In case anyone was wondering what the Apple Car would have looked like inside, it would have been roughly this.
As an Apple Car™ it makes sense, but as a Ferrari it's incredibly soulless and oversimplified. This Ive design aesthetic (Dieter Rams' aesthetic really) is fine on consumer electronics where you want the device to disappear and give way to the display, but on something as emotional as a vehicle (Ferrari especially), this design falls flat.
I do hope some of the design details work their way through the industry (e.g. using glass instead of gloss black plastic, convex glass to add depth to digital gauges), but I hope the rest of it stays as a one-off experiment demonstrating the hubris and one-dimensionality of a top designer.
EVs have a weight issue that fundamentally constrains their overall design. It is really a tough engineering problem to try to shave weight off of everything, because you are starting out with a 700kg battery replacing a 400kg engine + transmission, so you are ~300kg in the hole, and need to remove 300 kg from the rest of the car. That's why they do crazy stuff like use the battery as part of the structural frame, to save on metal there. Every extra kilogram reduces range. Solid things are made hollow. Metal is replaced by plastic. Fabrics are thinner or replaced with lighter-weight engineered materials. Lots of things are removed. Physical buttons gone, flourishes gone, handles gone. Seats are made thinner and with less material. See how they brag about a simpler new steering wheel that is 400g lighter?
All of that and still they come up with a 2300 kg compact two row SUV.
So, if you are going to be redesigning everything anyway to try to get rid of as much weight as possible, why not hire a designer known for sparse, minimalistic, clean design? It makes sense. It may not be what Ferrari buyers want, but you can't really blame Ferrari for giving it a try. We'll see how well it sells.
I wonder what the speed/weight tradeoff is on a Ferrari though. Eg on a Bugatti they can put in a beast of an engine (heavy) because their buyers care only about power output and if it gets 8 miles to a gallon who cares.
On an electric sports car, where does the break lie between extra weight for a powerful battery and too much weight to make the car go vroom?
Side note: I wonder if, in 20 years, petrol cars will the preserve of the very rich and the very poor.
> Side note: I wonder if, in 20 years, petrol cars will the preserve of the very rich and the very poor.
Sure, except the very poor will be eco criminals (due to being unable to maintain their equipment to relevent emission standards/pay the associated offset fees) and will be selectively hounded and exploited by law enforcement.
It certainly looks like an Apple device. Ive's aesthetic is Apple's aesthetic, so if you hire Ive, that is what you are going to get.
I can see a car company who doesn't care about design stumbling into this outcome, but Ferrari doesn't seem like that kind of company. So the choice must have been intentional.
As Ferrari has been proving over the last few generations, they know how to make engines but Pininfarina knows how to design cars. I'm not even slightly surprised by the Luce.
Everything will undoubtedly feel nice/premium as a result of being metal and glass, but you spend more time looking at the entire interior than touching every part of it, so appearance is important.
For things like volume, A/C, adjusting mirrors and seats, I really, really want physical buttons. Not sure what I will do after my old Volvo dies, maybe the touchscreen mania will have gone away by then and physical buttons will be back. I can't imagine myself touching a screen while driving, I don't even know how I would be able to do that.
There will undoubtedly be people that like or love it and there's nothing wrong with that. Design is rather subjective. Fortunately I'm not in the market for a $300,000+ EV made by Ferrari, so I don't have to lose sleep at night over buying this or not :)
IMO if they just had materials with any sort of visual interest to them, this would be pretty beautiful.
Instead it feels like sitting inside an iPad which is an aesthetic already cheaply deployed at massive scale to motels, pharmacies, and shitty coffee shops.
This question's answer would require something more lecture length that dives into fundamentals of design with an equal amount of time spent on automotive design. No one has the time or care for something like that, so I'll try to give a high level answer.
Generally speaking, cars are not about simple designs/shapes. They, especially to enthusiasts, are viewed as something closer to art where care is taken to craft shapes and forms for both function and feel. This is amplified dramatically for Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc..
Ive was clearly doing this design work for the Apple EV that never shipped. It followed Apple's historic design aesthetic (driven largely by him) of simplifying things as much as possible--using circles and squircles everywhere, removing as many unnecessary geometry as possible. That's fine for an Apple EV because that's their design aesthetic. That is, demonstrably, not Ferrari's design aesthetic. It's a jarring departure from decades of automotive design and, in my professional opinion, an exercise in hubris.
As we remember that design is largely subjective and that this is all my opinion, I will say that almost everything in the vehicle is overly simplified:
* Steering wheel: an attempt at modern retro, but they added two blobs (to keep the steering wheel simple) to house the dials and buttons instead of incorporating it in a sculpted, thoughtful way. Instead of putting the turn signals in those blobs (or elsewhere), they interrupted the simple steering wheel with a couple circles to act as the turn signals.
