I’m not a car person. Yet even I can see that Ferrari Luce is likely to set a new standard for car design.
That’s thanks, in part, to who Ferrari chose to partner with on its first electric car: Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson, the former Apple designers whose creations set the industry standard for tech devices through their work on the iPhone, the MacBook and the Apple Watch. Ive and Newson, whose creative collective LoveFrom has worked with brands like Moncler and Airbnb, brought an outsider perspective to car design that, rather than reinventing the wheel, will be instantly recognizable and intuitive to anyone who’s used an Apple device.
The rollout of the Luce is coming in phases: first announced in October, this preview brought media to San Francisco to check out the interior, disembodied from the car itself, which will be unveiled in May. This approach is meant to draw focus to the 120 individual components — the dashboard, the steering wheel, the rectangular cassette with the Ferrari logo that serves as the car key — before the full model comes together, says Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna. Each piece is made of glass and aluminum (rather than typical plastic and polycarbonate), and digital displays are offset by real buttons and dials you can press; one of the more innovative details is a handle beneath the center console screen, which allows the driver to pull the screen in and offers a place to rest their wrist while they navigate.
“One of the founding assumptions I never understood was why, if the power source was electric, does it follow that the interface must be digital?” Ive told reporters during the preview. “That’s a bizarre and lazy assumption.”
Two paddles behind the steering wheel let the driver shift gears in a fluid motion, giving a more visceral driving experience that’s often missing from engineless cars, and turning purists away from making the switch. But with Luce, Ferrari is not really looking to convert anyone to the altar of electric — it’s looking to tap a new market. It’s easy to notice, even without seeing the finished product, that Luce (which means “light” or “levity” in Italian) is designed to be an accessible vehicle that can reach beyond collectors and enthusiasts. It’s also a sign Ferrari is moving with industry demands: last year, Italy announced $700 million in subsidies for electric vehicle purchases, in line with the EU’s 2050 climate targets.
While perhaps more accessible to a new demographic, Ferrari’s electric cars will be just as exclusive as its other models. Ferrari sells roughly 13,000 cars a year, with clients of the rarest cars vetted and made to wait years until their custom models are delivered. It’s at the top of the luxury car pyramid, and the moves it makes — especially in new areas — will have a ripple effect.
Ive, Newson, and Ferrari’s chief design officer, Flavio Manzoni, sat down with me after the preview at LoveFrom’s studios to discuss how the partnership came together and how good design will always be democratized. The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Vogue: Your work is likely very sought after — how do you decide who to partner with for new projects? Did Ferrari approach you to say, we need your help designing an electric car?
Jony: I think there are some relationships that transcend individual projects, and that’s the case with Ferrari. When we started, we didn’t really know exactly what the right thing to work on would be. We just did it for the love of working together. It was entirely about collaboration, [that’s] where I think we like to do things, don’t we? Where we know we’re going to learn, and we just like the people. It was the opportunity to do something new and to learn.
Marc: And the right project had to materialize organically, which it did ultimately.
Vogue: You’re not native to the car industry. What did that outside perspective bring to this project?
Jony: We all recognized that having a set of eyes from the outside was a very interesting way to approach this, and it’s often an original, interesting way to approach a problem. I mean, clearly, Ferrari had no lack of expertise and capability, but this was a project that was unusual on so many levels. I think if you’re creative, the barriers between these different areas are artificial. So we love designing, whether it’s working with Leica or Moncler or a car with Ferrari.
Marc: The challenges are obviously different. The scales are different, the materials are different, the processes are different. But there are so many similarities. And the concept of cross-pollination of different industries is much more prevalent and relevant now than probably it ever was.
Jony: The [Apple Watch] is a good example. In 2011, there wasn’t really a category called ‘smartwatch’. And there was an awful lot of skepticism about whether that would be a valuable thing or not. But that’s a product that sits in an unusual place between technology, fashion, style — and it’s the most successful watch in the world.
Marc: The functionality of that product, from where we started, has evolved in such a profound way, in ways that no one could have necessarily anticipated. So you can start off in one place, but you can end in a different place. I don’t know if that will necessarily be the case with this project for Ferrari, but it may end up taking us all in a direction that we didn’t anticipate.
Jony: The most important thing is that the way you work is defined. It’s your attitude, isn’t it? And the way you look at the work, and if it’s defined by curiosity. I’m way more interested in learning than being right. And so many of the people we’ve worked with in the past, they want to be right. We really couldn’t be less interested in those arguments.
Vogue: Flavio, how did this approach, to work with LoveFrom, end up shaping this project for Ferrari?
Flavio: In Ferrari’s history, it was quite usual to have collaborations with experts in car design. But this is another case. You talk about curiosity — we were very curious about what type of output there could be, tackling a project like an electric Ferrari, because it’s not usual, with a totally different perspective. Yesterday, Benedetto [Vigna, Ferrari CEO] talked about open innovation. I think this is the right term. [Jony and Marc’s] perspective, their background, it’s totally different. And this was exactly the purpose of this collaboration.
