I like the Polestar more than I thought I would. It’s distinct.
I was also thinking of Raymond Loewy’s MAYA (most advanced yet acceptable) philosophy. The Polestar looks advanced and acceptable to me. The Luce looks acceptable, but not very advanced somehow.
It looks like almost every other Pole star. It does have a good Stinger-type stance. Their part line breakup is very… disciplined.
The Luce doesn’t look like a Ferrari.
Had this discussion with a friend last night and his take was interesting:
The biggest mistake Ives made was he tried to solve problems. Ferrari has never been about solving problems. Ferraris are difficult to live with. They are quirky, hard to maintain, and a problem by definition, but do Ferrari owners care? Nope. Ferrari is a race team that sells cars to fund their core business. They sell passion and sentiment, they don’t sell solutions.
Ives disregarded Ferrari’s brand value and tried to override it with his own. That’s what fans are upset about… and for the fact that Ferrari allowed it to happen.
For me, I am upset about the poor(IMO) design execution despite the intention.
That’s good. Like how Silly Valley attempts to solve all the ID problems by making everything a rounded rectangle stuffed with software.
I saw a lovely argento F430 at a local tuner yesterday. Your eye travels around the form, follows the ground line, lingers as the glass tapers rearward to where the power resides. There’s so much going on, and its all so well crafted and considered.
An EV with crazy top speeds needs minimal frontal area and the lowest possible drag coefficient, especially as there’s a cubic relationship between power and speed: To double the speed you need to hemorrhage eight times the power.
Aerodynamics isn’t as important for a Hummer or an Amazon van because they’re rumbling around relatively slowly and have lots of opportunity for energy harvesting on hills and/or brakes.
An ICE Ferrari is compromised by cooling requirements, and extra aero furniture targeting downforce.
Asked my wife (interior designer) what she though about the car. She said it was was boring and like BYD tried to copy a Tesla. Regardless of what they say about it’s demand their stock price says otherwise.
I think Ferrari would be better off doing something like the Evoluto and factory resto-modding their own cars. I love what they have done here:
I listened to a podcast about cars and one of the hosts had been to the unveiling. He said it looks the same in person as it does in the photos grimaces.
He said they designed in a little downforce to permit the high speed. It’s about the same as a Roma, if I understand correctly.
Something I thought was interesting is that they designed the battery to be replaceable as they want to be able to repair the Luce in the distant future. The host mentioned how BMW has made the floor of their cars the top of the battery pack, meaning its a bear to take our. The Luce has a sealed box that is separate from the floor pans.
I think they might do retro mods, but probably at 2x or 3x the cost of an independent restomod garage. I remember going to a historic race where Ferrari was maintaining one of the 70s race cars that was in attendance and they have done one offs in the past. Why not resto-mod someone’s Testarossa if they have the cash?
Beyond urban people movers, I never really bought into EV’s as an all-inclusive solution. Ford’s foray didn’t work, Honda lost money for the first time ever, and surely Ferrari made a colossal mistake here.
There is hardly an EV out there that I find appealing, (Polestar gets a passing grade), and some designs are just annoying, no personality, and others even irritating - lumps of heavy, tire shredding toxic waste.
Spend on efficiency in internal combustion, alternative fuels, and quit with the mega hp - why build cars that only a handful of specialists are qualified to drive. A car can be fun without being the fastest thing on the road. For me it has to have an engine.
The excuses about “the Luce is like that because it’s an EV or aerodynamics” are pretty much bs:
It’s surprising to me that Chinese brands have supercar EVs before brands like Ferrari can even get out of the garage.
While a lot of these designs are far from perfect, think about where makers like BYD were 5 years ago and if you extrapolate that 5 years further a lot of legacy brands seem like they are just logos.
