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A design team that worked on the Apple iPhone approached the Luce with a 'different perspective', resulting in a car that looks like no other Ferrari, nor many other cars on the road.
Electric Cars
Ferrari says it chose a firm led by the designer of the iPhone – and an Australian who has previously worked with Apple and Qantas – for the styling of the new Luce electric car to create a unique appearance it could not devise internally.
The Luce – Ferrari's controversial first EV – was designed, inside and out, by LoveFrom, an industrial design studio fronted by two ex-Apple designers, the UK's Sir Jony Ive and Australia's Marc Newson.
It is the first Ferrari to be styled by an external firm in more than a decade, going outside its in-house Ferrari Centro Stile design team, albeit with project oversight by internal head designer Flavio Manzoni.
Ferrari says the decision to involve an external design studio, and a studio from outside the automotive world no less, was a deliberate strategy to approach the electric Luce with a perspective that would challenge assumptions that an in-house team, however talented, might take for granted.
“If you work with the same people, if you work always in the same place, there is only one thing that we said: the field of view is narrowing,” Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna said at the launch event.
LoveFrom brings “a different perspective” and “a tech and industrial design language” that Ferrari’s own team could engage with but hadn’t originated, according to Vigna.
The shared design principle that the two teams identified early, “design follows function”, is how they describe navigating decisions that required both aesthetic and aerodynamic resolution.
The external design team met with Ferrari in Maranello in 2021, where they were briefed on the technical direction the car was planned to take, and then returned to San Francisco, where they operated with complete radio silence for six months.
“They made a lot of questions,” said Marco Milanetti, Ferrari aerodynamics performance engineer.
“We discussed a lot about every choice we have done. And then they went back to San Francisco for more or less six months without any connection with us. No phone call, nothing.”
When LoveFrom returned to Maranello in 2022, they came armed with books, filled with research and inspiration, including 20 to 25 hand-drawn concepts of the exterior of the car.
“These drawings,” said Milanetti, “were not so far from what you are seeing today in this presentation.”
Ferrari and LoveFrom worked daily from February 2022 onward.
For the interior, the studio approached the Luce with a single operating principle: every component inside the car should be resolved as a standalone product, from every angle, as if it might be taken out and placed on display.
The consequence of that approach is an interior in which almost nothing has been carried over from any previous Ferrari, and every surface the occupant touches is either glass or anodised aluminium.
In terms of touchpoints, according to Salvatore Soscia, Ferrari infotainment design manager, there is no plastic at all, not as a statement, but because Ive and Newson’s design language doesn’t use it.
“Everything you touch is glass or aluminium or leather. No plastic,” said Soscia.
The instrument cluster is the most technically complex piece of the interior, and the most visible expression of LoveFrom’s approach.
It is a standalone element containing three dials, each with an aluminium bezel and precision-machined glass lens, enclosed in anodised aluminium housing.
The left dial displays power output and regenerative braking, connected directly to the e-Manettino mode, while the central dial shows the two most critical data points, speed and battery level, via a mechanical needle combined with a digital display.
The right dial shows up to seven functional data points, adjusted by a mechanical toggle on the back of the steering wheel spoke.
The screens were developed exclusively for the Ferrari Luce by Samsung.
The binnacle mounts directly to the steering column, rather than the dashboard, so it moves with the steering wheel when the driver adjusts its position, ensuring the driver’s sightline to the instruments is constant regardless of how the wheel is positioned.
The Luce makes extensive use of Corning Gorilla Glass, marking the first automotive use of this specific material, engineered for durability and scratch resistance.
The shifter controls use precision-machined anodised aluminium and selectively textured glass; even elements of the steering wheel buttons and the volume dial on the central panel are made from glass.
Ferrari and LoveFrom worked closely with Corning on the glass solutions throughout the interior, resolving specific technical challenges in the composition and forming of each piece.
Each glass control has distinct tactile properties, so the driver can identify what they’re touching without looking – a deliberate ergonomic choice rooted in the same philosophy as the use of physical buttons across the car, to keep the driver’s eyes on the road.
LoveFrom’s research, Ferrari says, even examined the cognitive cost of touchscreen interaction while driving.
The central panel houses a multi-functional display Ferrari calls the Multigraph, which is a combination of mechanical dials and a digital face capable of showing a clock, compass, or 60-second stopwatch.
During Launch Mode, it automatically switches to a five-second countdown, rationalised by noting you only need 2.5 seconds to hit 100km/h.
The panel itself can be pivoted by both the driver and passenger using an integrated handle and palm rest.
In the absence of a petrol-engine start-up, the key becomes central to the ‘ceremony’ of starting the car. It is also made from Gorilla Glass with an E-Ink display (a world first in any production car) that uses energy only when it changes colour.
When the key docks, the historic Ferrari yellow surges from it across the console and illuminates the shifter. The car wakes up in sequence, rather than instantaneously. It sounds corny, but it is quite impressive to see in action.
If all the glass and aluminium is too much for you, there are some carbon-fibre personalisation options available in the Luce configurator.
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With over 20 years of experience in digital publishing, James Ward has worked within the automotive landscape since 2007 and brings experience from the publishing, manufacturer and lifestyle side of the industry together to spearhead Drive's multi-media content direction.
