Ferrari had to know its new Luce EV would get a stormy welcome. Maranello’s first all-electric production car is a five-door liftback that departs radically from fire-spitting V12 engines and traditional supercar styling.
Sure enough, purists let fly with sharp rebukes. Even former Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo weighed in, warning that the company risks destroying a legend, and wiping billions from Ferrari’s market value.
But Ferrari had some big guns it could bring out for the hearts-and-mind campaign: Formula 1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. The two took the Luce out for a little spin, which is now part of newly released promotional video:
Substance more important than style
In it, the Scuderia teammates bypass the controversy over the design and focus strictly on the vehicle's engineering and performance. Leclerc candidly addresses the elephant in the room, acknowledging that the “design is very, very different to whatever we’ve seen from Ferrari in the past.”
However, the Monégasque driver defended the futuristic aesthetic as an act of pure innovation, a trait he considers inherently Ferrari.
Leclerc was especially enthusiastic about the cabin, praising the decision to eschew the industry trend of all-screen dashboards. “I love it’s back to having more physical buttons so you can actually drive, look at the road and you can feel,” he explained. He even expressed surprise at the vehicle's acoustic character, noting, “I liked that electric sound... it helps you stay connected with the car.”
Hamilton, meanwhile, focused on pushing the 1,036-hp EV to its limits on the track. Powered by a 122-kWh battery and four electric motors capable of launching the car from 0 to 62 mph in 2.5 seconds, the Luce clearly impressed the seven-time world champion. “The power delivery is amazing,” Hamilton noted. “You just feel centred the whole time even when you’re going through corners.”
Hamilton attributed this stability to the low centre of gravity afforded by the battery layout and active suspension. “When we were going over the curves, how it just continues to stay connected to the ground—that for me is the best part of the technology,” he said. “In most cars the car rolls a lot. This doesn’t roll.”
Obviously the video is a marketing exercise, and a carefully orchestrated one. No one could realistically expect the two Ferrari drivers to come out and publicly savage the most important new Ferrari model to debut in years. Still, the genuine grins on the drivers' faces suggest the $640,000 USD (€550,000) machine delivers authentic driving dynamics. As Piero Ferrari, son of the founder, summarized: “Once you have driven it, you’ll probably change idea.”
