Here’s The First Car From Jony Ive’s Design House

If the wild, Jony Ive- and Marc Newson-designed interior for the Ferrari Luce has you hooked and want more, here’s the payoff. After committing to building an EV last year, ignoring earlier statements that it would never happen, Ferrari has finally given me a look at the finished product. As big a change as the interior is from Ferrari’s current sports cars, the exterior is an even bigger step up, which not everyone will like.

Whether you love it or hate it, you can credit the Loos’ exterior style to LoveFrom, the design house founded by Jony Ive in 2019. Although this is Lovefrom’s first full car design, it is actually Newson’s second, based on the 1999 Ford 021C concept. The shape of that vehicle is very different from the Luce, but it has doors that open the same way, and I’m getting similar vibes from both.

The Loos is certainly not a traditional sports car, being more like an SUV in its size and shape, with four doors and five seats. This isn’t Ferrari’s first four-door; The Purosangue SUV has that honor, but this is the first time there’s been more than four people sitting in a car with a prancing horse on the hood.

And it does so quite comfortably. The back seat is quite spacious, accessed via a pair of so-called suicide doors that hinge at the rear, allowing for a slightly more glamorous, less awkward entry to the rear. For added style on the red carpet, there’s a button that turns them off for you.

I found headroom in the second row to be a little limited, but otherwise, I was quite satisfied. There’s also a small control pad to play with that features the same funky knobs and dials found in the front interior.

I spent more time fiddling with those controls from the driver’s seat, and I’m sorry to say that the software is still largely non-functional at that point. The little stopwatch in the upper-right of the touchscreen did nothing, nor did drive mode or seat ventilation. Still, everything looked and felt great, something that can’t be said for most pre-production models of this type.

Standing freely on a pedestal, rather than looking at the interior of a real car, as I had experienced before, I got a very different impression. Where at first I thought it was too cold and clinical for a Ferrari, surrounded by the smell and presence of warm leather, it really seemed to fit.

I still don’t think the average Ferrari owner will immediately fall in love with that interior, but then again I don’t think the average Ferrari owner will immediately fall in love with the exterior. It is a model not only to expand Ferrari’s portfolio but also to diversify its clientele. Or, as Ferrari CMO Enrico Galliera said: “The possibility of growing our Ferrari community.”

It may not look or feel like a Ferrari, but it should deliver the kind of great performance typical of the brand. It has 1,035 horsepower, which is certainly a lot, but more importantly, it comes from a set of four motors. That means one per wheel, a setup that should deliver some impressive maneuverability.

By adding more power to the outside wheels, the Luce could be made to turn corners more aggressively. And, by individually modulating power, the EV can also more precisely handle low-grip situations, or wheelspin on high-grip surfaces, which will certainly be an issue since 1,035 horsepower is enough to liquefy even the best tires.

The car also has four-wheel steering, so it can either steer the rear wheels along with the front or steer to add more stability or agility. The Luce features a version of Ferrari’s active suspension, which relies on an electrically operated damper system to not only provide varying degrees of stiffness or softness, but also to dynamically adjust ride height. Increase speed on the highway (maximum 193 mph), and it will automatically lower by 10 mm.

It all comes with a new, more advanced traction and stability control system, managed by what Ferrari calls the Vehicle Control Unit, or VCU. The system is designed to sample the road surface and motor output at all four corners every 5 milliseconds, adjusting power output and suspension behavior for the best conditions.

Power comes from a 122-kWh gross battery pack located underneath the car in a skateboard-style manner. It charges at a maximum speed of 350 kilowatts, and Ferrari says it will cover 329 miles on the European WLTP cycle. If it does, it will probably be somewhere south of 300 miles on the stricter EPA cycle.

It’s all fair enough, and I’m looking forward to experiencing how well it comes together in due time, but there’s another system onboard that may prove equally important in creating the perfect driving experience.

Of course, EVs make much less noise. His silence is one of his strongest characteristics when you are going to work. But with Ferrari, sound has always been an important part of the experience. Thankfully, that continues with Luce.

For example, instead of creating a fully synthesized sound like Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 N, the Luce actually has a type of acoustic pickup mounted on the rear axle. There, it can sample the vibrations of the rear motors. That signal is then pumped through a type of amplifier to create a specific note that is suitably evocative but still completely distinctive. It has a familiar sound that’s not too far off from some of the company’s higher-powered V8s in the past, but still it’s clearly not trying to pretend to be anything else. This is its own thing.

Ferrari has compared the process to an electric guitar amp, pointing to the next evolution beyond analog motoring. Ferrari has evolved through a number of powertrains in the past, both large and small, and with engines mounted either in front of or behind the driver.

What seems more important, however, is a complete reboot of both the look and feel of the brand as well as its means of propulsion. Will it be successful? We need to see how it plays out before anyone can draw any conclusions. Hopefully this is an answer we can provide soon.

Hopefully we’ll know soon how much it costs. Ferrari has not yet set a US price, but in its home market of Italy it will have a starting price of €550,000. This would make it the company’s most expensive model, priced well above the roughly $430,000 Purosangue. That’s quite a question, but then again most of Lovefrom’s previous designs have been quite premium, so why shouldn’t it be?