Ferrari shares fall after launch of first EV as Jony Ive design proves divisive
theguardian.comI’m not really sure why someone would hire Ive to design a car. I don’t know much about him, but to me he’s mostly known for designing Apple products, not luxury vehicles.
Hiring someone because of their name recognition in a role they aren’t suited for would of course backfire.
(Again, maybe he does have some prior work that means he’s suited for the job and I’m just unaware)
Looking at the Ferrari and it's missing that certain look, styling, and tradition Ferrari's have. This design looks like a nice modern electric car, but doesn't have the wow of a Ferrari.
it doesnt even look like nice modern electric car, maybe only by tesla 10 years old design standards, it looks way worse than Xiaomi SU7, Zeekr 001 or Porsche Taycan and let's better not mention cool retro Lancia Delta sorry I mean Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Ioniq 6 or that cute Honda e
if Ferrari wanted to make car which would look interesting for potential Ferrari owners it should have look something like BYD Yangwang U9 or Aion Hyper SSR now those are cool EV sport cars
It's really a nissan leaf with a nicer leather interior.
Exactly. Looking at it, it could be any generic unknown Chinese EV brand.
And a lot of people think he ruined at least some Apple products (too-thin laptops).
> he ruined at least some Apple products
In my small circle of car friends, the new Ferrari is being called the "Magic mouse" of ferraris and posting memes of the car upside down with the cable plugged in at the bottom.
I was hoping for an SF90 meets Nevera when they were talking about it originally :(
But that is entirely unoriginal and derivative, compared to a designer wanting to make a mark.
It's the Nissan Leaf 2026 Pro
Wow. The resemblance is uncanny.
> the "Magic mouse" of ferraris
Could be worse. Could be the 1998 iMac mouse of cars. (No way to tell which way it's going.)
I posit that a mouse that needs to be on its back to be charged, thus rendering it completely useless during that time, to be much much much worse than a round mouse with no immediate indication which way is forward...
I heard they didn't want it to be functional while charging because then people would use it plugged in all the time. They wanted it to be clear that it takes a little time to charge, then you use it unplugged. Might make more sense if there were battery level LEDs on the top or something. But it's just a couple reminders and then bang it's dead.
Can’t let people use it the way they want to now can we? They gotta use it the way I want them That’s the kind of attitude that gets you laptops with no ports and keyboards that don’t work.
Well, my Ive-cursed 2016 MacBook Pro had 4 (!) ThunderBolt/USB-C ports, which I kind of miss (though you had to use one of them for charging, you could also charge from either side). It was both thinner and lighter than recent 16" MacBook Pro models (but with ~5 hour battery life.)
It also had a semi-useful touchbar, no actual physical ESC key, a terrible "butterfly" keyboard that was replaced twice, and a large trackpad that had terrible palm rejection until they eventually fixed it.
So mostly not great, but I miss the form factor and those 4 TB/USB-C ports. I dream about having more of them.
The Magic Trackpad is fine and works fine both wired and wireless.
> because then people would use it plugged in all the time.
So people want to use the mouse while plugged in, and Apple designs a product that limits that...
Talk about hubris.
It takes a half hour to get months of charge back, so it’s not a functional problem. I think you wanted to have a wireless mouse with a port in the back so it feels like a wired mouse when you want it to. That would have been cool but I suspect a standard usb cable wouldn’t be rated for being continually contorted and wouldn’t be as pleasant as a wired mouse wire designed for that, so you’d need a special wire and it was just not going to work.
Even if it is half an hour, that's half an hour of /no functionality/ - whether that is acceptable to you is a personal decision, but to claim it's not a functional problem is a lie.
My Sony wireless headphones have a similar issue. They cannot be used (with Bluetooth / ANC) when charging. My ReDragon USB mouse does not have that issue - it has a standard USB-C port on the front edge and I only need to charge it every few weeks, which is far less often than I charge a phone, so insertion cycles is not a concern.
I had some Skullcandy bluetooth headphones I liked, and when the foam started to go, I bought the new model of the same product. The new ones instantly disconnect when charging, so you can't listen with them wired to a charger/power bank. Why???
I got a power bank that won’t give power and charge simultaneously either. Hated it.
I wonder if these are safety modifications. Batteries get hot when you charge them, which is uncomfortable in and of itself, but the added source of both thermal and electrical energy while under load might make thermal runaway situations more dangerous.
