Ferrari has unveiled its first electric car, and the internet's reaction went from confusion to exhaustion. The vehicle is called Luce, designed mostly by Jony Ive (former chief designer at Apple) and his firm LoveFrom in collaboration with Marc Newson. It has 1,000 horsepower, accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in just over two seconds - and yet, it's the vehicle everyone is mocking the most alongside the Cybertruck.

The design is wedge-shaped, slightly Nissan-like, with five seats (which for Ferrari is a scandal in itself). The price starts at around 650,000 dollars. Bloomberg wrote that Luce is „a slightly forced solution." The company's shares fell after the announcement. The question everyone is asking is simple: who is this car for?

Current Ferrari owners? Unlikely - 80% of the 14,000 new buyers each year already have another Ferrari in the garage, and they buy because of the sharp classic lines. Luce doesn't have those lines. For regulators? Maybe. The EU from 2035 will impose strict limits on the sale of new vehicles with internal-combustion engines. Luce may be Ferrari's first step toward limited compliance.

In an interview with a public figure, Ive compares this design challenge to the transformation of Swiss watchmakers Patek Philippe from mechanical to quartz movements. They survived because they wisely mixed old with new models. Ive added: „If Patek Philippe had been legally required to move its entire line to quartz, the situation would be similar to the one Ferrari is enduring today."

Ferrari's chief marketing officer told the Financial Times that the Luce's target audience is „someone who already owns an electric car" - a statement that in practice means existing Ferrari clients aren't the main target. It isn't diplomatic phrasing; it's a public admission.

Where, then, is the real market? China. Chinese buyers have so far made up around 10% of Ferrari's total sales, and those numbers have fallen in recent years. China has the world's largest electric-vehicle market, Chinese manufacturers already dominate it - and Ferrari wants to make its money back with a design that, ironically, resembles what Chinese brands already build. The question is then not about the design, but about the dilemma: will a Chinese buyer with the choice of Nio, Xpeng and BYD pay extra for the prancing horse on the hood? That will be visible by the end of the year.