“It’s not an overnight process,” cautioned Benedetto Vigna, the CEO of Ferrari, when referring to the Ferrari Luce during his speech back in October of last year, way ahead of any other outsiders getting to know anything about the car. Well, Mr. Vigna was not exaggerating at all. Without any doubt, this Ferrari stands out as the most revolutionary car made by the company up to now. Cab forward design, four doors, and interior space like in a limousine. Just imagine that – a Ferrari doing something that it never has before!
The Luce is the biggest and heaviest Ferrari ever produced, the only Ferrari designed both inside and out by an overseas company, and the first Ferrari without an internal combustion engine. Lots to talk about, isn’t it?
While the powertrain and chassis technology of Luce has already been unveiled by Ferrari, here is a quick recap nonetheless. An 800-volt electric drivetrain, consisting of an axial flux permanent magnet e-motor driving each wheel and a 122 kWh battery, comes with high-performance silicon carbide inverters managing the flow of energy. These four motors feature Halbach arrays for the placement of their magnets, a system Ferrari has already used in its F1 powertrains to drive the magnetic flux into the stator to optimize torque density. The output of the two front e-motors will be 140 horsepower and 103 pound-feet of torque while that of the two rear e-motors will be 415 horsepower and 262 pound-feet of torque respectively. All in all, the total system output will be 1,035 horsepower and 730 pound-feet of torque, while the battery supporting charging rates of up to 350kW will deliver a WLTP range of 330 miles, implying EPA-rated range of 280 miles.
Also Read : The Bugatti Veyron Can Now Get a Factory-Approved Glow-Up
The Luce is built around a chassis for the skateboard that is highly aluminum, while the upgraded active suspension system, which was originally designed for the F80 and Purosangue models, is managed by the next iteration of Ferrari’s Side Slip Control vehicle dynamics system known as SSC X. The standard rear wheel steering system is capable of rotating the rear wheels up to 2.15 degrees independently. Standard carbon ceramic brakes, featuring rotors measuring 15.4 inches at the front axle and 14.6 inches in diameter at the rear one, are also part of the package, but they would hardly ever be utilized even in aggressive driving scenarios since the Luce’s powertrain is able to generate up to 0.68 g of regeneration through lifting off the throttle, feeding the battery with up to 500 kW of energy.
The design inside and outside of the car is the work of LoveFrom, the ultra-trendy San Francisco-based design company established in 2019 by the British-born Jony Ive, the Apple chief designer for almost three decades whose designs have defined the look and functionality of Apple products, and Marc Newson, the Australian industrial designer who previously collaborated with Ive on Project Titan, the ill-fated Apple car project, and who designed the spectacular 021C concept car for Ford in 1999. “This is a Ferrari, but it isn’t a Ferrari-looking one,” says Newson of the Luce. “It doesn’t follow any design conventions—the point of it all, really. There aren’t any other Ferrari with five seats out there, so it’s by definition unique.”
Also Read : Mercedes-AMG CLE Mythos Loses More Disguise Ahead of Its Debut
With its nose-to-tail length standing at 197.8 inches, the Luce is the largest-ever Ferrari, beating the Purosangue by an inch and two-tenths, while riding on a wheelbase that is two-and-three-tenths inches shorter than the Purosangue’s. The Luce is also slightly narrower than the Ferrari SUV, which is an inch and one-tenth, and lower too, standing one-and-eight-tenths inches lower. The Luce has large wheels, measuring 23 inches in front and 24 inches in the rear. This is the largest wheel ever installed on any Ferrari. The flat bodysides on the car are punctuated by a shoulder line, while the only hint of Ferrari in the design comes in the form of the round rear lights mounted in the black rear panel.
“We knew right from the start with this particular vehicle that it had to be done within an electric vehicle platform,” Newson explains regarding the concept car created after Ferrari’s executive chairman, John Elkann, talked about working together with LoveFrom in 2019. This collaboration took off after Elkann named Vigna, a physicist who designed the accelerometer and gyroscope for the iPhone, as the new Ferrari CEO in 2021. “‘Well, I suppose they thought it necessary to get our involvement because this wasn’t just any other vehicle. And there’s no way of explaining that this isn’t what they do at Ferrari because we’ve worked closely with them,'” he added.
The design of the body of the Luce seems to hover about a sleek and dark cabin structure. “A key concept when we started this was a singular surface that would almost surround the entire vehicle,” said Ive. This phenomenon is especially visible in the front of the car, where a body part connecting the two front fenders creates a kind of bridge for a structure that has a flowing form from the roof of the vehicle all the way to its front bumper (and hence the reason why the wipers are located at the pillars instead of the base of the windshield).
It is clear that Ive is fully aware that the Luce is an incredibly divisive car, but he stands by its seemingly straightforward styling and its relatively slab-sided proportions. “Whether you like it or not, there’s always a reason for every single one of those surfaces,” he explained. As Newson continued, “In terms of EV, aerodynamics is all important, it’s the most difficult parameter that you have to design around. But by separating the [body form from the] cabin, you give yourself some leeway to explore. You’ve got everything that’s holding the people in and the car outside.”
As in the case of the conventional internal combustion engines offered by Ferrari, the manettino placed beneath the right side spoke on the steering wheel allows one to choose between various settings of the car’s dynamic control systems. In the Luce, these range from the Ice setting, which is the most stable, allowing full-time all-wheel drive operation in very slippery conditions, to the ESC-Off setting, when the active suspension and torque vectoring on the front axle alone are enabled, allowing free movement of the rear electric motors to power drifts around corners.
E-Manettino located under the left spoke of the steering wheel controls powertrain parameters according to various driving conditions. In Range mode, power is capped at 429 hp, maximum speed is set at 160 mph, and motors of the front axle are shut down as frequently as possible to increase efficiency. In Tour mode, maximum speed is the same, yet power becomes equal to 616 hp, and four-wheel drive is always active. In Performance mode, while four-wheel drive also stays operational, maximum power reaches up to 972 hp and maximum speed is equal to 193 mph. Using the Launch Control control located in the upper panel unlocks additional power of 53 hp. Under such circumstances, Ferrari guarantees that acceleration from 0 to 60 mph will not exceed 2.5 seconds and 0 to 124 mph will take 6.8 seconds.
| 2028 Ferrari Luce | |
| BASE PRICE | $470,000 |
| LAYOUT | Front and rear motors, AWD, 4-door, 5-passenger sedan |
| MOTORS | 2 x 141-hp/103-lb-ft (fr), 2 x 416-hp/262-lb-ft (rr) permanent-magnet motors; 1,035 hp/730 lb-ft (comb) |
| TRANSMISSION | 1-speed direct-drive |
| CURB WEIGHT | 4,982 lb (mfr) |
| WHEELBASE | 116.6 in |
| L x W x H | 197.9 x 78.7 x 60.8 in |
| 0–60 MPH | 2.4 sec (mfr est) |
| EPA FUEL ECON, CITY/HWY/COMB | Not yet rated |
| EPA RANGE, COMB | 280 miles (MT est) |
| ON SALE | Mid-2027 |
