Ferrari LUCE is WELL DESIGNED... You're Just Looking At It Wrong

If you spend any time tracking automotive industry, you probably seen the new most hated Ferrari ever, the Luce. Because how company that made cars like those can make something like that. You're going to find comments that car looks like Apple Mouse, unreleased Apple car, or even people redesigns that looks better than the original car. But I tried to find great side of this car. I looked through all the materials to play devil's advocate because the more details I learn about this car, the more interesting it seems. Of course, I don't like every detail, but by the end of the video, you will understand why this car look like this and why they didn't just make a electric 296. To understand why Luce is so radical, look at what Ferrari causes competitor just did. Lamborghini recently ended with their first fully electric concept, the Lanzador, which looks really close to normal Lamborghini Urus. So, that's the next opposite thing with electric Ferrari. They shifted back to a hybrid platform saying no one wants electric supercar. So they choose the safe path and close EV project. Ferrari took the opposite way. They probably look at global shifting market where electric car sales represent over half of new registration in China and 25% in Europe and realized that hiding behind hybrid it's a temporary fix. Ferrari also say that's not the first time their customers were shocked. When F40 came out, there are a lot of negative voices, but right now this car is legendary project. F40 was really ahead of its time and Ferrari says the Luce follows the exact same logic. And now let's talk about the design. Look closely at the most controversial part of the exterior, the strange double layered front hood. At the beginning, it looks weird, but it's a cool aerodynamic choice. Because the Luce has no engine in front, so the structural hard points of the chassis sits very low. The outer skin flows above them like a separated wing. And that gap helps with air flow because air passes directly underneath this upper shield generating a clean attached airflow over the entire car. Because of that, they were forced to also change position of windshield wipers. With a hood so low and air flow like that, a traditional horizontal wiper at the base of windshield would destroy aerodynamics and create massive wind noise inside cabin. To avoid this, they move wipers to vertical position to reduce problems with airflow. So now you see the front car looks weird, but it's functionally designed and I will say more interesting than other EV project. From documents, we can learn this wasn't a quick decision. Ferrari run over 6,000 computer simulation and spent over 250 hours testing scale models in the wind tunnel before creating the final shape. As a bonus, we can add that attention to airflow gives 0.254 drag coefficient, lowest ever recorded for a production of Ferrari. Now, you might say the EQs hit 0.2, so who cares? But there is a huge difference. The EQS was designed to slice through air as efficiently as possible. The Luce had to be something else. First, be a Ferrari. It has to carry 1,000 horsepowers and be able to hit 310 kilometers per hour, which is impressive for EV. But the most important thing of the Luce design happens inside the cabin. Over the last few years, car manufacturers have been removing physical buttons and replacing them with massive lowcost touchcreens, saying it's a futuristic user experience and something like that. In reality, it's a cost cutting mechanism. John Ive talk about this pointing out that multi-touchscreen interface inside a moving vehicle it's terrible idea. They provide no physical orientation meaning you have to take your eyes off the road just to adjust the temperature inside the Luce Ive and LoveFrom went into the opposite direction. The instrument cluster in front of the driver is unlike anything in production today. It contains three separate dials, each with a machine aluminum bezel and a precision glass lens. BMW had something like that 10 years ago, but they unfortunately go all in into screens. The central works by sandwiching real physical needles between two layers of OLED screen. Ferrari calls it a multi-layered instrumentation and it perfectly captures the whole design philosophy. Don't choose between analog and digital. Build something that is both. Also, the control panel itself isn't glued to the dashboard. It's a physical block that pivots. You grab a handle and move it where you want. Climate controls are all dedicated physical buttons. And if you want to turn on seat heating, change temperature or change fan speed. You just click a button. There is touch screen, but it's reserved for things like navigation or setting, which is great. If you compare this to new cars when you can do everything on mid screen. On center dashboard, we have one more interesting thing. It's a physical circle that combines mechanical hands with a digital face. It shows a clock, stopwatch or compass. And this is another thing abandoned by manufacturers because watches have been in cars for ages, but it's cheaper not to install them or put fake watch on screen. Let's talk about sound. Most EVs on market try to give you fake engine sound or even fake gearbox effect. They literally record a V8, V12, put in software and play through speakers. It has zero connection to the car you are actually driving. Ferrari found the new way for this which reminds me a little bit of Lexus LFA. In LFA, Yamaha created a system that in simple terms transmits vibration from the engine to the interior. Ferrari transmits sound and vibration from the electrical component to the interior to provide additional driver feedback. That is actually related to how the car is working. People had not only a design but also weight. Luce weigh 2,200 kg. Yeah, that's heavy. But the way they integrated the battery directly into the floor drops the center of gravity 95 mm lower than in the Purosangue. Ferrari calculated that this lower center of gravity makes the car handle like it's 400 kg lighter than there actually is. So in Ferrari math Purosangue is heavier than the Luce in driving. As a product designer and current user, I look at the Luce and I see new idea of designing luxury cars. Ferrari doesn't even flex their 0-100 time anymore. Yeah. It has over 1,000 horsepowers and it does it in 2.5 seconds. But who cares? Right now a random 40k electric sedan from China can do the same. The real flex right now is the connection with the car. It's the physical button of climate control, special launch button, or the gorilla glass key that turns black when you dock it so it doesn't distract you. They flex on real axle vibration instead of playing V12. Look, this car will split opinions. Personally, I think the rear stylish looks a bit weird. And if you compare this to 296 or 12Cilindri, it looks harsh but creating the Luce without understanding the engineering behind it, it just lazy. And in my opinion, this car would be great for industry. It's going to be something like in high fashion when company like LV or Prada design something new, people want this. So normal brands like H&M or Zara needs to copy this. People looking on Luce. So there is still option to have physical buttons in cars. So brands like Skoda or BMW should care about this. For example, Audi in new concept C. So that's coming. So they add buttons. Is Luce going to be a successful car? We're going to see in 10 years. Say comments what you think about Luce. Leave a like and subscribe and see you in the next