Ferrari Luce EV

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Come to think of it, one could think of some other Ferrari models that aren't necessarily ugly but don't seem to fit the brand's design language, can't we? Like the 1956 410 Superamerica by Ghia, which does indeed look cool, but it seems unlike other Ferrari designs from the time. (Though I suppose a car called the "Superamerica" makes sense to have a variant that looks very...American.) Or perhaps the cars that were solely designed and built for the Sultan of Brunei.

That said, I think the Luce's price is insanity - even the Purosangue is over $200k less despite having a V12. The Luce really should've had a closer resemblance to the Pininfarina Battista.

If I understand it correctly, the Supercamerica was not really a Ferrari in that it was rebodied by Ghia. In any case, Ferrari hadn't really established itself yet in the 1950s and so there was more variation the design language. The 125-166 look more British than Italian to my eyes, for instance.

 

[MisterWaffles]

Damn I'm really going to die on the hill that this car isn't really that bad lol.

Like people froth at the mouth with so much hate for this car even saying "I don't love it but it's an ok car you guys, it's not the worst one ever made" is a controversial opinion.

At this point I wouldn't even be surprised if the Vatican put out a statement denouncing the Luce.

Also to the people saying "it looks like a Chinese car with a prancing horse sticker from Temu", yeah that's kinda the point. That's where the cheddar and sales for this car are in Ferrari's eyes. Like as much as China loves flexing their home-grown tech, and their EVs, they still for some reason really love Silicon Valley, an iPhone, their American luxury tech. And idk if Ferrari thinks they have a business case here then hopefully it goes well for them and this car is like a huge smash hit for sales over there and proves everyone wrong lol. That would be interesting to see after all of this "disaster of the millennium" outrage.

Also it's hilarious seeing these AI "artists" making renders of electric Ferrari hypercars based on the Luce design like they totally didn't hate the Battista and Evija when those came out.

 

[eran0004]

And idk if Ferrari thinks they have a business case here then hopefully it goes well for them and this car is like a huge smash hit for sales over there and proves everyone wrong lol.

You can't prove that something is not ugly, that's an absurd statement.

 

[VXR]

It's not a bad looking car. It's a bad looking Ferrari.

 

[DDK-Racing]

It's not a bad looking car. It's a bad looking Ferrari.

 

[MisterWaffles]

You can't prove that something is not ugly, that's an absurd statement.

I never said that? Plenty of people are saying it's going to be a sales flop simply because it's ugly, but completely ignoring that it wasn't meant to be a hypercar in the first place and is going after a specific market that's grown a huge amount in the last decade.

 

[eran0004]

I never said that? Plenty of people are saying it's going to be a sales flop simply because it's ugly, but completely ignoring that it wasn't meant to be a hypercar in the first place and is going after a specific market that's grown a huge amount in the last decade.

Sure, you didn't specify what they would be wrong about, but your whole post was about you thinking it's not as ugly as most people seem to think. So when you then said you wanted to prove everyone wrong it seemed like you wanted to prove them wrong about the car being ugly.

 

[Famine]

Plenty of people are saying it's going to be a sales flop simply because it's ugly

I think that you're missing a key point from the end of what these plenty of people are saying, which is that it's also $640,000.

Personally, I don't think it'll be a sales flop in specific terms: it won't sell well in general terms, nor in comparison to its best-selling cars (the 458 Italia sold about 15k in six years, with the 458 platform generally making it to 20k), but Ferrari will probably sell every one it plans to build. Which will be in the hundreds a year, maybe as much as two a day on average early on.

That's not just because it is generally a poor piece of design both in overall look (too tall, too slab-sided, too much of a Leaf rip-off) and in general detail (pug underbite, droopy front-fell-off-a-Bricklin, pooping out a Corvette-lighted Saab 9000, thumb-operated battery cover at random on the sides, hey why not park the wipers like that, no design lineage from any other Ferrari as far as I can make out), but because it's ugly and it's $640,000.

We're also yet to see if Ferrari, which normally sticks with a car for five-to-seven years without major changes, will be able to keep up with the much more rapid iterative pace of EVs.


If you have a desire for an EV with many powers, five seats, a minimalist + screens interior, and 800V/350kW fast charging, a Polestar 5 Performance and a vinyl wrap so it isn't Ctrl+U is a quarter of the price and probably won't get quite so much urine thrown at it.

 

[MisterWaffles]

If you have a desire for an EV with many powers, five seats, a minimalist + screens interior, and 800V/350kW fast charging, a Polestar 5 Performance and a vinyl wrap so it isn't Ctrl+U is a quarter of the price and probably won't get quite so much urine thrown at it.

I've heard of people spitting in roadsters with the top down, but is urinating on cars in public a common thing I've just never heard about? It's probably happened once or twice but I've never heard of someone doing that myself. I'll just assume it's hyperbole because this is apparently the worst car of all time.

Also pretty much every Ferrari has always been decent house money, and these days a decent house can go for 600k easily. There hasn't ever been a Ferrari that isn't overpriced relative to its competitors. If someone's in the market to be able to consider buying a Ferrari, that isn't an issue for them. Ferrari is never going to be competitive with their pricing because they don't need to be and they don't care.

