TL;DR
Ferrari shares fell 7% after unveiling the Luce, its first electric car, priced at EUR 550,000. Online backlash over the five-seat hatchback design and broader luxury EV market uncertainty drove the sell-off.
Ferrari shares fell as much as 7 per cent in Milan trading on Monday, dropping to €290.55 and wiping roughly £3 billion from the company’s market cap. The sell-off came one day after the Italian carmaker unveiled the Luce, its first fully electric vehicle, at the Città dello Sport in Rome.
The Luce is a four-door, five-seat liftback priced from €550,000, roughly $640,000. It is the most expensive production electric car in the world, sitting at roughly three to four times the price of a Porsche Taycan Turbo S, Lucid Air Sapphire, or Mercedes-AMG EQS.
The hardware is not in question. Four electric motors, one per wheel, produce a combined 1,036 horsepower. Ferrari claims a 0–60 mph time under 2.5 seconds, a top speed above 310 kph, and a range of roughly 530 kilometres from a 122 kWh battery pack. An 800-volt architecture supports 350 kW fast charging, taking the battery from 10 to 80 per cent in around 18 minutes.
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The problem is the design. Within hours of the reveal, social media erupted with comparisons to a Honda Accord, a luxury toaster, and an Apple Store minivan. The Luce is Ferrari’s first five-seater and its first four-door hatchback, a radical departure from the low, aggressive silhouettes that define the brand. At over 2.2 tonnes, it is also the heaviest Ferrari ever made.
The car was co-designed with Jony Ive’s LoveFrom studio and industrial designer Marc Newson. Ive, who left Apple in 2019 after nearly three decades shaping the company’s hardware, brought a minimalist approach. The interior has no screens. Controls are physical. The dials are analogue-style. The centre console is Corning glass. The steering wheel is machined from recycled aluminium.
Ferrari says roughly 95 per cent of the Luce’s components were created specifically for this car. The company registered 60 patents covering battery technology, axial-flux motors, and torque vectoring. An artificial sound system uses accelerometers and amplification, working like an electric guitar, to generate a sound Ferrari describes as distinctly its own. A system called Torque Shift Engagement simulates engine braking to preserve the feel of a combustion-era driving experience.
CEO Benedetto Vigna framed the car as a ground-up rethink rather than an electrified version of an existing model. His directive to the engineering team was to start from Ferrari, not from electric technology. A new “e-building” at the Maranello factory was constructed specifically for electric and hybrid production.
The market reaction, however, suggests investors are not convinced. Analysts at Oddo BHF called it the sharpest stock response to a car design they had ever seen. Several pointed to a “travel and arrive” dynamic, where the stock had run up in anticipation of the launch and the reveal gave holders a reason to sell. But the intensity of the online backlash adds a layer beyond normal profit-taking.
The timing is tricky for the broader luxury EV segment. Porsche is pushing ahead with its electric Cayenne Coupe, but Lamborghini cancelled its Lanzador EV entirely, with its CEO saying electric vehicles in their current form cannot deliver the emotional connection buyers expect. A dozen EV models have been discontinued in the US as tariffs, lost tax credits, and import costs reshape the market. Ferrari is entering an electric segment that other luxury brands are retreating from.
Pre-orders for the Luce opened in March 2026, and deliveries are expected in the fourth quarter of this year or early 2027. Ferrari has not disclosed order numbers, but the company has historically sold its cars in limited volumes with long waiting lists. Whether the Luce follows that pattern depends on whether buyers share the market’s scepticism or see the car differently in person.
The deeper question is whether Ferrari’s brand can absorb a five-seat, four-door electric hatchback without diluting what makes it Ferrari. Tesla is spending $25 billion this year pivoting toward autonomy and robotics, abandoning its luxury sedan and SUV models in the process. Ferrari is making the opposite bet, that its name alone justifies a $640,000 electric family car. Monday’s stock drop suggests the market wants to see proof before it buys in.
