Ferrari Launches $640,000, Jony Ive-Designed, Glass-Clad Electric Speedster

An electric vehicle big on glass, light and space: This isn’t your father’s Ferrari.

On Sunday, Europe’s most valuable automaker took the wraps off its first-ever model without an internal combustion engine.

Named after the Italian word for light, the Ferrari Luce will test the appetite of the superrich for EVs at a time when electric vehicles have fallen out of favor in the U.S., the world’s top market for luxury cars. Designed in partnership with celebrated Apple alumnus Jony Ive, the model also represents a leap into a new technology for a brand built over decades around the of traditional engines.

The Luce (pronounced loo-chay) will be among the most expensive Ferraris that aren’t part of a limited production run. The company said the starting price would be 550,000 euros in Italy, equivalent to roughly $640,000.

The launch event at Rome’s Vela di Calatrava—a stadium with a towering concrete “sail” that was opened for the Vatican’s 2025 Jubilee—featured tortellini by Italian chef Massimo Bottura, clips of Formula One stars Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc racing the car, and lots of lights.

Ferrari has framed the shift as a chance to experiment.

“We wanted to do what we hadn’t been able to do before,” said Ferrari Chairman John Elkann.

The Luce is the first Ferrari with five seats—an option ruled out by the axle in its traditional powertrain configurations.

Despite the roominess, the EV accelerates from 0 to 60 miles an hour in less than 2.5 seconds for a top speed exceeding 190 mph, the company said. The power comes from four motors, one for each wheel.

“Everything is done with the purpose of really making it faster and more importantly a car that you really want to drive,” said Elkann.

Range between charges was a lower priority, running to roughly 330 miles despite an unusually large battery. The latest releases from BMW and Volvo run for more than 500 miles.

The , so critical to Ferraris, can be provided by what the company calls an “external amplification system” that pumps the natural sound of the electric axles out to the street. It can also be turned on in the cabin for driving feedback in “performance mode.” The company likens the approach to an electric guitar.

While Ferrari engineered the driving experience, the EV took physical shape in collaboration with Jony Ive and his colleague Marc Newson. Elkann started talking to the duo after admiring their work on the Apple Watch, which he called “probably the most successful example” of an analog product being reinvented digitally.

The Luce’s entire upper half and many of its fittings are made of glass, much of it supplied by U.S. glassmaker turned artificial-intelligence darling Corning.

“It doesn’t look like what you would imagine a sports car to be,” said Elkann.

Another hallmark of the California-based designers’ work on the Luce are interfaces that blend the digital and physical. There is a traditional steering wheel, knobs and levers, while the screens consist of so-called organic light-emitting diodes, which don’t require backlighting, to create a more analog feel.

“As a car becomes electric, it doesn’t mean that it needs to be a consumer electronics object, which is probably one of the mistakes that the industry has been making in the last 10 years,” said Elkann, the grandson of Italian industry titan Gianni Agnelli and boss of the family investment vehicle that controls Ferrari.

While Ferrari needs to wow fans with cutting-edge technology, to attract collectors its cars must also be future-proof. Ferrari has estimated that 90% of the vehicles it has ever made are still on the road and works on the principle that Ferraris are “forever.”

Finding the right balance between innovation and permanence with fast-evolving EV technology took half a decade, massive investment, and a key hire from the tech industry.

Elkann announced the car in 2021, after interest in the technology rocketed during the pandemic. A year later, he appointed former microchip executive Benedetto Vigna as chief executive officer.

When he arrived at Ferrari, “people were scared to do electric,” Vigna said at an event in London last month. “Because of what I did in my previous career, let’s say people trusted me.”

In 2024, Ferrari opened a roughly $230 million new factory at its headquarters in Maranello, Italy, to allow production of EVs alongside hybrids and traditional gas-engine vehicles.

Ferrari stuck to the course on EVs even as peers such as Porsche hit the brakes in response to tepid demand for electric sports cars. Lamborghini and McLaren both recently said they don’t yet see much of a market. Mass-market carmakers such as Ford and Jeep-owner Stellantis that rushed into EVs have taken as they shift focus back to combustion engines and hybrids.

“A lot of the powertrain decisions have been driven by regulation,” said Elkann, who is also chairman of Stellantis. Ferrari is instead focused on making the best use of today’s technology, he added.

“Our customers will choose. And I’m pretty sure, also from feedback that we’re getting, that we have existing customers who have combustion or hybrids who also will want to have electric.”

The company has a record of keeping supply tight and leveraging the to generate interest in whatever it produces, with regular buyers prioritized in allocations of special-edition vehicles that collectors covet. The waiting list for Ferraris runs toward the end of 2027, the automaker said earlier this month.

Any weakness in demand could show up later in the secondhand market. The depreciation of hybrid-electric models has previously sparked concerns that Ferraris with batteries might not retain their appeal as solidly as those without.

In 2024 the company addressed those worries with an extended warranty program for its plug-in hybrids, including eight-yearly battery replacements. It said it would provide similar assistance with the Luce’s electronics and battery.

Despite the risks, Ferrari’s robust profit and lofty share price give it flexibility to make long-term bets that others cannot.

“You need to bring forward the flag of innovation,” said Vigna. “It is too easy for a luxury company to live in the past.”

Write to Stephen Wilmot at

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