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Here's Jony Ive's Ferrari Luce EV Interior and Interface Design

jlgolson said:
If you guys have questions about the piece or the interior, fire 'em over and I'll do my best to answer!

My years of covering Apple came in handy on this one...

— the author (and MacRumors alum ;-)
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Really great work on this one. However, I fear that automakers will not copy this. Why? Because running everything through a touchscreen is actually cheaper for them than manufacturing all kinds of parts and running extra wiring and the labor involved. It’s something that I see that is universally hated, and yet more and more auto companies are adopting it.
 
A look at tech blogs and news broadcasts might cause one to think today is World Ferrari EV Day. It isn't. I know I'm not the only one who noticed this.

The coordinated corporate launch day crap is beyond stale. Does anyone really think it's organic? Does anyone really think there's this much genuine interest in Ferrari's entry into the EV world? EV sales, in general, aren't booming. Most car buyers aren't buying Ferraris, and most people buying high performance sports cars will probably stay away from EVs longer than those buying commuter vehicles.

This has always been a thing but it wasn't so in-your-face: the BS paid-for articles were strategically layered in with the nighty "news" or a blurb in a magazine like "Popular Mechanics".


Also: Ferraris got ugly af the minute they broke up with Pininfarina. Now they've brought in Jony Ive to ruin the interior 🤮
 
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jlgolson said:
If you guys have questions about the piece or the interior, fire 'em over and I'll do my best to answer!

My years of covering Apple came in handy on this one...

— the author (and MacRumors alum ;-)
Click to expand...
I'm a fan of Jony's work and a car guy, I just think that the instrument cluster, center screen (with the bar) and center console look so chunky compared to the sculpted dashboards of current Ferrari. It's also the aluminium bezels surrounding the screens that makes it visually seem utilitarian rather than elegant. Very noticeable and square. How's that in real life? Is it perhaps smaller than it seems on video? Curious if they'll try other shapes in different models.
 
wikiverse said:
Those knobs and switches on the steering wheel are awful. They're not built into the steering wheel and look like cheap after-market accessories. They're also not the functions that you need on a steering wheel, nor are they the types of easy-controls that you want on a steering wheel. On the steering column, yes, but not on the wheel - especially those types of controls on a Ferrari.

Maybe the people who design consumer electronics shouldn't be designing cars. He's right that touchscreens in cars are wrong, but this design is also not right.
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It looks like they built this as a cost-cutting single "unit" that can just be bolted on to any chassis instead of the instrument panel actually being, you know, part of the dashboard. That's what you get in your $400k car lol. The bean counters are incorrigible. And I'm sure they'll sell it by telling buyers "well, in an F1 car, the wheel and instrument panel are all one unit." Maybe they can charge more.
 
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delsoul said:
Mark Newson could have done it better!
Click to expand...

He did. He and Ive did it together.

Agent007 said:
A look at tech blogs and news broadcasts might cause one to think today is World Ferrari EV Day. It isn't. I know I'm not the only one who noticed this.

The coordinated corporate launch day crap is beyond stale. Does anyone really think it's organic? Does anyone really think there's this much genuine interest in Ferrari's entry into the EV world? EV sales, in general, aren't booming. Most car buyers aren't buying Ferraris, and most people buying high performance sports cars will probably stay away from EVs longer than those buying commuter vehicles.

This has always been a thing but it wasn't so in-your-face: the BS paid-for articles were strategically layered in with the nighty "news" or a blurb in a magazine like "Popular Mechanics".


Also: Ferraris got ugly af the minute they broke up with Pininfarina. Now they've brought in Jony Ive to ruin the interior 🤮
Click to expand...

Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the concept of an embargo and a press release. The press release comes out... everyone writes about it. Some folks got to see it early, their articles come out at the same time as a press release.

You know how all the movie theaters get a movie on the same day? It's like that!

Agent007 said:
It looks like they built this as a cost-cutting single "unit" that can just be bolted on to any chassis instead of the instrument panel actually being, you know, part of the dashboard. That's what you get in your $400k car lol. The bean counters are incorrigible. And I'm sure they'll sell it by telling buyers "well, in an F1 car, the wheel and instrument panel are all one unit." Maybe they can charge more.
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No idea what you're talking about. There are a whole bunch of individually milled pieces in those. It's literally the opposite of cost cutting. Maybe you have absolutely zero idea what you're talking about.

Screenshot 2026-02-09 at 3.47.19 PM.png
 
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sunapple said:
I'm a fan of Jony's work and a car guy, I just think that the instrument cluster, center screen (with the bar) and center console look so chunky compared to the sculpted dashboards of current Ferrari. It's also the aluminium bezels surrounding the screens that makes it visually seem utilitarian rather than elegant. Very noticeable and square. How's that in real life? Is it perhaps smaller than it seems on video? Curious if they'll try other shapes in different models.
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Current Ferrari dashboards are not elegant or sculpted. Not sure which cars you're talking about.