This car is completely different from anything that has been done in Ferrari history. So it was necessary to have a different perspective. [To Jony] I like your description: the materialization of the idea is, this is good. And this is also very difficult.
Jony: The way we work at LoveFrom is very unusual, and we’ve evolved new ways of working over many years. The amount of research we did, creative research, we shared with our friends at Ferrari. [He references a stack of bound books of original research conducted for the Ferrari project.] I think it was an unusual process that not everybody was familiar with. But I think it really helped to get us talking, seeing the problem in the same way, and starting to understand the opportunities. I think most of the mistakes people make is they don’t frame the problem properly. They’re solving the wrong problem, or they’re solving a problem that’s tiny when it should be this [gestures with wide arms].
Vogue: What would you say was the problem you set out to solve here?
Jony: One of the difficult things is, there’s an incredible opportunity with an electric [vehicle], but you lose something that we all love, which is the visceral physicality of the engine. So one of the goals we had was to create that tactile connection in new ways. And so that’s our obsession then with analog mechanical controls, and taking every opportunity we could to try and build that sort of connection. That’s why authentic materials were important: glass, metal, not plastic. I think that was one of the big goals, wasn’t it? And to solve the problem so it’s easier to use.
Marc: Ferrari had made this rather bold and courageous move to want to work with us, which I think, in the context of the automotive industry, is very unusual, in recognizing that there are other ways to solve problems.
Flavio: It’s a different approach that certainly will attract new customers. We don’t think that the traditionalists are really keen.
Jony: Also, from the point of view of gender.
Vogue: I hesitate to suggest that there’s a type of car for women, and a type of car for men, but was the goal here to open up Ferrari to more people? How did that factor into the design process?
Jony: I think it’s good design to make something that’s accessible. It’s subconscious for us, in many ways, you want to make it usable for everybody. And that’s not marketing, that’s just good design. These are complex, highly sophisticated machines, and to make the interface clear, obvious, and intuitive is really hard.
Marc: There’s nothing gender-specific about the way we work. And certainly in this case, it’s difficult to say it’s masculine.
Flavio: It will probably be the most versatile Ferrari ever made.
Jony: That’s a lovely thing to say. I think you’re exactly right.
Vogue: When you look at the other things you’ve designed, they’ve become ubiquitous. But Ferrari’s exclusive. Could this type of design be democratized? Do you see it influencing the rest of the car industry, like Apple? Or do you approach designing for exclusivity differently?
Jony: My attitude has changed over the years. Where before, if we were working on something like the phone or the watch and it was copied, I had perhaps a slightly juvenile response, that it felt like theft. I think now, as we’re getting older, when you’re working on something, you’re aware that it will have an influence way beyond the specific product you’re working on. We feel sure that there are principles and themes and things we’ve discovered that I actually hope will have an impact beyond this car.
Marc: [Ferrari is] a great place to start, right? We’re starting at the top of the pyramid. I’ve done a lot of work with the so-called luxury sector. It’s controversial in many ways, but one thing I can say is that it’s always the best place to start working: with people who execute ideas correctly.
Flavio: The process at Ferrari I think is very different from other brands. There is a kind of teamwork across all departments. Other brands normally do so-called clinic tests to understand if the design of a new car is well-received by a certain group of potential clients. We never do that. We believe that we, as a team, are able to understand what a new product should be, based on objectives like performance. Every time, we have to [outdo] previous performance and surprise our clients. It’s a kind of symbiosis that we have internally that helps all of us to define the characteristics of a new product. And basically, we invest in it, and we believe that it will be successful.
Jony: What focus groups generally do is they make sure you don’t offend anyone. They never inspire. It’s our job as designers to try to figure out the future. It’s not fair to ask a consumer, ‘what is it that you want?’
Flavio: We try to avoid any homogenization. Every product must be different and must anticipate certain trends. As Ferrari, we have to be ahead compared to the others.
Marc: So that’s why Ferrari will do this, and everyone else will do extrapolations of this.
Jony: I think it’s nice to point out — and remember — that it’s an uncomfortable place to be. To be courageous, and you’re vulnerable. I think of John [Elkann, chair and CEO of Exor, the holding company that owns a stake in Ferrari] and Benedetto. It’s so easily overlooked, the courage, the support that they’ve had on this project and our direction, that conviction and resolve to make this happen is really important.
Marc: And I think it extends to the fact that we’ve asked people like you who don’t come from the traditional automotive industry. That is also, I think, a sort of expression of doing things in a slightly different way, that’s more adventurous. It’s another way for us to understand what we’re doing — a slightly bigger picture, a bigger snapshot, one that involves a larger cultural context.
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