Ferrari rolled out its first fully electric car, the Luce, on Monday, presenting the model to Italy’s President and Pope Leo XIV. The leap into battery power came as other luxury automakers retreat from ambitious electrification plans amid waning demand in some markets around the world, and the debut was met with skepticism from markets and auto critics.
The Luce — “light” in Italian — marks a departure for the brand: it is the first four-door, five-seat Ferrari, a shift from the traditional two-seat, mid-engine exotics that built the company’s reputation. John Elkann, Ferrari’s president, drove the car to the Pope’s summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, just south of Rome, on Tuesday.
During the visit, Pope Leo XIV sat in the driver’s seat of the Luce. Test driver Raffaele De Simone knelt beside him, explaining the steering wheel’s controls in English while Elkann sat in the passenger seat.
“Is this the first four-door Ferrari?” the Pope asked. Elkann replied, “The first five-seater.”
The exchange underscored the novelty of an electric, four-door Ferrari at a time when the luxury segment is rethinking electrification. Several competitors have dialed back their EV ambitions as consumer enthusiasm softens. Ferrari’s move tests whether its wealthy clientele — accustomed to the roar of combustion engines — will embrace an electric supercar, and whether the brand’s cachet can weather the market skepticism that greeted the Luce’s debut.