Ferrari’s S$2.1 million EV trips the light fantastic

[SINGAPORE] Diamonds are forever, but they might have some competition from Ferrari.

“Some 95 per cent of the cars we’ve produced since 1947 are still on the road today,” Emanuele Carando, Ferrari’s global head of product marketing, told The Business Times. “You will never scrap a Ferrari.”

The company is now hoping the Luce, its first electric car, will be no exception.

Needless to say, the sleek machine is completely unlike anything that has ever borne the brand’s prancing horse logo. Aside from being battery-powered, it is Ferrari’s first five-seater, with four doors and a 597-litre boot that Carando said would swallow several golf bags.

It costs S$2,093,306 without options or a Certificate Of Entitlement, around S$100,000 less than the Purosangue, the high-riding four-seater. That, too, was an unusual beast when it came out, but it at least has a high-revving V12 engine – the favourite layout of founder Enzo Ferrari.

“We didn’t want to make a copycat of what we already had,” Carando said of the Luce’s format. At the same time, he said Ferrari believes that electric propulsion offers the biggest advantage in a larger car like the Luce, which is Italian for “light”. For small two-seaters, combustion engines and hybrids remain the better answer, which rules out an electric berlinetta (or coupe) for now.

Carando called the car “an addition” rather than a transition, adding that Ferrari is “technologically neutral” and will keep building screaming engines for as long as regulations allow. Combustion fans, rejoice.

Yet, despite not having a traditional engine, the Luce feels like a Ferrari and serves up driving thrills like one, Carando insists.

“Whenever you think about a Ferrari, you think about a product which gives emotion. That’s the most important thing,” he said. “Sometimes when you drive an electric car, it’s like the car is driving you.”

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To make the Luce more agile and feel glued to the road, engineers gave each wheel its own motor, plus actuators for steering and ride height. “It’s almost like having 12 motors,” Carando said.

Paddles behind the steering wheel select five levels of power on the right and five of regenerative braking on the left, without imitating gearshifts.

Ferrari estimates the Luce’s range at more than 530 km, and a fast enough charger can add 70 kWh, more than half the battery, in 20 minutes. The battery, motors and charging system carry an eight-year warranty, and key components were developed in-house by Ferrari, with expertise gained from Formula 1 racing.

The development team worked hard on giving the Luce a sonorous voice, as well. “We’ve been investing a lot in the sound, not making something fake,” Carando said, before playing a clip of Ferrari’s F1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc having a ball in a Luce, with a whirring wail in the background.

That sound comes from the hardware itself. A device on the rear axle amplifies the vibrations of the spinning motors, much like the pickup on an electric guitar. Carando compares the approach to a doctor using a stethoscope: you can’t hear your own heart, but it is beating in the background.

While the Luce’s performance means it could run with many Ferraris – a whopping 1,050 horsepower output means it accelerates to 100 kmh in 2.5 seconds and 200 kmh in only 6.8 – there are several new electric cars that are even more powerful. Shouldn’t a Ferrari be the best of the best, I put to him?

“How can you be the best of the best? Having the best target data, or having a car which drives the best?” he said. “Making a fast car, it’s easy, but is that what makes it fun to drive? We don’t believe so.”

“We do believe it’s much better to make a car which is extremely fun whenever you’re driving on a winding road. You just need to have a roundabout in order to understand, (the Luce is) an incredible car.”

Carando flew in from Ferrari’s hometown of Maranello to launch the Luce here on Monday (Oct 12), at a Good Class Bungalow that turned out to be a customer’s new home.

Few car makers can count on a buyer to lend them their house, but that is the kind of arrangement that makes having a Ferrari feel less like owning a car than joining a family.

The real test for the Luce won’t be how it performs according to a stopwatch, but whether it’s eventually seen as another diamond within the family jewels.