> That would have been cool but I suspect a standard usb cable wouldn’t be rated for being continually contorted
I doubt that had anything to do with it. I've had multiple Magsafe cables that spend their entire existence in one spot on a desk (even using cable guides to keep them sitting within a few millimeters) do some bizarre "paper lanterning" of the rubber at the connector, and I'm far from the only one.
Let's be absolutely real. The port on the back would have ruined Ive's militance on sleekness and that was the reason it wasn't included. Form over function.
Jony Ive without a Steve Jobs to keep him grounded doesn't work.
From my work experience, you can't give a designer unlimited power because he/she will turn the product into an art project.
Not to mention iOS 7.
And the iPhone 5c which had toy-like colors and was reminiscent of Fisher-Price products. The 5c case with holes made it even worse.
The hiring brand is Ferrari. Its entire business is predicated on a Paris-Hilton-style effect, whereby it is famous for being famous. Tactics like hiring Jony Ive are a common way to keep this virtuous cycle afloat. It's not really about design, it's about PR/hype/reputation/branding.
it's not about the design yet stock plunged 6% for no reason then?
stock has been going down all year, drop was just bump coming back down
markets are volatile, 6% on one ticker is noise
I'm pretty confident that in such a case they just hire the name, and that people doing the actual work will be hired on purpose with the required qualifications.
imo the exterior looks like a cartoon BYD and should be killed with fire.
however while folks are negative on Ive for the car shape, he only designed the interiors not the car body, and the interiors are kinda lovely car interior design:
-no touchscreen (dangerous while driving) -clicky, intuitive tactile switches and buttons -thoughtful use of color (display base color changes based on driving mode)
I mean even just looking at those air conditioning vents (rotate vent to open/close) is classive Ive: intuitive but sophisticated.
I hope more manufacturers copy these new/old patterns on the interiors.
> he only designed the interiors not the car body
TopGear reports otherwise [0]:
> In a genius move, they hired design agency LoveFrom to handle the exterior and interior execution: that’s headed by former Apple chief design officer, Sir Jonathan Ive.
[0] https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/its-finally-here-m...
you are correct, I amend my claim.
the interiors are nice, but overall imo the car is a design failure.
Thanks for sharing this!
Is the giant rectangle in the middle of the dashboard not a touchscreen?
fair point, but it is not a tesla-style “giant iPad”
primary inputs while driving are buttons and knobs
> imo the exterior looks like a cartoon BYD and should be killed with fire.
Honestly, if the car itself was a BYD Luce and cost $50,000, the internet would be in awe and I personally think it would be sick.
But nothing about it screams (or even whispers) half a million dollars and then some.
It looks like an iPhone. They just had to raise the cam^Hboot and lower the front. And the backlights look so original: besides 50 car brands, nobody else has this type of backlights. /s
What prevents car manufacturers from taking a normal-looking body style and electrifying it? Seems popular with the aftermarket mods. Every hybrid and EV I can think of looks like a suppository.
Edit: I asked AI the same question and it reminded me that BMW’s i4, Camry Hybrid, Porsche Taycan, Ferrari 296 GTB (hybrid), Corvette E-Ray, F150 Lightning, and Genesis Electrified G80 all look fairly similar to standard ICE vehicles.
> What prevents car manufacturers from taking a normal-looking body style and electrifying it? Seems popular with the aftermarket mods. Every hybrid and EV I can think of looks like a suppository.
The fact that even though an ICE engine is only 35% efficient, the energy density of fuel is still much higher than gas. Gasoline is 50x more energy-dense than an average EV lithium battery (taking a Tesla Model 3 as example). That's why you can fuel 9L of gasoline or charge and carry around ~500kg of batteries for the same range.
So in order to make the car efficient and travel 500km you have to bend the shape to be as aerodynamic as possible. That's where retractile/flush handles also come from, it wasn't just a gimmick or wow-factor on the Model S when it launched. It's still like that years later on all models because it still makes the car more efficient.
The research and push for higher densities is finally starting to pay off, so in time less efficient but more appealing/classic designs may start to emerge again, because you're less constrained by how much energy you can carry per same weight/volume.
> What prevents car manufacturers from taking a normal-looking body style and electrifying it?
Audi and BMW have been doing this for years at this point.
BMW i4 is a 4 series grand coupe (i.e., hatchback sedan in this case).
Audi ev suvs are super close to the gas versions. Both are shifting overlapped designs around though, perhaps specializing.
Also, it seems Mercedes will discontinue the EQS and EQE lines and replace them with electric S- and E-Class: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/electric-mercede...
yeah that's interesting though it seems unclear if that's a north american market thing.
https://www.mercedes-benz.de/passengercars/models/electric.h...