* Digital instrument cluster: it's an iPad that connects to the base of the steering wheel. Wasted space in the top corners. Convex glass is a really nice touch however. Gauges are strange to me (gas gauge for an EV, left dial is confusing at first glance, G-force gauge unnecessarily busy), but that can always be changed later so not worth waxing on about.
* The key: a small iPhone 4. It's not terrible, but it's rather uninspired and boring. Ferraris aren't supposed to be boring.
* Dashboard interface: another iPad, but with a Mac Pro handle on it. Might be very nice for moving it, but how often are you going to do that? Does it stick out far enough to act as a wrist-rest as mentioned in their video? The mechanical switches are a nice touch if the display/UI keeps up. The clock/compass/stopwatch in the top right is neat, but almost antithetical to the rest of the design--it's added complexity for the sake of complexity. I still like it though.
* Vents: these make sense to be simplified. I've never loved the number of flaps in most vehicles, but if you have kids you might have issues with toys/food getting lost inside if there's no mesh behind it.
* Seats are nice, but if you removed the Ferrari emblem would you know it's a Ferrari? Is there enough bolstering for spirited driving?
The shapes, iconography, etc. are all carried over from Apple devices. Cars, even in EV form, are not iPads and iPhones. Cars, particularly those like Ferraris, are supposed to be designed, sculpted, given character and flare in order to evoke emotion.
Rivian and Porsche, in my opinion, have designed beautiful EVs (inside and out). They have a design aesthetic that's unique to them and in the case of Porsche stays true to the brand. The Ferrari Luce looks like Ferrari hired Ive to take whatever work he did for Apple and copy paste it over to them. If this was announced as an Ive + Kia/Hyundai/Honda/Lexus/etc. collaboration would it look any more or less out of place? No, because it's been simplified to the point that it doesn't even look designed any more. It almost feels "default" in a way.
This is all just my opinion as someone that's been doing product engineering and industrial design for a long time and happens to love cars--take it with a grain of salt.
+1 to everything you say here, but unfortunately I doubt this will sway anyone who doesn't have similar feelings upon just looking at the thing with their own two eyes.
I first thought that too, but if you take the time to scroll down a bit, you'll see that the instruments are actually three separate screens, and at least the center one has a mechanical needle. Also, the central control panel has lots of physical switches (Musk would hate it) and even a round instrument in the top right corner with mechanical hands, which can be either a clock, a stopwatch or (for whatever reason) a compass. So definitely not an iPad put in a holder.
It would have been much better imho to for instance have lots of tiny screens embedded in the dashboard/console alongside their respective buttons. Each "app" gets their own toggle and physical dials. That would have been expensive and cool and could have been made not-tacky. (Like some cars are, expensive and cool but also without any class whatsoever, they look like a teenage gaming room.)
Lexus CT200h is one of the best interiors ever designed. The design language was tactile: every single button or control had a different action or feel.
There’s a roughly 7 inch above the vents that flips up whenever the car is off, but using the screen is optional. The screen is up near the road, and it’s very safe to use. There’s a small joystick to move the cursor.
CT also has a stateless “springy gear selector” which works the same way as a manual gear selector, but after selecting the gear it springs back, so it’s stateless. It also has tactile blocking for gears you can’t enter yet. It felt extremely satisfying.
CT got a 10/10 from me, like a small aircraft cockpit. Enough knobs and computers to be exciting, but not OTT. Made a hybrid micro hatchback feel exciting.
It still looks like a big computer screen, I'm afraid. Although, making it seamless with the dash is a step up, you're right. That tiny paddle gear shift looks horrendous, though.
I would really like to have analog features back, buttons and all that, in an EV.
What do you mean interior EV design? Why does it have to differ from an EV to a gas powered car? You might have some different gauges, a control or two that is different, but other than that, why does an EV have to look a certain way?
Rivians don't even have a physical vent control (to aim the vents). That alone disqualifies it from anything close to "excellent". And that's before mentioning all the missing physical buttons that should've been there.
Touch screen buttons, especially the ones on the far edge of the center screen, are harder to accurately hit for most people. More physical buttons = better = more premium.
looks like a weird mix of nothing, pointless clock, that screen on the right, that only creates discomfort. The big screen that is big only for the trend.
In tesla ( trend setter for this) big screen is functional, and it can show you multi media, when you charge you watch netflix.
I think Ferraris have gotten especially ugly in the last few generations. I generally like Jony Ive designs. But this is a mismatch. A whole new kind of not-right-is-ugly for Ferrari.
Elements of it are precious and well designed. But it doesn't feel like a car interior.
This is precisely why it's the right design for an Apple car and probably the wrong design for a Ferrari.
I knew someone who allegedly worked on the Special Project after a successful career at more familiar premium automotive brands. He was expressing exasperation with the process and said "I don't get why they're letting people who don't like cars design one. You wouldn't send your kids to a school full of teachers that hate children!"
I thought I was going to look at a car when I clicked that link. I scrolled the last 80% of the way out of morbid curiosity. This secondary quest was not disappointing: no car photos. So weird. Perhaps this is a complaint about the title.
