Ferrari Luce Unveiled in Rome: 1,050 PS Electric Sports Car Designed With Sir Jony Ive

Ferrari has finally pulled the cover off its most consequential road car in decades. The Ferrari Luce, revealed on 25 May at the Vela di Calatrava in Rome, is the brand’s first fully electric sports car, a 1,050 PS, four-motor machine designed in collaboration with Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson at LoveFrom. It accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.5 seconds, reaches a top speed of more than 310 km/h, and offers a range in excess of 530 km from a 122 kWh battery.

For buyers, the headline is simple. This is a Ferrari that drives like a Ferrari but plugs into the wall, sits on a bespoke platform with one electric motor per wheel, and ushers in a new design language that will shape the brand for years. It does not replace the petrol cars Maranello continues to build, but it expands what the Prancing Horse badge can mean for the next generation of customers.

A New Architecture, Not a Converted Sports Car

The Luce is built on a dedicated platform with a bespoke chassis. Kerb weight comes in at 2,260 kg, which is heavy by sports car standards but light considering the battery on board, and Ferrari attributes the figure to engineering experience drawn from its motorsport programme. The 122 kWh pack drives four electric motors, one per wheel, producing a combined 1,050 cv. Zero to 200 km/h takes 6.8 seconds and the car continues past 310 km/h flat out.

Range sits beyond 530 km, helped by an active aerodynamics package. The grilles open and close to balance cooling and drag, and an active ride height system can drop the front of the car by 10 mm at speed to clean up airflow. The thermal management software preconditions the battery and cabin remotely, and it manages fast charging by warming the pack before a stop.

Vehicle dynamics are where the four-motor layout earns its keep. Each wheel can be driven, slowed and steered independently. An active suspension system carried over from the F80 hypercar pairs with an independently steering rear axle, allowing Ferrari to redistribute torque, change yaw and stabilise the car in ways that a single-motor sports car cannot. The result, according to Ferrari, is performance and engagement consistent with the brand’s road cars but with a level of usability that is unprecedented from Maranello.

The wheels are part of the story. The Luce wears the largest staggered wheel diameters Ferrari has ever fitted to a production road car, 23 inches at the front and 24 inches at the rear, in either a forged five-spoke design or an aerodynamically optimised turbine pattern.

Designed With LoveFrom, the Studio Founded by Jony Ive

Ferrari has worked with LoveFrom, the design collective Sir Jony Ive founded with Marc Newson in 2019, on the exterior, interior and human interface of the Luce. The studio is best known to the wider world for its work with Apple, OpenAI and a handful of carefully chosen clients. Its imprint on the Luce is clear in the form, which Ferrari describes as a single uninterrupted glass-house shell, and in the way the controls have been simplified to a small set of physical and digital elements.

Floating aerodynamic wings sit at each end of the car, driving downforce and managing the wake. The front and rear light panels are transparent and form part of the primary surfaces, receding when switched off so the silhouette stays clean. The halo tail lamps deliberately echo the 360 Modena and 458 Italia, anchoring the new car to two of the most recognisable Ferraris of the last 25 years.

Opening all four doors reveals an interior that Ferrari and LoveFrom have built around symmetry and clarity. Ferrari worked with Corning on precision-engineered advanced glass for the cabin, and the brand says exterior, interior and interface now share a unified design language. The four-door layout is itself a first for a series-production Ferrari sports car, and it points to the new segment the Luce occupies.

What John Elkann and Benedetto Vigna Said

The reveal in Rome was deliberate. Ferrari won its first ever race in the city on the same date in 1947, when Franco Cortese drove the 125 S to victory in the Gran Premio di Roma at the Baths of Caracalla. Choosing the Vela di Calatrava 79 years later was a way of binding the Luce to that origin story.

John Elkann, President of Ferrari, framed the reveal as a turning point. “With Ferrari Luce, we are once again redefining the limits of what is possible. Today, we are not simply unveiling a new car, we are inaugurating a chapter that turns our vision into reality, strengthening Ferrari’s tradition of anticipating and shaping the future. Such a leap forward in product innovation could only have been achieved through process innovation; this is why we chose to embark on new collaborations, such as the one with LoveFrom for the design. And, as always, our research and engineering excellence have been placed at the service of driving emotions, without compromise. Rome, the symbolic location of our first victory, becomes the starting point for a Ferrari that lights up the future and opens new horizons”.

Benedetto Vigna, CEO of Ferrari, was just as direct about the strategic stakes. “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. Never before have we offered our clients such a complete proposition”.

Where the Luce Sits in the Ferrari Range

Ferrari first laid out its multi-energy strategy at the 2022 Capital Markets Day. The principle has been technological neutrality, which means electric, hybrid and combustion powertrains coexist rather than one replacing another. The Luce is the first product to deliver on the fully electric leg of that strategy.

Maranello argues that the in-house expertise gained from the project will feed both ways. Lessons learned with the four-motor architecture will inform the 499P Le Mans programme, which won the most recent World Endurance Championship round, and the Ferrari Hypersail research yacht. In the other direction, motorsport experience has informed how Ferrari has packaged the battery, the cooling systems and the active aerodynamics on the Luce.

The competitive context is unforgiving. The Luce will be compared with the Lotus Eletre and Eletre R, the Porsche Taycan in its Turbo GT specification, the upcoming electric Aston Martin grand tourer and the Rimac Nevera. Few of those rivals carry the badge equity Ferrari brings, and none have a design partnership with LoveFrom. Pricing has not yet been confirmed, but the technology package, the wheel sizes and the active hardware all point to a figure well above the F8 Tributo and Roma and into the territory of the SF90 and 12Cilindri.

For buyers thinking about how this fits into the wider electric shift, used EV demand is also climbing. As we reported recently, the UK is preparing significant changes to driving law and the EV market is moving with it. Ferrari’s choice to enter this segment now, rather than five years ago, suggests Maranello believes the audience for a fully electric Prancing Horse is finally large enough to support it.

What Happens Next

The Luce name, according to Ferrari, “evokes clarity and direction”. The car opens a fourth segment in the Ferrari range alongside its mid-engined sports cars, front-engined GTs and the Purosangue four-door. Pricing, specification details and a confirmed UK on-sale date are still to be announced. Customer orders are expected to open through Ferrari dealers later in the year, with production volumes shaped by the brand’s usual model allocation system rather than open availability.

For Ferrari customers who have spent two decades waiting for the brand to commit to electric power, the Luce is the answer. Whether the wider market is ready for a 530 km, 1,050 PS electric Ferrari at the price point this car is likely to demand is the question Maranello has just set itself out to answer.