Ironically, I think your question is the reason it’s not done more often, or at least some brands make “very obvious” EV’s: because for some customers, they want people to know they’re different (and memorable) from the ICE vehicles.
For the same reason, the Toyota Prius was uniquely styled and ugly - until all the early adopters moved to EVs and sales fell. The most recent model is intended for a mainstream audience and is conventionally styled like a hot hatch.
I wonder if that was mostly true of early adopters, and more mainstream consumers would prefer more conventional designs.
I think this is a meme in marketing departments, but not actually true.
For the longest time ICE car makers build cars that screamed "electric". They mostly where behind expectations. At that time the by far most successful EV brand was Tesla with the USP that their cars looked like cars, while the EV from the competition looked like video game asserts; the BMW EVs from that time where among the most ugly cars i have ever seen.
Now this has reversed. The current EVs from VW, Mercedes and BMW, Renault, Dacia, Fiat all look normal. The ordinary-looking BMW iX3 has a long waiting list since launch, VWs boring ID-cars are doing better than ever. Tesla has released the cybertruck that screams "electric" and is a sales disaster.
My personal conspiracy theory is that the ICE divisions wanted to prevent EVs cannibalizing their market and they pushed for ugliness or "differentiation".
People want cars to look like cars. This is tautologically true, but manufactures needed quite some time to figure that out.
> Tesla has released the cybertruck that screams "electric" and is a sales disaster.
I agree that the cybertruck screams, but not that it has generic EV stylings.
My cynical take for US auto manufacturers is they don't really want these cars to be successful.
> What prevents car manufacturers from taking a normal-looking body style and electrifying it?
Nothing. That's exactly what early car makers did — they took a carriage and removed the horse. Electric cars with big hoods and radiator grills is the same thing.
> What prevents car manufacturers from taking a normal-looking body style and electrifying it?
That has been done. But it's never optimal, as it's not just a case of "pull out the ice engine, put in the electric motor". Different constraints leads to a different design.
e.g. The electric motors are better mounted near the drive wheels, no "transmission tunnel". The heavy batteries are ideally mounted across the bottom of the vehicle like a skateboard, they do not replace a gas tank.
Amusingly, the eGolf that VW had to build as a compliance car is one of the better choices for “just give me a fucking car that’s an EV”.
It’s literally the MK7 Golf R, but with AWD removed and a battery instead of an engine. Physical interior throughout with CarPlay/AA, all aftermarket parts for the MK7 work with it. Drives like a go-kart on the streets.
Super fun as a second or third grocery getter if you can find one in good condition and with the right option sets.
$30k (new in 2019) for an EV with a 125 mile range and 134 hp doesn't sound remotely competitive.
In case it wasn't clear from my comment, I don't really care about the EV part: I view them as secondary cars for around town. They do not need ~300 miles of range or whatever.
Nobody needs more than 134hp on the street with instant torque, and nobody needs more than 125 miles of range around town. The driving dynamic of the car is better than any modern EV. That's the entire point.
It's in the same class as the Mini Cooper EV. Good car with a battery, not a good EV though.
In case it wasn't clear from my comment, I don't really care about the EV part: I view them as secondary cars for around town. They do not need ~300 miles of range or whatever.
I used to want an electic aventador but now I'm just going for a lotus exige s 240 in chrome orange it's a sub $100K car attainable for me
> What prevents car manufacturers from taking a normal-looking body style and electrifying it?
Isn't that literally what the first Tesla was? An existing Lotus chassis with electric guts?
I do think it's kinda weird that Ferrari didn't do something similar, or at least closer to that, compared to... this thing.
And the original Model S proved that you can have a nice electric car that looks nice and "normal" as opposed to weird blobs of the time.
I have an i4 and its definitely a "conventional car body retrofitted with a battery" design. You can tell by how much leg space rear passengers have. It isn't bad though.
I definitely don't mind the new i3 (or even the old one), which are pure electric designs.
While there are some interesting design choices for things like the lights and wheels (across all Hyundai models, IMHO) the Hyundai EV9 is a pretty normal looking SUV.
especially with older cars . would love to revive cars from 60s-80s
I love the look of old cars, but there's a lot of modern safety advances sacrificed with driving around in a classic. Obvious would be modern seat belts and air bags. Less obvious are crumple zones. There's plenty of other things I'm sure that have been added in modern cars. A modern EV with the body of a 1969 Corvette Stingray or 1969 Camaro would be amazing. I'm talking modern interior materials for sound dampening and comfort like updated ACs not modern touch screen nonsense.
