Apple wanted to reinvent cars the way it reimagined the phone. The company poached employees by the thousands from Tesla, traditional carmakers, battery manufacturers, and driverless-vehicle startups to work on the billion-dollar-a-year project, codenamed Titan.

Ultimately, in 2024, after a decade of trying, Apple gave up. 

Two years later, it looks like the Apple car has finally arrived, thanks to one of the company’s most storied designers — Jony Ive, the man who brought us the iPhone, Macbook, AirPods, and Apple Watch. 

But it’s a Ferrari (opens in new tab). And almost everyone hates it.

The Luce, Ferrari’s first electric supercar, was unveiled this week and instantly became a meme. Ferraristi mocked the blue Apple-esque “squircle” for looking nothing like a Ferrari. EV fans derided it for its limited range and exorbitant price, a $640,000 version of the $35,000 Nissan Leaf.

“It’s giving Waymo,” someone on Reddit (opens in new tab) remarked. 

“Waymo money than it should be,” another Redditor replied. 

“[A]ctual designers call it ‘soulless,’ compare it to a Honda, a kit-car, and ‘a Lotus Elise for the EV era,’” @lmkifiwin wrote on X (opens in new tab). “$640,000 for a 5,000-pound sedan with a synthesized soul. designed by the man who killed the headphone jack.”

Former Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo told local media he’d rather not opine, lest he harm the company any more. “I just hope someone removes the prancing horse from that car,” he said. “This is certainly a machine that the Chinese won’t copy—they won’t need to.”

Others translated their mockery into AI slop. Videos and images derided the car as a glorified Magic Mouse, a Transformer-Port-a-Potty. No kid would hang a poster of this car on their wall, a bunch of critics agreed. 

Not even the pope (opens in new tab) could change hearts and minds.

The Luce was panned by the market, too. Ferrari shares opened 7% lower in Milan the morning after the car’s debut. 

Partnering with Ive, by way of LoveFrom, the design firm he founded after leaving Apple in 2019, was meant to be a departure from the Italian supercar company’s traditional look.

Ferrari Chairman John Elkann said he tapped Ive’s design company because he considered the Apple Watch “probably the most successful example” digital reinvention of an analog product ever pulled off.

2 readers have shared their thoughts on this story

The Luce may not be for everybody. And it should be noted that reaction to the interior was much more favorable. But some observers with less emotional attachment to the red and roar of the traditional Ferrari have expressed more charitable takes. 

“I like the purity of its design and how it shows Elon Musk what might have been had he bothered to facelift his Teslas properly,” Jeremy White wrote for Wired magazine (opens in new tab). 

He quotes others who take a longer view. 

“It’s very different from the evolutionary path that Ferrari has been following,” Dale Harrow, head of the Intelligent Mobility Design Center at London’s Royal College of Art, told White in the same article. “But this is less emotional, more thoughtful, and appealing to a different audience and owner.”

Much of the hate stems from the Luce being so unlike a Ferrari. One can’t help but wonder what the reaction would have been if this same car was launched by Apple.