But since it's all about the interface, I must say, the idea of a sports car with a touch screen is still rather terrifying.
It's a Ferrari EV.. I can imagine the company wanting to treat the project like a proverbial stepchild, while keeping the soul for the fossil-fueled machines..
After the 993, Porsche was a different company. Not exactly cheap-ass, but maybe something less than their often aircraft-quality mechanicals and spartan but hand-made quality interior.
At some point you have to accept a technology transition. Otherwise you sound like someone arguing against motor cars because the real thrill of transportation was the horse’s clippity-clop.
You don't need to accept anything when it comes to a $400,000 sports car. Ferrari drivers put like 1600 miles a year on their car, it's not even transportation, it's a weekend toy. They can just buy other toys, like helicopter rides, or whatever other thing will come along that will give them the thrill they want.
Tesla Roadster took a bunch of preorders at $50-250k down almost a decade ago, More recently, Taycan did reasonable-ish volume at $100-200k/unit. There (at least once was) a market for such things. Its definitely not the same market as ICE super/hypercars, but there are some that might enjoy a silent, luxurious car with a sub-2 0-60 as a complement to other cars in the garage.
They've been going to turbos in all but their flagships so they generally don't sound all that exciting anyway. Lambo literally draped their styling over a VW/Porsche parts-bin crossover SUV and all the influencers flocked to it. The person who appreciates the high-rpm wail of old timey, power-dense engines is not the same person who drops half a million on a car anymore.
The selling point of electric sports cars is more "the acceleration is amazing" and less "it makes a loud noise".
e.g.
> a 0–100 km/h (62 mph) acceleration time of 2.36 seconds, and a quarter mile (402 m) drag race time of 9.78 seconds. ... unofficially the fastest production car in the world
Acceleration is about the only selling point of a sports EV.
They're so ungodly heavy because of the batteries that they handle like barges. They need giant tyres and so much ESC and software control because these things weigh almost 2000kg or more. You can try and work around it but there's only so much that can be done to make 2000kg take a corner.
Looking at where sports cars will be in 10 years with ICEs being regulated out of existence makes me very sad because it seems like we're about to see the death of the lightweight sports car.
I think if you look at e.g. Model 3 Performance it's not quite so hopeless. 80kwh packed into an EV roughly the same size, weight and performance as a contemporary BMW M3. Even with today's technology (0.2kwh/kg, 3-4 miles/kwh) a Miata-sized 250hp, 2500lb, 200 mile EPA EV is possible. Whether that would be a compelling driving experience and anybody would buy such a thing is another question.
The McMurtry Spéirling is under 1000kg. Battery technology will only improve and so I expect to see under-1500kg sport EVs generally available eventually.
Under 1000kg for a reasonable price probably means building your own electrified exocar.
The McMurtry is a race car so it's not surprising it's that light. However it still pays a price compared to its contemporaries (go look at the weights of various LMP1 or LMP2 cars, even old cars like the Mazda 787B was ~850kg iirc). The only number I've found so far is "under 1000kg" so I assume it's probably quite close to that 1000kg number.
The weight of the batteries isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I expect car makers will prioritize range. I think the engineering to make an EV truly light like an old Integra Type R (1100kg) will be obscenely expensive and sacrifice so much on practicality it just won't be a viable product as a road car.
The car would be so compromised to be that light nobody will make the car, at least at an affordable price. You'll end up with a limited range, limited power, uncomfortable car for a price way out of line with what you're getting.
I think you could make a ~150kw-180kw EV pretty light, but considering the ongoing power pissing contest in modern cars I'm not sure how well it would market test.
So I expect the market will stick to heavy cars with big power because it's easier to build and easier to sell.
The handle and palm rest, in particular, stick out to me as a step up for anything with a touch screen. Giving you a place to anchor your hand while a finger does something is very nice. That the display can articulate is also nice, though it does add a potential weak point (how long until this gets loosey-goosey and moves around during hard g-forces?).
I'm not a fan of that bold on iPad, but if they made those displays oil filled like ressence type 3, even with them being digital, they would look pretty nice given the proportions and ux/ui.
Fortunately, there are many physical buttons. In the video, you can see that their functions vary depending on what is displayed on the screen. I think this is a brilliant solution that combines the best of the physical and virtual worlds.
The skeuomorphism is a curious choice. I think if I were going for a radical electric car UI I'd use bar graphs from left to right and things like that. Then again, maybe they don't want to alienate their customers.
Um, where is the car? All the images are of (parts of) the interior, and the captioning is bizarre. Ooohh! It has a steering wheel! (And it's a input! Who knew?)
Ferrari is announcing the car in three steps: first they announce the electric powertrain details, next they announced the interior details and lastly they'll announce what it'll actually look like.
FYI, the Wikipedia article has a little more data on this vehicle as an EV:
4 motors, 1,113 horsepower, an 880 V platform, 122 kWh of battery, range 330 miles (531.1 km).
