2027 Ferrari Luce EV super sedan finally revealed as brand’s first electric car

The fully-electric Ferrari Luce offers an intricate interior and tremendous technology, but arrives with an exterior design that looks like no other Ferrari on the road.

After five years of development and plenty of speculation as to its final production form, the fully-electric 2027 Ferrari Luce has finally been unveiled as a hyper-efficient super sedan with a 772kW output, 0-100km/h in 2.5 seconds, and over 500km of claimed driving range.

The Luce is the first fully-electric car from Ferrari, and unlike other recent road cars, has been designed outside of the brand’s design studio by industrial design supergroup, LoveFrom, headed by Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson.

Ive is most known for his work at Apple, where he had a hand in the design of the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, amongst others. Australian-born Newson was formerly creative director at Qantas before working with Ive at Apple between 2014 and 2019.

Officially described by Ferrari as a car with a foremost emphasis on efficiency, the Luce is a five-door luxury saloon that presents with a near seamless low-drag ‘shell’, which utilises an uninterrupted curve from the nose, over the roofline, to a chopped ‘kammtail’ rear end.

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The body of the electric Ferrari – which will be sold alongside the brand’s petrol and hybrid models – is clad in aluminium panels that provide aerodynamic aid to support downforce, cooling and high-speed performance.

These floating panels essentially act as giant spoilers to ensure the Luce benefits from both efficiency and performance, without the need for overt wings or retractable downforce elements.

Features like front and rear lighting are all smoothly integrated into the aero shell, with the design team even taking care to evolve the windscreen wiper design and implementation to be as ‘slippery’ as possible.

At 5026mm long, 1999mm wide, and 1544mm tall, the Luce is marginally longer than the Ferrari Purosangue (4973mm) but narrower (2028mm) and shorter (1589mm).

Dimensions	Ferrari Luce	Ferrari Purosangue	Variation
Length	5026mm	4973mm	53mm longer (1%)
Width	1999mm	2028mm	29mm thinner (1%)
Height	1544mm	1589mm	45mm lower (3%)
Wheelbase	2961mm	3018mm	57mm shorter (2%)
Weight	2260kg	2180kg	80kg heavier (4%)

Ferrari notes that the Luce’s centre of gravity is 95mm lower than the Purosangue due to the placement of the battery in the floor of the car.

The Luce runs on a dedicated platform that has been developed for this car.

It’s fair to say the Ferrari Luce looks like no other Ferrari, and on initial impression, presents as a hyper-modern, almost retro-futuristic example of a car intended to be a statement of aerodynamic engineering prowess.

Ferrari knows it will not be to all tastes, but instead sees it as another pathway into the brand for a new generation of buyers.

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Active vanes at the front of the car adjust airflow for both cooling and aerodynamic performance depending on the car’s driving configuration. There are vents on the front quarter panels and at the rear of the car, both designed to channel airflow from the wheels in the most efficient way possible.

The wheels themselves are the largest ever used on a Ferrari road car, with 23-inch front (265/35 R23 tyres), and 24-inch rear (315/30 R24 tyres), which are available in a lightweight traditional five-spoke design, or a more aerodynamic turbine-style form.

Brakes are carbon-ceramic, measuring 390mm front and 372mm rear.

A rear C-pillar structural element, akin to a Porsche 911 Targa roll hoop, can be configured in carbon fibre or painted to create a statement piece.

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Even the iconic ‘Cavallino’ crests and chrome typographic Ferrari badge on the rear can be replaced by laser-etched or embossed elements for a more efficient aerodynamic profile.

As revealed earlier this year, the interior design of the Luce leans heavily on the work and experience garnered by Ive and Newson at Apple, and in implementation, is a new benchmark for HMI (Human Machine Interface) integration in a car.

In short, the cockpit of the Luce is stunning.

Begin your journey with ‘the ceremony’ of placing the heavy, rectangular key into a magnetic holder. Click it down, and the yellow e-ink behind the Ferrari badge mutes to grey, where the shifter now lights up yellow.

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A digital instrument binnacle, encased in an iPhone-like aluminium rounded rectangle, houses a pair of Samsung-sourced OLED displays that are layered behind glass to offer a crystal-clear representation of information through three circular dials and overlay data.

The middle dial always displays the speedometer and includes a mechanical needle that can rotate 360 degrees. The other displays illustrate the energy use and regeneration, or a multiple-selection dial that the driver can adjust with a switch on the back of the steering wheel for ease while driving.

Information on the displays dynamically adjusts to the power mode; Range, Tour or ‘Perfo’, and colours change depending on the Manettino drive setting – Ice, Wet, Dry, Sport or ESC Off – both of which can be adjusted with physical dials on the wheel.

