The shameful presentation of the Luce, an electric vehicle that betrays decades of mechanical tradition to please the environmentalist agenda, unleashed the fury of investors and purists.
In light of the distortion of the brand's essence, Montezemolo bitterly stated: “I hope they at least remove the prancing horse from that car”, concluding with irony that, due to its generic design, “without a doubt, this is a car that, at least, the Chinese will not copy”.
On a dark day for the luxury automotive industry, the financial market has sent a devastating message to the top brass of Maranello. Ferrari's shares plummeted by up to 6.3% on the Milan Stock Exchange this Tuesday, immediately after the official presentation of the Luce, the company's first fully electric vehicle.
The debacle was not limited to Europe, as shares in the United States fell by 3% before the opening, accumulating a loss of value exceeding 31% over the last twelve months. According to Oddo BHF analyst Anthony Dick, the response has been blunt: “The market has spoken”.
This staggering drop is due to the company's betrayal of its own identity in trying to pursue a green agenda. The Ferrari Luce —whose name means “light”— is presented as a five-seater sedan measuring 5.02 meters long, breaking away from the classic sporty silhouette to adopt a four-door sedan style that many consider ugly.
With a starting price of 550,000 euros (approximately 640,000 dollars), the vehicle was designed by the LoveFrom collective of former Apple design chief Jony Ive, resulting in an aesthetic that, according to critics and analysts, resembles more a Chinese supercar than a piece of Italian engineering.
Indignation has reached the highest echelons of the brand's history. Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, former president of Ferrari and a key figure in its resurgence in the 90s, was categorical in his rejection of this imposition of automotive progressivism: “A myth is being destroyed. I am very sorry”.
Despite the current CEO, Benedetto Vigna, and president John Elkann trying to justify this shift as a "brave" bet for the future, the figures show that enthusiasm for luxury electrification is rapidly cooling. Giants like Porsche and Lamborghini have already halted their electric plans in the face of real demand that rejects these models. Even Ferrari itself had to reduce its ambitious electrification targets in January 2026, lowering from 40% to 20% of its range by 2030.
The fear of investors, backed by experts like Michael Field from Morningstar, is that the high research and development costs to meet the environmentalist agenda will pressure profit margins.
Although Ferrari managed to nearly double its revenue between 2019 and 2025, rising from 3.77 billion to over 7 billion euros, the bet on the Luce —which attempts to compensate for the lack of soul with a system that amplifies electric vibrations to simulate sound— jeopardizes a growth model that was forged on the power and roar of the combustion engine, not on the silence of progressive policies.
