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This Ferrari should have been a Volkswagen
Transportation Close Transportation Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Transportation Cars Close Cars Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Cars Electric Cars Close Electric Cars Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Electric Cars This Ferrari should have been a Volkswagen Jony Ive’s vision will be enjoyed by an elite few, but it could be extended to everyone Jony Ive’s vision will be enjoyed by an elite few, but it could be extended to everyone by TC Sottek Close TC Sottek Senior Editor Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by TC Sottek May 27, 2026, 1:55 PM UTC Link Share Gift TC Sottek Close TC Sottek Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by TC Sottek is a senior editor who has obsessed over headlines and internet speeds since 2011. He previously worked as an advocate for the National Park System. It may be the NBA playoffs but right now Ferrari is getting dunked on more than anyone. Whether they own a Ferrari or just have a poster of a Testarossa on their wall, fans in the Ferrari-verse are frothy about the Luce, the company’s first all-electric vehicle. According to one highly rated Verge commenter : “looks like a Polestar had a one-night stand with a Prius.” Whatever . The competition should steal this design. The Luce looks weird because Ferrari isn’t asking to have its edges sanded off. Its most iconic models, like 1987’s F40 , are defined by hard angles. That makes the contrast between Luce and legacy even sharper. But look beyond the Luce’s cover to find a compelling design story on the inside. There are lots of arguments for and against the everything-is-a-touchscreen modern car. Ferrari’s new design, built with Jony Ive and Marc Newson’s design agency, LoveFrom , is more proof that there can be a happy middle ground — perhaps a Goldilocks zone of car interiors that successfully blends sensory experiences. I can picture Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy looking at this thing and once again uttering: “it’s biodigital jazz, man.” I’m a huge fan of physical switches over touchscreens because when done right, they’re graceful, efficient, and fun as hell to use. Reducing every tactile input to the same kind of press on a giant touchscreen that dominates the interior of a vehicle feels both tacky and unwieldy. I recently got to see the gigantic 56-inch Mercedes EQS EV “Hyperscreen” and thought I was inside a clown version of the Las Vegas Sphere. There’s something alienating about the Hyperscreen and other offspring in Tesla’s design lineage, as if Grok went back in time to imagine “the perfect future car” and then made that slop real. A screen can be suitable, but a switch has soul. The Luce is awash in soulful physicality. Just look at this stuff: The Luce’s steering column. Ferrari Overhead launch control panel. Ferrari Sport mode? Yes, please. Ferrari More steering wheel switches. Ferrari Every single physical switch on this thing is begging to be touched. It’s a tactile wonderland, with a mix of rotating knobs, buttons, and toggle switches. There are even variations within each type. And they’re all wrapped in the embrace of an unfussy interior that lets these little details shine. Humble elegance abounds. The Luce’s rear passenger console has physical inputs and outputs that appear to blend seamlessly with a digital display. And just look at that center-dashboard display with the handlebar. Chef’s kiss . The rear center console in the Luce. Ferrari The Luce’s control panel. Ferrari Elsewhere, the project is dripping with craft. LoveFrom’s custom typeface for the vehicle, “LF Maranello,” is pleasing in its clarity and familiarity, feeling functional instead of fancy. (Not that fancy is always a bad thing; I’m looking at you, classic Porsche Carrera lettering.) And, yes, of course this isn’t all entirely new territory. There have been lots of great designs and doodads in various cars over the years, including my personal favorite: the toggle switches in my old Mini Cooper. I’d always want to flip them for that satisfying tactile feedback even if I didn’t have a reason to. I can’t even remember what they actually did , but I still remember how they felt. But there are also a lot of switches that suck. The all-purpose knob in my Mazda CX-5 never felt comfortable or intuitive and actually felt more distracting than if the car’s display had been touchable. Its clunky, unopinionated “click” felt so awkward — like it was stuck in a squeakysquicky space between the dueling identities of wheel and button. Nonstandard buttons, like the ones that open doors in Teslas, are so cursed that they inspired a sketch on Saturday Night Live : (To be fair, the Luce al
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