Ferrari’s First Electric Car Runs Into Backlash in Italy and Beyond

Many automakers have found it difficult to sell the public on electric vehicles, and Ferrari is no exception.

Investors and car enthusiasts have panned the Luce, the Italian sports car maker’s first E.V. that was unveiled on Monday, leading to a backlash in Ferrari’s home country, a flood of unflattering memes and a dent in the company’s share price.

On Wednesday, Ferrari opened its order book for the four-door sports car selling at 550,000 euros, or $640,000. Its stock has fallen about 8 percent since the flashy launch event, and analysts are questioning whether the Luce’s rocky debut signals trouble ahead for the company’s electrification push.

Harald Hendrikse, an auto analyst at Citi, said it was unclear the effect the new car would have on Ferrari’s general “brand perception.” High-end automakers have found it especially difficult to get traction for E.V.s, he added in a research note on Tuesday, after Ferrari hosted an event in Rome for analysts to see the car up close. “Launching the Luce now, Ferrari highlighted such risks,” he wrote.

In a break from recent tradition, Ferrari sought outside design help for the Luce, turning to LoveFrom, the agency founded in 2019 by Jony Ive, Apple’s former design chief, and the industrial designer Marc Newson.

The Ive-inspired design has been polarizing. Some reviewers praised the engineering, interior design and accelerating power of the new model. But many Ferraristi, as the brand’s fans are known, prize the sleek angles and distinctive engine roar of models like the Ferrari F80, and are finding it difficult to embrace the Luce’s bubblelike exterior.

Online, the Luce — pronounced LOO-chay, or “light” in Italian — drew plenty of comparisons to the Nissan Leaf, an E.V. that costs about a half a million dollars less. “Why is it that some automakers think that electric vehicles have to look like electronic devices?” one commenter on Reddit asked. A popular meme showed a car that looks like the Luce wheels-up, with an iPhone charger plugged into its undercarriage.

Perhaps the harshest criticism came from Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari’s former chairman. “If I say what I think, I’d cause harm to Ferrari,” he told reporters on Tuesday, when asked to comment on the Luce.

Moments later, he reconsidered, saying bluntly: “We’re risking the destruction of a legend.” Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and the leader of Italy’s far-right League Party, posted similarly unflattering remarks on social media.

That said, Pope Leo XIV and President Sergio Mattarella of Italy, seemed impressed when they inspected the Luce as Ferrari took the car on a V.I.P. spin through Rome.

But there is a lot riding on the Luce. Benedetto Vigna, Ferrari’s chief executive, called the electric vehicle a rare “Leapfrog moment” in the company’s nearly 80-year history of making high-performance sports cars. “I am fortunate to be living one at this time,” he said in an interview on Monday.

Some analysts have pinned Ferrari’s electrification push on Mr. Vigna, a former tech executive who took over at Ferrari in 2021.

In October, the company disappointed the market with a lackluster growth forecast, which included a downgrade to its electric ambitions.

Shares in Ferrari have fallen by one-third since then, wiping nearly $30 billion off the company’s market valuation.

Ferrari now expects 20 percent of its 2030 model lineup to be all electric, compared with a 40 percent target it announced in 2022. It left unchanged its plan for hybrids to make up 40 percent of new cars.

The market for high-end E.V.s has largely stalled. Other luxury carmakers — including Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Lamborghini — have postponed, scaled back or abandoned their electric plans. Many investors wondered if Ferrari, whose profits had largely defied the woes of the automotive sector and President Trump’s trade war, had also misjudged the market for E.V.s.

Mr. Hendrikse, the Citi analyst, wrote that Ferrari’s gas-powered and hybrid models would drive profits at the company for the foreseeable future.