Ferrari shares fall after launch of first EV as Jony Ive design proves divisive

Ferrari’s share price has dropped after it revealed a long-awaited first electric vehicle, with a minimalist look created by former Apple design chief Jony Ive that departs from the Italian manufacturer’s petrol sportscars.

The Luce, starting at $640,000 (£545,000), has a range of 329 miles (530km) thanks to its battery capacity of 122 kilowatt hours, the company said, with four motors that can accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in 2.5 seconds, with a top speed of more than 310km/h (193mph).

The launch was hotly anticipated, given the world’s most valuable sportscar maker’s totemic status among car and Formula One racing fans.

However, the Luce’s saloon-like design immediately proved divisive, with some analysts questioning whether it lived up to Ferrari’s sportscar heritage.

The carmaker’s share price dropped by as much as 8% in morning trading on Tuesday in Milan, before recovering to a 6% decline, suggesting investors were unsure whether it would prove to be a hit. The carmaker, which produces all its cars in Maranello, northern Italy, was valued at €56bn (£48bn) before the launch.

The Luce is the first Ferrari to have five seats, and only the second to have four doors, suggesting it is pitched towards super-wealthy families rather than sportscar enthusiasts. Ferrari’s other four-door model is the Purosangue, an SUV launched in 2022.

Ferrari, founded in 1939, said the car’s design was “simplified and rationalised in service of the driving experience”, and emphasised that was creating an “entirely new Ferrari”.

The company last year scaled back its ambitions to shift from petrol to electric. It is aiming to have a 2030 lineup of 40% internal combustion engine models, 40% hybrids and 20% fully-electric. In 2022 it had planned for 40% electric, 40% hybrids and 20% petrol models by 2030.

The Luce was developed in partnership with Jony Ive’s LoveFrom studio. Photograph: Ferrari/Reuters

Benedetto Vigna, the Ferrari chief executive, said: “We are convinced that a company demonstrates its leadership when it has the courage to dare and to take on the challenge of new technologies. Ferrari Luce was born precisely from this challenge, offering our unprecedented vision of electrification.”

However, others said they believed it diverged too far from the blueprint that has made Ferrari one of the most profitable carmakers in the world. The Luce looks like a “mix between a Honda Accord EV and Tesla 3”, wrote Pierre-Olivier Essig, the head of research at AIR Capital, in a note for clients reported by Bloomberg. “We are lost in translation with Ferrari’s new strategy.”

The Luce was developed in partnership with LoveFrom, the studio founded by Ive after his long career at Apple, during which he led the design of products including the iPhone, MacBook and Apple Watch. Ive is also working on a new type of AI-centred device with OpenAI.

Despite their efforts to distinguish the car from the rest of Ferrari’s products, the Luce still contained some efforts to appeal to petrolhead instincts, such as a motor sound played through speakers that is audible inside and outside the car. Ferrari claimed the sound was “authentic” because it was amplified directly from the sound of the motors.