Updated ,first published
It’s fair to say the reviews of Ferrari’s first electric car, unveiled this week, have been at best mixed.
“If I had to say what I think, I would hurt Ferrari,” said Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the former Ferrari boss credited as being the man who resurrected and saved the ailing marque upon the death of its famous founder, Enzo.
“You risk destroying a myth and I am very sorry. At least take off the prancing horse.”
Italy’s far-right transport minister, Matteo Salvini, was scathing on social media too. “Electric, extremely expensive (550,000 euros!), and, aesthetically speaking, it speaks for itself … It looks like anything but a [Ferrari] car. And is that supposed to be ‘innovation’? I wonder what Enzo Ferrari would say … ?”
One comment on Ferrari’s own Instagram feed said the company needed “an exorcism”. Even more hurtfully, other online commentators have likened the Ferrari Luce, which can reach 100km/h in 2.5 seconds, to the Nissan Leaf, whose first model reached the same speed in 11.5 seconds.
Ferrari clearly anticipated a backlash before it launched the vehicle, which was designed by LoveFrom, a creative collective led by former Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive – who created the iPhone – and famous Australian industrial designer Marc Newson.
In marketing materials, Ferrari wrote that the Luce was the culmination of a long-term “technology agnostic” development strategy rather than a radical departure for the brand.
“Deepening the Prancing Horse’s in-house expertise in electric technology opens new potential for performance and efficiency across the entire Ferrari ecosystem,” it wrote.
“The electric power source, Ferrari-engineered engines and advanced drivetrain affords a radically new architecture that uniquely combines extraordinary Ferrari performance with the luxury of spaciousness.”
The soothing bumf did little to blunt the response of wounded petrol-heads, which was so savage that Ferrari was prompted to wheel out the Pope in its defence. Gathering the skirt of his cassock as he climbed into the front seat of a Luce this week, Pope Leo asked if this was the first four-door Ferrari. “First five seat,” an executive respectfully corrected. (Ferrari’s heavy rear-mounted gear boxes have precluded back seats in the past.)
The backlash – Ferrari’s share price tanked about 8 per cent after the unveiling – does not surprise Dan Bleakley, chief executive of New Energy Transport, which is building infrastructure for electric trucking in Australia. Before his new role, Bleakley built an online profile as an EV advocate by posting footage of startled central Queensland coal miners experiencing the staggering torque of a Tesla on his social media.
“There are 1.5 to 2 billion internal combustion engine vehicles on planet Earth. They are dependent on oil, so we have a system where there’s a multitrillion-dollar global transport energy system that is controlled by a handful of companies… and the biggest threat to that monopoly is electric vehicles,” he says.
Bleakley believes many of the talking points shared in the vast EV-sceptical online ecosystem were seeded by advocates for fossil fuels and internal combustion cars, even if they are now shared by true fans of the old technologies.
“The fossil fuel industry, more broadly, has a long history of spending billions of dollars to sabotage the transition to renewable energy and to electric vehicles.”
Whether saboteurs have been at work, EV technology is now unquestionably a culture warfare battleground, with antagonists describing one another as either victims of a woke brainwashing or “petro-nostalgia”.
Either way, the reviews of the new Ferrari were not universally poor.
James May, noted petrol-head and former host of Top Gear, told the BBC he liked the car.
“It is interesting that Ferrari have done something very contemporary, very, very modern, which I think has been part of the definition of Ferrari styling over the years.
“I think that people are becoming interested in electric cars and I think some people will want an electric Ferrari.”
Nick O’Malley is National Environment and Climate Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is also a senior writer and a former US correspondent.Connect via email.