The high-end EV market is facing some struggles, but despite this, Ferrari is plowing ahead with its first-ever electric car, the aptly named Luce. While the brand is perhaps the last you’d ever expect to enter the EV world, it’s confident the model will offer all the driving thrills expected of a Prancing Horse.
During a recent interview, Ferrari chief executive Benedetto Vigna insisted that the Luce will deliver each of the five key drivers of driving thrills, ensuring it is befitting of the brand’s badge and can succeed where some EVs have failed: to tug at the emotional heartstrings.
Speaking with Autocar India, Vigna said one element “is longitudinal acceleration,” agreeing with the interviewer that perhaps this acceleration in EVs is too linear, and also “too much, because sometimes it’s disturbing our brain.” He went on to reveal that Ferrari has worked with NASA to “understand what is the level of acceleration that is disturbing people,” and that too much acceleration is not a good thing.
Another important contributor to driving thrills is “transversal acceleration, followed by the braking experience, the gearshift, and the sound. As recent images of the Luce’s interior revealed, it will include paddle shifters, and unlike some EVs, these won’t be used to adjust the level of brake regeneration but instead to adjust the level of torque engagement.
Vigna stopped short of confirming that the system will mimic traditional shifts, as in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, but it certainly sounds like that is what Ferrari is aiming for. Then there’s the all-important sound.
Hellbound and Down 