The steering wheel itself is a retro-inspired aluminium item – that can be configured in natural, dark or rose tinting – with all crucial controls positioned clearly and within easy reach.

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The Luce’s central display is mounted on a swivel that can be tilted toward the driver or passenger with a matching aluminium handle.

Here, the interface design and overall functionality have been exhaustively considered to present information in a clear and intuitive format. There are physical toggles to adjust climate settings and even a glass dial to adjust volume, but the screen can also be used via touch interaction, and is fast and responsive to use.

Furthermore, there is a circular instrument dial with three mechanical hands in the top-right corner, which can be operated as a clock, compass or stopwatch at the tap of a button.

The detail presented is extensive, with cabin heating, for instance, showing not only the temperature you have selected, but a coloured grade that illustrates the current ambient cabin temperature.

There is more aluminium and glass around the cabin, with all touchpoints considered and presented in a luxurious and high-quality form.

Rear passengers – all three of them in the first-ever five-seat Ferrari – also score a central screen which provides access to climate control functions, as well as a display that betrays just how fast the car is going.

The Luce’s performance party trick is a launch mode that can be initiated by a damped, roof-mounted ‘plug’ handle, which initiates a flood of orange light from the cabin and instruments, along with instructions on how to send the Luce on a 2.5-second blast to 100km/h, or even a 6.8-second sprint to 200km/h.

And it is this inherent capability that positions the Luce as a technological showcase.

Under the skin is a 122kWh battery pack (gross capacity) powering a total of 12 electric motors, three per wheel. Four of these – one per wheel – are to deliver power, the others for suspension damping (via a 48-volt inverter) and steering control.

The battery is made up of 15 modules, with a 305-watt-hour per kilogram energy density, and the architecture is 800 volts. The Luce can accept a maximum recharging power of 350kW, and there are charging ports on both sides.

The steering and suspension activation are constantly adjusted while the car is on the move, enabling more nimble performance and a compliant ride, according to Ferrari.

Power from the four electric motors is quoted at up to 772kW in launch control, with torque of 990Nm at the motors – referred to by Ferrari as engines – but a staggering 11,500Nm at the wheels thanks to the step-down gearing of each wheel’s independent gearbox.

This is split, with front motors providing 210kW/280Nm and the rears 620kW/710Nm. The Luce is all-wheel drive, but the front motors are decoupled for added efficiency in ‘Range’ mode.

Range is claimed at up to 530km WLTP, but if you use the car’s top-level performance mode, which increases the ‘regular’ maximum speed from 260km/h to 310km/h, you are likely to burn through a few more joules.

Unlike some other high-performance electric vehicles, the drive modes are not designed to emulate a traditional gearshift change, but instead, the driver can, through the paddles, adjust the amount of available torque (and inversely, regeneration) in five stepped increments.

Under standard acceleration, the response of the car will cap out at the top of a selected increment, allowing for the driver to manage the amount of ‘to the road’ performance the car delivers, depending on the conditions and their driving style.

Ferrari engineers have developed the Luce with a clean-sheet approach, enabling the brand to design and construct all the elements of the car in-house in Maranello, not only affording flexibility in manufacturing, but also providing fewer risks to the supply chain now and in the future.

This includes the use of lightweight materials and the development of more weight-saving approaches utilised in the car’s design. Plus, nearly everything is constructed in Maranello to ensure a future-proof layer of control for not only the Luce, but all Ferrari cars.

As a result, the car weighs 2260kg (kerb), just 4 per cent more than the V12-powered Purosangue (2180kg). For context, a BMW i4 M50 electric car weighs 2290kg, and a Porsche Taycan over 2300kg.

Occupant comfort is important, so the rear subframe is mounted as a ‘floating’ unit, attached to the chassis using rubber bushings so that any vibration or impact force can be limited in its translation to the cabin.

In terms of something Ferrari does want to translate into the cabin, it is the noise of the electric motors.

Engineers were not keen to simulate a petrol engine experience, but instead developed a system to capture the vibrations of the electric motors in action through the use of an accelerometer.

Like an electric guitar, these vibrations are processed and amplified into noise, both inside and outside the car, that provides a real-time dynamic soundtrack of the car.

The experience of this was not fully presented, so we will need to wait until the car is ready to be test-driven to properly understand it.

Such are the levels of innovation incorporated into the Luce that over 60 patents have been registered over the car’s development timeframe.

While the looks may be polarising, the first fully-electric vehicle from Ferrari has arrived with gusto, and it brings a staggering level of innovation with it.

Pricing of the Ferrari Luce has not been announced for any market, but it is expected to be more expensive than a Purosangue.

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