It’s an exciting week for Ferrari, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at its stock.
On Monday, the Italian luxury carmaker unveiled the Luce, its first foray into electric cars and a moment five years in the making.
The Luce has four electric engines and a 122 kWh battery, and takes about 2.5 seconds to reach 60 mph. It’s the company’s first five-seater car.
The Ferrari EV was designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson at the creative collective LoveFrom.
Ive was previously the chief design officer at Apple, working at the company for 27 years.
Fast Company’s global design editor, Mark Wilson, got a peek at the interiors in February (minus the rest of the car) and called it the closest version of an “Apple car” the world will ever see.
But the Luce’s appearance is leaving many people put off, with the external design, especially, appearing less like a Ferrari and more like any generic EV—albeit one that costs 550,000 euros ($640,000).
The EV is being widely panned by social media users.
“The one thing I somewhat understand is that it’s clearly bound by EV packaging rather than trying to fit the traditional shapes of ICE [Internal Combustion Engine] cars,” one Reddit thread with hundreds of comments points out. “That’s just not the right approach for Ferrari.”
Another user put it more bluntly: “What a sad day to have eyes.”
Meanwhile, Anthony Dick, an auto analyst at Oddo BHF, told CNBC that the Luce is “the furthest deviation from the brand’s ethos we’ve ever seen.”
U.S.-listed shares of Ferrari NV (NYSE: RACE) fell more than 6% in premarket trading on Tuesday morning after the car made its debut. The stock is down more than 6% year to date and roughly 27% over the last 12 months.