I agree. Love older cars in the way they look, but I consider them only a little safer than a motorcycle.
And plenty of people drive motorcycles and old cars every day without incident. Just from a percentage basis it’s not as safe.
The safety features of modern cars are more like an insurance policy where you don't think about it until you actually need it. I replaced a 2007 Corolla with a 2015 one where after just a few months of owning the car I was in a t-bone accident on the driver side. The 2015 had side impact curtains that really saved me that I cannot imagine what would have happened in the 2007 model. I walked away from that with just a couple of scrapes.
The plenty of people comment also reminds me of the sayings about airliners. It's not that there's a lot of accidents, but when they do happen, there tends to be higher percentage of fatalities.
These guys do just that. used to live walking distance, awesome stuff.
The stock fell down to the price it was a SIX days ago. It was even lower at 321$ 11 days ago. Guess the guardian forgot to mention that.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/RACE/?guccounter=1
til ferrari's ticker is RACE !
Probably have to turn it upside down to charge it
Definitely some Toyota Prius vibes. They certainly should take some design risks, but not in the direction of an everyday commuter. I can only image the amount of patting on the backs the Ive team gave each other. Good job guys, on to the next project.
There is some chat as to why it looks like that shape below [0]. In short no engine space constraint & aiming for efficiency rather than downforce.
This is the weird thing tho.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, is looking at owning a Ferrari for “efficiency”. They are similar to Porsche where you’re looking for a driving feel, or for the badge.
Ferrari releasing this feels like saying “our ethos does not matter”. This thing should’ve been a sports car through and through, efficiency be damned.
Partial. I suspect the unspoken issue here is that in the context of EVs efficiency doesn't translate to higher price at pump (which would be fine for rich people) but rather range anxiety & severe impracticality.
Very ugly car indeed. Lightyears away from the Ferrari brand.
Also, 99% of cars are ugly these days. They all look like angry vacuum cleaners.
I don't think this looks bad but I think this will look dated very fast. The exterior looks like a continuation of the last 20 years of car designs in general, not an update to Ferrari design. An exception is the rear-end which is a good take on the F40's rear end. A larger nod to older designs, like the modern Dodge Challenger or Ford Bronco would be nice to see. I'm sure if you talk to Jony Ive he will explain the Ferrari inspiration behind each subtle curve but it is not obviously a Ferrari at a glance.
On the other hand, it's a five-seater and an attempt to make it look more like Ferrari's iconic cars could also end badly.
The interior and interfaces look great. Even if the roundness of interior is not your cup of tea, figuring out the right balance between tactile buttons and touchscreen is really important and they might have nailed it.
Without the badging I wouldn't have guessed Ferrari.
Agreed. This looks more like a Mustang to me.
Fiat Multipla.
Looks mostly like a bloated american car. The absolute worst design standards based around SUV and Truck styles. Probably the wrong time to align with anything USA.
Looks like a nice Kia or Hyundai.
the most biting comment I've seen yet
Divisive. there is someone who liked it?
Johnny Ive presumably likes it.
It’s fine looking car.
It isn’t a fine looking Ferrari or even close.
I’ve never really understood why electric cars need to look so visually different from gas cars. I feel like if more EVs just looked like normal, great-looking cars, a lot more people would probably be interested in buying them.
Maybe it's the misguided fear of "cannibalizing" the sales of the ICE cars. It's based on an assumption that whoever is now driving an ICE car wants to drive another ICE car, and EVs should tap into a new segment.
Many hybrid cars, even plug-in hybrids, look like ICE cars, and don't stand out on the street. I think it's the way to go for more EV adoption.
I’ve never really understood why automobiles need to look so visually different from a horse and carriage. I feel like if more automobiles just looked like normal, great-looking carriages, a lot more people would probably be interested in buying them.
The design says: "Look at this nice Ferrari-branded toy car! You should have one in your garage, it would look cute next to your real car (_Real_ Ferrari, gas engine, looks like a sleek lion about to eat its prey)". In that sense, it might be perfect - for a brand that's not yet certain that it can stay true to itself in a EV-only world?
As someone who is not in the market for a Ferrari, I feel like I am crazy for actually kinda liking the look of it? (The blue is bad, they should have used the red one for all of the marketing)
I mean, I feel like it should be a departure from the Ferrari look since it really isn't one that fits the expectation of what a Ferrari is. It feels like this is more an expansion of the Ferrari brand into a new segment while also borrowing from the rest of the brand?
They even said "entirely new Ferrari".