Not clear yet on the exact charge speed or launch date. Or what the 0-100km/h time is, but expect a low number, of course. That number has to be eye-catching.
Problem is that in an EV world the raw figures are really not going to be that impressive. Plenty of Chinese EVs have 1000+hp at far lower cost, and likely as good or better acceleration that whatever Ferrari can deliver, since EVs seem to be reaching a point where the limit on acceleration is the tires rather than the motor. So don't think Ferrari can deliver anything truly eye catching in those terms. Differentiation needs to come in other domains.
I've wondered why they don't integrate the tablet directly into the dash or windshield. It does seem clunky to have a big ipad screwed to your dash. And I think it would also save on weight.
Meh. Glad he and Alan Dye are gone. They would have ruined the Apple car. Appel should instead replace their entire design team with the folks from teenage engineering.
I love it, first ferarri that i have said "I want one". I have been an ev driver for over a decade and have no regrets, it has improved my life. The mental health benefits of driving an almost silent vehicle are completely over looked, the addiction to a vibrating noisy gas engine we find quite frankly bizarre in 2026, it is old technology, outdated, and becoming lost in history and thank you to the lithium cell.
I think I would be looking for that very real, confident and perfectly even vibration a Ferrari has at idle; the valve train song, an extra octave in the exhaust.
In case anyone was wondering what the Apple Car would have looked like inside, it would have been roughly this.
As an Apple Car™ it makes sense, but as a Ferrari it's incredibly soulless and oversimplified. This Ive design aesthetic (Dieter Rams' aesthetic really) is fine on consumer electronics where you want the device to disappear and give way to the display, but on something as emotional as a vehicle (Ferrari especially), this design falls flat.
I do hope some of the design details work their way through the industry (e.g. using glass instead of gloss black plastic, convex glass to add depth to digital gauges), but I hope the rest of it stays as a one-off experiment demonstrating the hubris and one-dimensionality of a top designer.
EVs have a weight issue that fundamentally constrains their overall design. It is really a tough engineering problem to try to shave weight off of everything, because you are starting out with a 700kg battery replacing a 400kg engine + transmission, so you are ~300kg in the hole, and need to remove 300 kg from the rest of the car. That's why they do crazy stuff like use the battery as part of the structural frame, to save on metal there. Every extra kilogram reduces range. Solid things are made hollow. Metal is replaced by plastic. Fabrics are thinner or replaced with lighter-weight engineered materials. Lots of things are removed. Physical buttons gone, flourishes gone, handles gone. Seats are made thinner and with less material. See how they brag about a simpler new steering wheel that is 400g lighter?
All of that and still they come up with a 2300 kg compact two row SUV.
So, if you are going to be redesigning everything anyway to try to get rid of as much weight as possible, why not hire a designer known for sparse, minimalistic, clean design? It makes sense. It may not be what Ferrari buyers want, but you can't really blame Ferrari for giving it a try. We'll see how well it sells.
I wonder what the speed/weight tradeoff is on a Ferrari though. Eg on a Bugatti they can put in a beast of an engine (heavy) because their buyers care only about power output and if it gets 8 miles to a gallon who cares.
On an electric sports car, where does the break lie between extra weight for a powerful battery and too much weight to make the car go vroom?
Side note: I wonder if, in 20 years, petrol cars will the preserve of the very rich and the very poor.
> Side note: I wonder if, in 20 years, petrol cars will the preserve of the very rich and the very poor.
Sure, except the very poor will be eco criminals (due to being unable to maintain their equipment to relevent emission standards/pay the associated offset fees) and will be selectively hounded and exploited by law enforcement.
Given the heavy use of metal and glass to replace plastic parts, I suspect LoveFrom did the exact opposite of shaving weight off the interior :)
It certainly looks like an Apple device. Ive's aesthetic is Apple's aesthetic, so if you hire Ive, that is what you are going to get.
I can see a car company who doesn't care about design stumbling into this outcome, but Ferrari doesn't seem like that kind of company. So the choice must have been intentional.
As Ferrari has been proving over the last few generations, they know how to make engines but Pininfarina knows how to design cars. I'm not even slightly surprised by the Luce.
Marc Newson is a “Watch Guy” and this also clearly comes across.
Well, that’s the problem with product design — looking at it simply doesn’t suffice. It needs to be experienced in person.
Well, that’s not (yet) possible, but this video does a good job in the meantime:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wv1btxCjVE&pp=ygUQTG92ZWZyb20...
Everything will undoubtedly feel nice/premium as a result of being metal and glass, but you spend more time looking at the entire interior than touching every part of it, so appearance is important.
Car interiors are static so your brain very quickly ignores it while driving or after owning the car for a while.
The interface / ergonomics on the other hand end up way more important than anything else when it comes to personal enjoyment of the interior.
For things like volume, A/C, adjusting mirrors and seats, I really, really want physical buttons. Not sure what I will do after my old Volvo dies, maybe the touchscreen mania will have gone away by then and physical buttons will be back. I can't imagine myself touching a screen while driving, I don't even know how I would be able to do that.