I've seen some people say too it's overpriced relative to the performance, but Ferrari isn't Bugatti and has never been about making the fastest car in whatever segment, it's always been more about making an experience. The Enzo was slower than a McLaren F1 but it was more about making that Michael Schumacher F1 car for the road feel, the F80 pissed off a lot of the V12 purists for having a V6, but that car was all about making you feel like you were driving the Le Mans winning 499P. The Luce is a Silicon Valley tech bro experience, which is why they got the Apple guy to do it. Might not be the experience purists want from Ferrari, but they put a lot of effort into crafting it, and that's something that a Tesla or Polestar doesn't have.

Also around my area, the average truck seems to go for a fair chunk over 100k these days. That used to be Porsche money, and certain 911s can easily get over 200k now, which is where the F430 and 458 used to be. A 296 GTS is almost double the price of a 458's launch price when you start getting into options these days. A 600k techy Ferrari doesn't seem that crazy to me anymore, honestly.

 

[Famine]

I'll just assume it's hyperbole because this is apparently the worst car of all time.

Remind me where I said that it was the worst car of all time again?

And no, it's not hyperbole either. Nor would I say "urinating on cars" is "a common thing", which is why I didn't actually say either of those two things either. But yes, the thing I did actually say is a thing that does happen.

So is throwing/smearing faeces at/on cars, though it is neither "a common thing" nor achieved solely through dropping trou and evacuating directly onto the vehicle (nor always human).

Also pretty much every Ferrari has always been decent house money, and these days a decent house can go for 600k easily. There hasn't ever been a Ferrari that isn't overpriced relative to its competitors. If someone's in the market to be able to consider buying a Ferrari, that isn't an issue for them. Ferrari is never going to be competitive with their pricing because they don't need to be and they don't care.

Okay, but this doesn't seem to be actually related to anything in particular.

At best you seem to be agreeing with the second and third paragraphs I wrote but you didn't quote?

Personally, I don't think it'll be a sales flop in specific terms: it won't sell well in general terms, nor in comparison to its best-selling cars (the 458 Italia sold about 15k in six years, with the 458 platform generally making it to 20k), but Ferrari will probably sell every one it plans to build. Which will be in the hundreds a year, maybe as much as two a day on average early on.

That's not just because it is generally a poor piece of design both in overall look (too tall, too slab-sided, too much of a Leaf rip-off) and in general detail (pug underbite, droopy front-fell-off-a-Bricklin, pooping out a Corvette-lighted Saab 9000, thumb-operated battery cover at random on the sides, hey why not park the wipers like that, no design lineage from any other Ferrari as far as I can make out), but because it's ugly and it's $640,000.

If you tl;dred right through that: it's ugly and it's expensive, which is why it won't sell well in general terms and is also likely not to sell well in Ferrari terms, but will sell well enough in the sense that Ferrari will probably sell every one it plans to build so won't be a "sales flop".

I doubt Ferrari is planning on it being a cornerstone of its offerings, or even a double-digit percentage, hence my estimate of two cars a day. Ferrari sells about 14,000 cars a year, so 700ish would be 5%ish.

As a reminder, your comment was the rather Trumpian:

Plenty of people are saying it's going to be a sales flop simply because it's ugly,

My response is that, from what I've read, they don't seem to be saying that. In fact I've seen comments that it will sell despite being ugly because it's a Ferrari (which also seems to be the second part of your response).

However the more considered responses are that it's both ugly (in the sense of being generally bad design, but also not Ferrari enough to keep legacy customers or capture new ones who want a Ferrari) and way too expensive (particularly for customer capture) at the same time.

 

[MisterWaffles]

Okay, but this doesn't seem to be actually related to anything in particular.

At best you seem to be agreeing with the second and third paragraphs I wrote but you didn't quote?

You spent a good chunk of your last post italicizing the price and comparing it to a Polestar that's a quarter of said price, so that seems pretty clearly like you were trying to say it was overpriced to me, so I replied by saying whether a Ferrari is overpriced or not doesn't matter and they've always been historically? Why do you think that's not related to anything.

no design lineage from any other Ferrari as far as I can make out), but because it's ugly and it's $640,000.

Also... it's there, I don't get why people don't see this? It has the quad lamps in the rear, it has the black bar across the front like the old Daytona and the other new-age Ferraris, just done in a different way. The interior is straight out of the 70s and 80s era of the company. But since it's a different take on the design that people don't like suddenly those very intentional design cues are invalidated? Or the lineage just doesn't exist anymore?

Ferrari doesn't exactly have another old sedan in the lineup to go copy the homework of, this is the first one, so yes it's going to be carving out a new niche inherently.

However the more considered responses are that it's both ugly (in the sense of being generally bad design, but also not Ferrari enough to keep legacy customers or capture new ones who want a Ferrari) and way too expensive (particularly for customer capture) at the same time.

I mean what I'm mainly trying to argue against here is everyone seems to now be the gatekeepers of what a Ferrari is and isn't now, which I think is ridiculous. We'll see how the sales go and if it does end up being a flop I suppose, but I'm pretty confident this car is destined mainly for the Chinese market and the rising upper middle class there and the new wealth the tech industry brought there. They're trying to exploit potential new customers there. so of course it isn't going to be a traditional hypercar that looks like an F80 or a grand tourer that looks like a slightly raised 12Cilindri.



Also James May likes it too and that's all the vindication I need.