I feel like if it did try to look like a normal Ferrari but then it didn't feel, sound, etc like one due to being Electric people would also complain.
> if it did try to look like a normal Ferrari but then it didn't feel, sound, etc like one due to being Electric people would also complain
A "normal" Ferrari or any old sportscar looks cool on a race track but in real life it is literally midlife crisis on wheels, very awkward and out of place. I always feel pity/judgement when I see one. I heard it's also uncomfortable for passengers in the back and so on.
Form is function. Making this car look like something it isn't just for the sake of legacy appearance would be top engineering stupidity and waste. And trying to compete with your own ICE cars at what they are best also would not be so smart business-wise.
I'm not a car guy but this car seems to be doing something totally new for Ferrari. If there was no controversy THEN it would be worrying!
I am also not in the market for a Ferrari. The problem is that it looks so pedestrian. Personally, I think the Ioniq has more personality. For a 600k car, it should have some appeal. This just looks like every other EV; it’s generic and boring.
I think they might have had much more success with a strategy like the R32 EV. Take something classic (like the Testarossa) and electrify it. Remind people that EVs are an evolution rather than a capitulation to generic boringness.
> As someone who is not in the market for a Ferrari, I feel like I am crazy for actually kinda liking the look of it?
s/Ferrari/Tesla and I think we have the sentiment of any cybertruck owners
Reminds me of Homer Simpson designing a car for his half brother and making him bankrupt.
Marques Brownlee toured one recently - "Ferrari Luce is the Most Controversial Ferrari Ever"
Thanks for the link. Totally seeing the appeal of this car.
The UX seems actually very good (based on this short review so far). Good use of physical tactile controls + flexibility of a screen.
As to external looks. Whenever I see old ICE sports cars (all those lotuses, ferraris, lamborghinis) they seem so awkward and out of place on city streets. They just scream midlife crisis. I think this will be an upgrade in that sense.
Yeah but why would anyone pay $600k for a car just to not look like they are having a midlife crisis?
Some people exist in another financial dimension :shrug: Bentleys and rolls royces for example don't scream midlife crisis and this is a bit closer to that by comfort apparently
Its UI looks amazing. Of course, I have no clue about its IRL UX.
I have a clue about IRL UX of touchscreen only car interfaces and they suck...
Considering that Ferrari has been making very ugly cars since about 2004 thanks to their penchant for overexaggerating every single design feature, it's somewhat surprising that they managed to keep it up despite hiring an outsider. Even moreso that they somehow managed to do that by swinging in the complete opposite direction and simplifying everything as much as they could. The Roma and Amalfi show the design language they're currently using after abandoning the caricature that started with the F430, and yet they chose this instead.
Before I saw the car, I figured the response would be overblown like many are these days, but yikes that is really an uninspiring silhouette.
Funny that its failure is in being too chubby, when Ive was famous for making Apple products overly thin (think butterfly keyboard).
The Ferrari Testarossa (F110) is probably the most beautiful of their line IMHO, hair-rising roar it has too.
The front looks very not Ferrari.
No one I know with a Ferrari drives it more than a few dozens of km.
I can smell the headline "Apple acquires Ferrari".
The design is reminiscent of a Honda e
It’s just not an attractive design at all, and stat-wise it’s laughable compared to a Tesla, especially at that price point. There’s no way this sees production. If anything, this just harms the Ferrari brand.
Holy shit is that thing ugly, both inside and outside. Hiring Jony Ive was a huge mistake.
Thank God only a few will be produced and those will be squirreled away by a handful of oligarchs and will never see the light of day.
Am I the only one who was impressed by the interior design? But yeah, the body is ugly as hell, I think it lacks aggression in the design.
Is it just me or does the back of it look like the goatse.cx guy?
Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
kind looks like an oversized toy. man and what the heck were they thinking of using blue? jesus.
The main mistake made here is that the color is a weird sky blue. The actual shape looks great - just needs to be red.
That is clearly not the mistake, there are images of it in blue, red, and yellow. I've also seen a couple of different styles of wheels. The design looks bad (for a Ferrari) in every iteration. The overwhelming feedback on public discussions is that it looks [cheap|terrible|boring|notFerrari].
It looks like Hundai's homage to Ferrari.
It looks like something you put VHS tapes in to rewind them.
It looks like Nissan Leaf
It looks like a Lotus Elise.
To me, it kind of reminds me of a Lucid Motors car.
Nah, the main mistake is Jony Ive. one hit wonder.
To me, it looks a bit like a kit car (especially from the back)
There's red one as well.