for only about 10% of Ferrari’s overall sales, but that number has declined in recent years and automaker executives are not shying away from turning things around in the world’s largest battery-powered vehicle market with its first electric car.
When looked at through that lens, Luce’s design makes a little more sense. Because to my eye, it certainly resembles some of the designs that have come out of China’s booming auto industry over the past few years.
So perhaps the more appropriate question is this. Now flooded with high-performance, high-tech, and affordable options, will Chinese buyers be willing to pay for the prestige of a Prancing Horse under the hood?
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