Ferrari's polarizing new electric Luce is a bet on a huge untapped market

• Ferrari’s first electric car, the Luce, is off to a bad start.
• The $640,000 EV was torn apart by the internet, sparking a share price drop for Ferrari.
• Ferrari execs say the Luce aims to win over EV owners. Nowhere has more of those than China.

Ferrari would enter an ultra-competitive Chinese EV market. Even affordable models come packed with high-tech features like voice controls and AI assistants, and luxury consumers are increasingly shunning Western carmakers in favor of tech-savvy local brands.

Luxury stalwarts like BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche have all seen their Chinese sales plunge in recent years. Meanwhile, the Maextro S800, a luxury sedan built by Chinese smartphone maker Huawei, became China’s top-selling car priced over $100,000 in December.

Ferrari’s business relies on scarcity and exclusivity, not mass-market appeal. But the company’s sales in mainland China have declined by more than half since 2023, and accounted for just over 5% of Ferrari’s global shipments in the first quarter.

Ferrari executives have said that the Luce is designed to be polarizing and is aimed at attracting EV owners to the brand, rather than Ferrari’s usual strategy of selling to people who already own one of its cars.

“To my petrolheads that I meet, I always tell them, please don’t buy [the Luce]. The key driver the carmaker is targeting is someone who already owns an electric car,” Enrico Galliera, Ferrari’s chief marketing and commercial officer, told the Financial Times at the Luce’s launch.

Nowhere has more EV owners than China. If Chinese buyers are won over by the Luce’s distinct design and high-tech interior, the internet mockery will be worth it.

One person doesn’t seem convinced: Montezemolo.

“This is definitely a car that the Chinese won’t copy,” the former Ferrari chairman told media on Tuesday.