Ferrari interiors have always been spartan and aimed at functionality.
This feels like a modern Ferrari F40 dashboard and I like it a lot.
This is an enormous departure from Ferrari interiors to the point where it no longer looks anything like a Ferrari beyond the emblems inside.
> but on something as emotional as a vehicle (Ferrari especially), this design falls flat.
Strongly disagree. To each their own...
There will undoubtedly be people that like or love it and there's nothing wrong with that. Design is rather subjective. Fortunately I'm not in the market for a $300,000+ EV made by Ferrari, so I don't have to lose sleep at night over buying this or not :)
I think the Aston Marting with the Apple Carplay Ultra[0] is a pretty good example of what an Apple Car would have looked like.
[0]: https://www.astonmartin.com/en-us/our-world/brand-stories/as...
What is oversimplified specifically (given this is an electric car)
IMO if they just had materials with any sort of visual interest to them, this would be pretty beautiful.
Instead it feels like sitting inside an iPad which is an aesthetic already cheaply deployed at massive scale to motels, pharmacies, and shitty coffee shops.
This question's answer would require something more lecture length that dives into fundamentals of design with an equal amount of time spent on automotive design. No one has the time or care for something like that, so I'll try to give a high level answer.
Generally speaking, cars are not about simple designs/shapes. They, especially to enthusiasts, are viewed as something closer to art where care is taken to craft shapes and forms for both function and feel. This is amplified dramatically for Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc..
Ive was clearly doing this design work for the Apple EV that never shipped. It followed Apple's historic design aesthetic (driven largely by him) of simplifying things as much as possible--using circles and squircles everywhere, removing as many unnecessary geometry as possible. That's fine for an Apple EV because that's their design aesthetic. That is, demonstrably, not Ferrari's design aesthetic. It's a jarring departure from decades of automotive design and, in my professional opinion, an exercise in hubris.
As we remember that design is largely subjective and that this is all my opinion, I will say that almost everything in the vehicle is overly simplified:
* Steering wheel: an attempt at modern retro, but they added two blobs (to keep the steering wheel simple) to house the dials and buttons instead of incorporating it in a sculpted, thoughtful way. Instead of putting the turn signals in those blobs (or elsewhere), they interrupted the simple steering wheel with a couple circles to act as the turn signals.
* Digital instrument cluster: it's an iPad that connects to the base of the steering wheel. Wasted space in the top corners. Convex glass is a really nice touch however. Gauges are strange to me (gas gauge for an EV, left dial is confusing at first glance, G-force gauge unnecessarily busy), but that can always be changed later so not worth waxing on about.
* The key: a small iPhone 4. It's not terrible, but it's rather uninspired and boring. Ferraris aren't supposed to be boring.
* Dashboard interface: another iPad, but with a Mac Pro handle on it. Might be very nice for moving it, but how often are you going to do that? Does it stick out far enough to act as a wrist-rest as mentioned in their video? The mechanical switches are a nice touch if the display/UI keeps up. The clock/compass/stopwatch in the top right is neat, but almost antithetical to the rest of the design--it's added complexity for the sake of complexity. I still like it though.
* Vents: these make sense to be simplified. I've never loved the number of flaps in most vehicles, but if you have kids you might have issues with toys/food getting lost inside if there's no mesh behind it.
* Seats are nice, but if you removed the Ferrari emblem would you know it's a Ferrari? Is there enough bolstering for spirited driving?
The shapes, iconography, etc. are all carried over from Apple devices. Cars, even in EV form, are not iPads and iPhones. Cars, particularly those like Ferraris, are supposed to be designed, sculpted, given character and flare in order to evoke emotion.
Rivian and Porsche, in my opinion, have designed beautiful EVs (inside and out). They have a design aesthetic that's unique to them and in the case of Porsche stays true to the brand. The Ferrari Luce looks like Ferrari hired Ive to take whatever work he did for Apple and copy paste it over to them. If this was announced as an Ive + Kia/Hyundai/Honda/Lexus/etc. collaboration would it look any more or less out of place? No, because it's been simplified to the point that it doesn't even look designed any more. It almost feels "default" in a way.
This is all just my opinion as someone that's been doing product engineering and industrial design for a long time and happens to love cars--take it with a grain of salt.
+1 to everything you say here, but unfortunately I doubt this will sway anyone who doesn't have similar feelings upon just looking at the thing with their own two eyes.
So bland. An iPad put in a holder. I was not exactly hoping for, because I didn't really, but I dreamt of a much more radical design direction.
I first thought that too, but if you take the time to scroll down a bit, you'll see that the instruments are actually three separate screens, and at least the center one has a mechanical needle. Also, the central control panel has lots of physical switches (Musk would hate it) and even a round instrument in the top right corner with mechanical hands, which can be either a clock, a stopwatch or (for whatever reason) a compass. So definitely not an iPad put in a holder.
