Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna said orders are already rolling in for the $640,000 Luce, the brand’s first fully electric vehicle – despite an explosion of criticism attacking the design and exorbitant price tag.

“Look at the people writing to us, the people placing orders,” he said Thursday at an event in Modena, Italy, as he sought to staunch the backlash. “Some are existing clients and others are new.”

Car fanatics have accused the Maranello, Italy-based sports car maker of breaking from its legacy with its first-ever five-seater, designed by former Apple exec Jony Ive’s firm, which will use new-age tech to replicate the sound of its iconic engine growl. The ride was unveiled on Monday.

Critics have blasted the look of the Luce as a “monstrosity,” with one Reddit user comparing it to a “wooden IKEA toy” – and several others likening it to much-cheaper vehicles like the Nissan Leaf, an electric SUV that starts around $30,000.

“The Ferrari Luce has nothing to do with electric cars you have seen from other players,” Vigna said Thursday as he tried to squash the comparisons. “You have to see it and drive it to understand that it wasn’t copied – not the interiors, not the exterior, not the performance.”

“Innovation has to be paid for,” he added, defending the vehicle’s sky-high price tag. “If you don’t pay for innovation, you wrong the people working on it, the supply chain that makes it possible and the technology itself.”

Yet he also acknowledged that the company might have played a role in the fervent backlash by drawing too much attention to the new electric vehicle with a dramatic, three-step reveal process over several months.

“Maybe there was excessive exposure of the Luce,” Vigna said. “Maybe some people understood that Ferrari was going only electric.”

“We will continue to make all types of powertrains. The final answer comes from clients.”

The fury over Ferrari’s break from combustion-engine sports cars extended to the brand’s former chairman, who could barely contain his distaste for the new EV.

“I cannot say what I really think: I would harm Ferrari. We risk the destruction of a legend. So sorry,” former Ferrari chairman and president Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, who stepped down in 2014, told Italian news agency Askanews, as translated from Italian.

“Take the Prancing Horse off. At least the Chinese won’t copy this car,” he jabbed, referring to Ferrari’s logo.

Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini also slammed the new model in a scathing social media post this week.

“Electric, outrageously expensive (550 thousand euros!) and, from an aesthetic point of view, it speaks for itself,” he wrote, as translated from Italian.

“It looks like anything but a car from the Prancing Horse. And this is supposed to be ‘innovation?’ Who knows what Enzo Ferrari would say.”

Another social media user on Reddit predicted Ferrari could face backlash similar to Jaguar’s failed rebrand in 2024, when the British luxury auto giant debuted a commercial featuring men in skirts to announce its upcoming pivot to an all-electric fleet.

Ferrari’s first fully electric model comes as many luxury rivals, including Porsche and Lamborghini, are hitting the brakes on their EV ambitions. 

Meanwhile, American automakers Ford and Stellantis have reportedly swallowed multi-billion-dollar charges related to their reversal on EV production.

In 2024, Ferrari opened a $230 million factory at its Italian headquarters to allow production of EVs alongside hybrids and traditional vehicles, so the new Luce did not come as a total surprise.

But electric vehicles have largely fallen out of favor among American customers, who represent the world’s largest market for luxury cars – while the new Luce lands among Ferrari’s most expensive models ever.