It looks way better in person than it does in those CGI renders, that's for sure.
 
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gnipgnop said:
That's going to be an issue when you first start driving the car but that's also true of learning new button layouts or physical control layouts. It doesn't take that long to figure it out.
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My current two primary vehicles have no physical buttons for defog/defrost. Voice control (different terms!) or on-screen "virtual button" only. The locations are not fixed on one (as a user, you can change it,) and software updates have moved it, and one even hid it by default - requiring the user to manually add it back to its old location.

Plus, software buttons are impossible to activate purely by touch. "Crap, conditions changed suddenly and now my window is fogged, I need to tap the defog now, while using all my visual concentration to keep track of the vehicle that is in front of me through the fogging." (Yes, a situation I've found myself in multiple times - on the interstate. Having that steering wheel button was *VERY* handy then.) You can't just feel for them, and even if they're at the bottom edge of the screen and you can feel for the edge, on neither vehicle is the control at a corner - so you have to guess how far in from the side to go in, risking activating another control in the process. (Including one that brings up a "full HVAC" screen that moves the defog control while it's open.)

There are certain controls that are safety-related that should absolutely be tactile buttons whose location can be memorized, found without looking, and activated without risk of activating another control. Even Tesla's capacitive steering wheel controls fail this, because you can't find them by touch, and you can activate one merely by brushing your finger across it without pressing down - although at least those are in line-of-sight. (No, I don't have one of those vehicles.)
 
1. the car components look amazing and high quality.
2. the way the journalist gawks over every detail in intolerable.
 
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It's interesting, but they lost me on having to push a button (twice) to turn on the turn signal ... really?

That's a control that NATURALLY should be a lever that you flip in the direction you want to turn!

Luckily, I won't be buying a Ferrari anytime soon ...
 
jhwalker said:
It's interesting, but they lost me on having to push a button (twice) to turn on the turn signal ... really?

That's a control that NATURALLY should be a lever that you flip in the direction you want to turn!

Luckily, I won't be buying a Ferrari anytime soon ...
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Hopefully that's a detail to be worked out, or the guy was misinformed. It should be a single press for on or off, and press and hold and it stays on as long as you're holding.
 
This is intensely cool.

It looks like a concept car design for a near future sci fi movie. Except this will be a real car.

Just think what the Apple car would’ve been, sigh.

Insanely great - and likely insanely expensive!

Jony Ive and team and the best industrial designers out there no question.
 
Apple's most iconic designs came from Jony Ive. It’s unfair to solely blame him for the bad products shortly before his departure. I can relate to the feeling of boredom at a job. His creativity was probably impacted.
 
This is so cool. Can Jony Ive come back and re-design all of Apple's OSs please! I love Liquid Glass but the current iteration is horrendous.
 
Zwhaler said:
Have you seen what Ferrari put in their cars for the past 5 years? This is a huge improvement.
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Because the most important function you need on a steering wheel when driving your Ferrari is wiper speed control.

It's even got the little magnifying glass the guy pointed out in the video - so you can know exactly what setting you're on - despite Jony Ive explicitly stating that the failure of touchscreens in cars is the need to look at them.

Ferrari might be putting rubbish in their cars, but let's not pretend that more rubbish is a good thing.
 
jlgolson said:
If you guys have questions about the piece or the interior, fire 'em over and I'll do my best to answer!

My years of covering Apple came in handy on this one...

— the author (and MacRumors alum ;-)
Click to expand...
I loved the video. Your presentation and enthusiasm were great!

I think there is a lot that makes sense in this design. In aircraft, they put loops around switches to stabilize your hand when you operate them in a vibrating craft. He put a ledge below the switches which accomplishes the same thing.

At first, I didn’t get why he put the drive mode switch on the steering column, except… it’s a Ferrari, and when you want to go fast you want to go fast NOW.

Overall, there are a lot of ideas which I hope other car makers follow. You learn the button layout in a well-designed car so you can operate the buttons while keeping your eyes on the road. That is the number one thing a touchscreen cannot possibly accomplish.
 
Mrkevinfinnerty said:
The comments will be full of nonsense but Apple industrial design has never been the same since Ives departure.

Everything they make now is square and utilitarian. Apple definitely wouldn't be the company they are now without Ive.
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Ives had an amazing stretch from the eMate onwards. However, after Steve jobs died he didn’t really do anything interesting anymore except maybe the trash can Mac Pro that unfortunately flopped. His best work was with someone above him. Without that he just stripped things to the core and went for thinner thinner thinner to the detriment of actually making it visually interesting or fully usable. And his taste in software design was atrocious.
 
They could have just got Dieter Rams to design the interior, that’s pretty much all Ives has ever done is mild makeovers of Rams design language.
 
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