No not literally, but that is what it looks like.
It would have been much better imho to for instance have lots of tiny screens embedded in the dashboard/console alongside their respective buttons. Each "app" gets their own toggle and physical dials. That would have been expensive and cool and could have been made not-tacky. (Like some cars are, expensive and cool but also without any class whatsoever, they look like a teenage gaming room.)
This is the kind of design I'd expect from Ive: it is designed to look nice. Ease-of-use is another story.
There's a lack of consistency on the wheel controls that make this look more like a UX showcase rather than a usable interface.
Case in point:
- A bunch of rotary knob that perform the same function: to select. But, they all look different and use different ways to represent the selection.
- Some have a lighted indicator, some have a notch, and some are completely ambiguous.
- The 2, 1, *, 0 switch has a hole in it to indicate the currently selected option.
- The plastic surrounding this is is mere millimeters of thickness and I would expect it to break off within a decade.
All rendering without real photo is off-putting.
Porsche is the only car company that has nailed interior EV design - IMO.
Their interiors look high-end, functional and not just a minimalist big computer screen.
https://www.caranddriver.com/photos/g46528574/2024-porsche-m...
Lexus CT200h is one of the best interiors ever designed. The design language was tactile: every single button or control had a different action or feel.
https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/2022/07/20/94...
There’s a roughly 7 inch above the vents that flips up whenever the car is off, but using the screen is optional. The screen is up near the road, and it’s very safe to use. There’s a small joystick to move the cursor.
Screen up:
https://preview.redd.it/after-about-a-year-of-ownership-post...
CT also has a stateless “springy gear selector” which works the same way as a manual gear selector, but after selecting the gear it springs back, so it’s stateless. It also has tactile blocking for gears you can’t enter yet. It felt extremely satisfying.
CT got a 10/10 from me, like a small aircraft cockpit. Enough knobs and computers to be exciting, but not OTT. Made a hybrid micro hatchback feel exciting.
CT200h is the nearly perfect hybrid, IMHO, interior included. Thumbs up emoji!
This looks gorgeous.
It still looks like a big computer screen, I'm afraid. Although, making it seamless with the dash is a step up, you're right. That tiny paddle gear shift looks horrendous, though.
I would really like to have analog features back, buttons and all that, in an EV.
What do you mean interior EV design? Why does it have to differ from an EV to a gas powered car? You might have some different gauges, a control or two that is different, but other than that, why does an EV have to look a certain way?
The new Cayenne interior is terrible. Macan is good.
Rivian is the only excellent one.
Rivians don't even have a physical vent control (to aim the vents). That alone disqualifies it from anything close to "excellent". And that's before mentioning all the missing physical buttons that should've been there.
Touch screen buttons, especially the ones on the far edge of the center screen, are harder to accurately hit for most people. More physical buttons = better = more premium.
Porsche and Rivian (with a nod to Rivian) imo.
looks like a weird mix of nothing, pointless clock, that screen on the right, that only creates discomfort. The big screen that is big only for the trend.
In tesla ( trend setter for this) big screen is functional, and it can show you multi media, when you charge you watch netflix.
this screen is not capable of multi media....
I'm sorry, this is awful - it's just a bunch of tablets.
We have a different idea of "high-end" and "functional" considering how much of the interior controls are just capacitive surfaces.
I think Ferraris have gotten especially ugly in the last few generations. I generally like Jony Ive designs. But this is a mismatch. A whole new kind of not-right-is-ugly for Ferrari.
Elements of it are precious and well designed. But it doesn't feel like a car interior.
Oh. I have the exact opposite feeling. I'm not into cars but I love this.
This is precisely why it's the right design for an Apple car and probably the wrong design for a Ferrari.
I knew someone who allegedly worked on the Special Project after a successful career at more familiar premium automotive brands. He was expressing exasperation with the process and said "I don't get why they're letting people who don't like cars design one. You wouldn't send your kids to a school full of teachers that hate children!"
I thought I was going to look at a car when I clicked that link. I scrolled the last 80% of the way out of morbid curiosity. This secondary quest was not disappointing: no car photos. So weird. Perhaps this is a complaint about the title.
But since it's all about the interface, I must say, the idea of a sports car with a touch screen is still rather terrifying.
It's a 4-door, 4-seater. Sporty?
Well, maybe if I win the lottery, I'll be able to afford a Ferrari minivan? I'm so confused.
That doesn't look good. I'm very surprised that a brand like them release such a cheap-ass version.
It's a Ferrari EV.. I can imagine the company wanting to treat the project like a proverbial stepchild, while keeping the soul for the fossil-fueled machines..
yeah, seems EV is a hard market to enter. Porsche seems that have had a hard time entering it too (see numbers, am no expert)
I thought it was a joke.
It looks like something from Fisher Price.
But I'm clearly not the target audience.
haha me neither
After the 993, Porsche was a different company. Not exactly cheap-ass, but maybe something less than their often aircraft-quality mechanicals and spartan but hand-made quality interior.
