The first electric Ferrari will be named Luce and feature a radical new interior created under the direction of iPhone designer Jony Ive.
Due to be unveiled in full in May, the new EV will be a four-door, four-seat GT offering up to 1000bhp from a quad-motor powertrain.
Referred to as the Elettrica early in its development, the production version will be called Luce, Ferrari has now confirmed. In Italian, ‘luce’ means a light source, as well as being a colloquial term for electricity. Company boss Benedetto Vigna said the name reflects how the car is “lighting the future of the company”.
The interior and exterior of the Luce has been developed by design firm LoveFrom, part-founded by former Apple design chief Ive, who oversaw the styling of products including the iPhone, iPad, MacBook and Apple Watch, as well as the user interface of the iOS operating system.
Despite Ive having led the design, the Luce’s interior retains a large number of physical controls, rather than switching everything to a touchscreen.
Although car designers repeatedly cite the iPhone as an influence for installing touchscreens, Ive said he would “never” purely use touch controls for a car, “because it requires you to look” away.
Ive’s influence on the cabin is immediately obvious, though, particularly through the use of anodised aluminium and strengthened glass from specialist firm Corning – two key components of Apple’s products. The movable 10in central touchscreen is also very reminiscent of an iPad in its design.
Ferrari design chief Flavio Manzoni described the cabin as “unique” and “disruptive” to the industry.
Ive highlighted the extensive use of glass as an example of that, saying it was chosen over plastic because it’s both stronger and perceived to be more luxurious while being only 10kg heavier overall.
The British designer insisted that the cabin had to be functional, interactive and “alive”, which is why it makes extensive use of physical switches.
“This idea that because the power source is electric the interface should be digital is nonsense,” said Ive. “That makes no sense to me at all.
“One of the things that we felt very strongly about was we wanted to explore an interface that was physical and that was engaging, and that was to take the most powerful parts of analogue displays and combine them with digital displays.”