Bezos quip, Ive design shaped Ferrari's Luce EV, Elkann says

Apple

07/10/2026 14:12

    By Giulio Piovaccari
       TURIN, Italy, Oct 7 (Reuters) - When John Elkann first
started thinking seriously about an electric Ferrari a decade
ago, the prompt came from an unlikely source: a walk with Amazon
 AMZN.O  founder Jeff Bezos, the Ferrari  RACE.MI  chairman said
on Wednesday.
    That conversation eventually led to the Ferrari Luce, the
luxury carmaker's first fully electric model, unveiled in May
and created in partnership with former Apple  AAPL.O  design
chief Jony Ive and his LoveFrom team.
    But the result was also a car that sparked fierce debate,
prompting social media mockery and criticism for its
unconventional styling, while some investors questioned
Ferrari's gamble on electrification.
    "This is something that we believe is important for the
future of Ferrari ... not to just recycle history, but to create
the future," Ive said of the project as he joined Elkann at a
panel discussion at the Wave technology conference in Turin. 
    Ive described a project that began not with sketches but
with understanding Ferrari itself.
    "We spent really the best part of a year researching and
trying to learn," he said, explaining that LoveFrom immersed
itself in Ferrari's history and culture before starting work on
the vehicle. Teams in California and at Ferrari's Maranello
headquarters in northern Italy then spent five years developing
the project together.
    With Luce, Ive, who helped create some of Apple's most
iconic products, sought to reject some industry trends,
including the predominance of touchscreens and digital controls.
    "Touch, as the primary interface, shouldn't be in a car," he
said. "There's a price you pay ... you're disconnected as a
physical being from the object." 
    The Luce relies heavily on physical controls and tactile
feedback designed to create a more direct relationship between
driver and machine.
     
    SEEING IS BELIEVING
    "We weren't in any way intending to do a controversial
Ferrari," Elkann said at the conference, organised by Vento, the
venture capital arm of Agnelli family holding group Exor
 EXOR.AS , which controls Ferrari. 
    "What is important is how much that touches your conviction.
What it did is that it made our conviction very strong."
    But both Ive and Elkann, who is also Exor CEO, said seeing
the Luce in person often changed perceptions compared with the
initial response to images.
    "I've never known such a massive change that seems to occur
when you see it," Ive said.
    With a Luce on display at Wednesday's event, drawing long
queues of visitors eager to judge Ferrari's most debated new
model for themselves, Elkann recalled that a July 2016
conversation with Bezos helped convince him Ferrari needed to
think seriously about electric vehicles.
    Bezos told him: "I don't know anything about cars, but I
really know a lot about innovation. And I think that you need to
really think hard about building an electric vehicle," Elkann
said.

    (Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari
Editing by Keith Weir)
 ((giulio.piovaccari@thomsonreuters.com))