Discussion (51 points, 77 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46944978
Seems like the steering wheel comes in three colours: silver, rose gold, and space gray...
This is the closest we've ever got to the Apple Car.
That is the point that cracked me up the most.
I found this video review to be much more informative and compelling.
https://youtu.be/6Wv1btxCjVE?si=_1mvIHT3r_CQsuTZ
I find the thin steering wheels sumptuous.
Is there a market for a $400,000+ electric sports car? For me, the excitement of a Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc is the engine and the sound.
> the engine and the sound
At some point you have to accept a technology transition. Otherwise you sound like someone arguing against motor cars because the real thrill of transportation was the horse’s clippity-clop.
You don't need to accept anything when it comes to a $400,000 sports car. Ferrari drivers put like 1600 miles a year on their car, it's not even transportation, it's a weekend toy. They can just buy other toys, like helicopter rides, or whatever other thing will come along that will give them the thrill they want.
A lot more people drive around sports cars than ride around sports horses.
( 100+ years of having cars, and there are a large number of people who still spend lots of money to get a horse's clippity-clop )
Tesla Roadster took a bunch of preorders at $50-250k down almost a decade ago, More recently, Taycan did reasonable-ish volume at $100-200k/unit. There (at least once was) a market for such things. Its definitely not the same market as ICE super/hypercars, but there are some that might enjoy a silent, luxurious car with a sub-2 0-60 as a complement to other cars in the garage.
They've been going to turbos in all but their flagships so they generally don't sound all that exciting anyway. Lambo literally draped their styling over a VW/Porsche parts-bin crossover SUV and all the influencers flocked to it. The person who appreciates the high-rpm wail of old timey, power-dense engines is not the same person who drops half a million on a car anymore.
It will have simulated gear changes if that helps at all...
To be honest, it may help for the modern Ferrari driver. It doesn't help for those who appreciate the Ferraris from the '90s and before.
> Ferraris from the '90s and before
That was potentially 36 years ago. 36 years from 1990 would have been 1954.
What changed in technology from 1954->1990, vs change in technology from 1990-2026? Quite a lot.
Today's cars are a lot more similar in technology to those of the 1990s than they were to those of the 1950s.
The selling point of electric sports cars is more "the acceleration is amazing" and less "it makes a loud noise".
e.g.
> a 0–100 km/h (62 mph) acceleration time of 2.36 seconds, and a quarter mile (402 m) drag race time of 9.78 seconds. ... unofficially the fastest production car in the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangwang_U9
> Model S Plaid Takes 2.07 Seconds to Accelerate from 0-100 mph
https://www.energytrend.com/news/20210623-22467.html
Acceleration is about the only selling point of a sports EV.
They're so ungodly heavy because of the batteries that they handle like barges. They need giant tyres and so much ESC and software control because these things weigh almost 2000kg or more. You can try and work around it but there's only so much that can be done to make 2000kg take a corner.
Looking at where sports cars will be in 10 years with ICEs being regulated out of existence makes me very sad because it seems like we're about to see the death of the lightweight sports car.
I think if you look at e.g. Model 3 Performance it's not quite so hopeless. 80kwh packed into an EV roughly the same size, weight and performance as a contemporary BMW M3. Even with today's technology (0.2kwh/kg, 3-4 miles/kwh) a Miata-sized 250hp, 2500lb, 200 mile EPA EV is possible. Whether that would be a compelling driving experience and anybody would buy such a thing is another question.
The McMurtry Spéirling is under 1000kg. Battery technology will only improve and so I expect to see under-1500kg sport EVs generally available eventually.
Under 1000kg for a reasonable price probably means building your own electrified exocar.
The McMurtry is a race car so it's not surprising it's that light. However it still pays a price compared to its contemporaries (go look at the weights of various LMP1 or LMP2 cars, even old cars like the Mazda 787B was ~850kg iirc). The only number I've found so far is "under 1000kg" so I assume it's probably quite close to that 1000kg number.
The weight of the batteries isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I expect car makers will prioritize range. I think the engineering to make an EV truly light like an old Integra Type R (1100kg) will be obscenely expensive and sacrifice so much on practicality it just won't be a viable product as a road car.
The car would be so compromised to be that light nobody will make the car, at least at an affordable price. You'll end up with a limited range, limited power, uncomfortable car for a price way out of line with what you're getting.
I think you could make a ~150kw-180kw EV pretty light, but considering the ongoing power pissing contest in modern cars I'm not sure how well it would market test.
So I expect the market will stick to heavy cars with big power because it's easier to build and easier to sell.
as long as there is a Market, there will be a market for rich boy toys.
The handle and palm rest, in particular, stick out to me as a step up for anything with a touch screen. Giving you a place to anchor your hand while a finger does something is very nice. That the display can articulate is also nice, though it does add a potential weak point (how long until this gets loosey-goosey and moves around during hard g-forces?).
I'm not a fan of that bold on iPad, but if they made those displays oil filled like ressence type 3, even with them being digital, they would look pretty nice given the proportions and ux/ui.
Photo collection: https://bookmarker.cc/bora/ferrari-luce
Fortunately, there are many physical buttons. In the video, you can see that their functions vary depending on what is displayed on the screen. I think this is a brilliant solution that combines the best of the physical and virtual worlds.
It's stupid because you're driving and can't look at the screen.
Physical controls! This is the opposite of Flat UI. I hope others copy this car as opposed to Tesla.
The skeuomorphism is a curious choice. I think if I were going for a radical electric car UI I'd use bar graphs from left to right and things like that. Then again, maybe they don't want to alienate their customers.
1980s style?
https://www.core77.com/posts/109822/A-Look-at-Some-Wild-1980...
I don't know but why all electric cars look similarly bare inside? Why don't you make it more exciting and not so “tesla” moderate?
so OpenAI[0] designed a Ferrari?
[0] https://openai.com/sam-and-jony/
OpenAI bought io, not LoveFrom.
Funny how I want to say bad things about a car I'll never afford.
Anyway, whether it's a Ferrari or other, I'm always disappointed by touchscreen in cars.
And as I said it before, it always seems and afterthought and just put there because someone forgot about it.
I'm guess I'm getting old but when I'm driving I usually look at the road and couldn't car less about a nice touchscreen.
Once you get used to a nice huge GPS you won't want to go back.
Finally, the return of silver, rose gold, and space gray.
Um, where is the car? All the images are of (parts of) the interior, and the captioning is bizarre. Ooohh! It has a steering wheel! (And it's a input! Who knew?)
They only shared the interior, not exterior.
I'm excited to see the Apple car!
This looks like the controls for a very stylish Italian delivery van. Not an exotic sports car.
Is the exterior of the car not public yet? Why is the only detail about the control cluster?
Ferrari is announcing the car in three steps: first they announce the electric powertrain details, next they announced the interior details and lastly they'll announce what it'll actually look like.
FYI, the Wikipedia article has a little more data on this vehicle as an EV: 4 motors, 1,113 horsepower, an 880 V platform, 122 kWh of battery, range 330 miles (531.1 km).
Not clear yet on the exact charge speed or launch date. Or what the 0-100km/h time is, but expect a low number, of course. That number has to be eye-catching.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_Luce
Problem is that in an EV world the raw figures are really not going to be that impressive. Plenty of Chinese EVs have 1000+hp at far lower cost, and likely as good or better acceleration that whatever Ferrari can deliver, since EVs seem to be reaching a point where the limit on acceleration is the tires rather than the motor. So don't think Ferrari can deliver anything truly eye catching in those terms. Differentiation needs to come in other domains.
The tablet interface looks cheap and low-budget. When you spend that much on a car you don't want the interior to look like a Model S.
I've wondered why they don't integrate the tablet directly into the dash or windshield. It does seem clunky to have a big ipad screwed to your dash. And I think it would also save on weight.
The interior of my Mazda looks more high-end than this... Yikes, Ferrari.
Not only cheap, but boring in a car which wasn't supposed to be boring.
In many other cars that look would have been sleek.
This is not a car for tech bros with no culture, no traditions, and no past. This is a Ferrari.
> This is not a car for tech bros with no culture, no traditions, and no past.
Weird, because that's exactly what it looks like.
How much is this?
Love the physical knobs, switches and buttons. Looks retro but modern, but more importantly it’s a lot safer.
Very functional.
Sorta meh imo. Looks like a more skeletal version of a kia I was in recently
Jony must have got bored of hanging in North Beach with Sam Altman ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This looks awesome
Did they remove the turn signal stalk? Just like Tesla did?
Ferrari removed the stalk over 15 years ago.
https://youtu.be/ujl0NYeDJoI?t=810
> First Electric Ferrari
This is big. Ferrari, as a brand, is the top cult of internal combustion engine.
For them to release an EV is like Apple releasing an Windows computer or Android phone.
Soon, the last holdout of big oil will be the American government.
yikes this looks awful, unless this is the new mass market Ferrari that's going to start at $30,000
Meh. Glad he and Alan Dye are gone. They would have ruined the Apple car. Appel should instead replace their entire design team with the folks from teenage engineering.
I love it, first ferarri that i have said "I want one". I have been an ev driver for over a decade and have no regrets, it has improved my life. The mental health benefits of driving an almost silent vehicle are completely over looked, the addiction to a vibrating noisy gas engine we find quite frankly bizarre in 2026, it is old technology, outdated, and becoming lost in history and thank you to the lithium cell.
I think I would be looking for that very real, confident and perfectly even vibration a Ferrari has at idle; the valve train song, an extra octave in the exhaust.
Wow in 2026, I got downvoted on Hacker News for liking the viscerally-appealing aspects of a classic Ferrari. Is nothing sacred?