Ferrari has made many beautiful cars. They are fast, loud and dangerous. What has always been common is the legendary Ferrari shape - less designed than sculpted by Italian wind and testosterone. There's also the familiar growl of the engine and iconic Ferrari red.
But in a major departure from tradition and DNA, Ferrari has unveiled an EV: Ferrari Luce. It does not look like a Ferrari, but more like the love child of a staid Fiat and a German luxury car. It does not even sound like one. The only sound one could hear was the collective groan of a thousand aficionados. Yet, it may be remembered for something else: it looks like the moment the car stopped being merely a car.
Luce is Ferrari's first EV, with more than 1,000 hp, a claimed range of about 530 km, and a starting price of around 5,50,000. But those numbers are less interesting than the fact that Ferrari turned to Jony Ive and Marc Newson's LoveFrom to help shape its design language.
Ive, of course, is not a car man. He's synonymous with Apple and the design philosophy that turned tech into desire. Ferrari describes Luce as an 'entirely new Ferrari'. Markets and purists were less convinced, with the company's shares falling after a design many saw as too radical, too minimal, and too unlike the old growling Ferrari.
But maybe that's the point. Luce isn't just an electric Ferrari. It's a Ferrari designed in the age of the device.
For over a century, cars were machines of transportation, defined by engines, pistons, gearboxes, chassis, speed, steel and status. EVs are different. Remove ICE, gearbox and much of the mechanical complexity, and the centre of gravity shifts to batteries, software, screens, sensors, data, intelligence and over-the-air updates. In other words, the car is morphing into a device.
China understood this earlier than most.
Xiaomi launched its SU7 electric sedan in 2024 and received 50,000 orders in 27 mins. That's not how people traditionally bought cars. It's closer to the frenzy of an iPhone launch.
SU7 is designed to live inside Xiaomi's 'Human x Car x Home' ecosystem, connecting phones, appliances and vehicles into a single-digital environment. The car is no longer an isolated product in the garage, but the largest screen, battery, sensor array and software node in your connected life.
Huawei is pushing the idea even further. Its Maextro S800, developed with JAC and powered by Huawei tech, is being positioned as China's answer to Maybach and Rolls-Royce. It comes loaded with self-parking capabilities, digital-cockpit features, large screens, advanced driver assistance and entertainment systems designed as much for the software age as the driving age. Recent reports suggest it has been outselling traditional ultra-luxury rivals in China's $1 lakh-plus segment.
Earlier, car companies made cars and tech companies made devices. Now, device companies are making cars, and bringing that world view with them. User experience matters more than horsepower, interface more than the dashboard, and the vehicle becomes another platform.
Apple probably understood this, too. It spent nearly a decade trying to build a car before abandoning the effort. Had it succeeded, Apple car might have been the purest expression of this idea: a device that happened to move at 100 kmph. This device-ification of the car has 3 major implications.
Design language increasingly revolves around interface intuitiveness, cockpit intelligence, smartphone integration and AI assistants, rather than the curve of the bonnet or shape of the grille. Ferrari and Maextro both reflect this shift.
Smartphone became the most powerful data-gathering object ever created. But the car may become the next great data harvester. It will capture not just digital behaviour but physical life - where we go, how we drive, who we meet and what we do.
Value will shift from hardware to software. In PCs, hardware makers such as Dell and HP survived on wafer-thin margins, while Microsoft captured software economics. In smartphones, most handset manufacturers struggled while Apple, controlling both hardware and software, captured disproportionate profits. The device often becomes the shell. Real value lies in OS, data and applications.
The same could happen to cars. If the automobile becomes a device, traditional carmakers risk becoming Dells and HPs of mobility: excellent manufacturers of expensive hardware while software platforms, AI layers, maps, autonomy systems, entertainment ecosystems and data businesses capture the real value. This is why Volkswagen, Toyota and others have struggled so hard to build their own software stacks. They know that if Apple CarPlay or Android Auto owns the interface, the carmaker owns less of the customer.
Tesla understood this earlier than anyone. It's not merely an EV company. It's the closest thing the auto industry has to Apple: integrated hardware, software, battery systems, data, charging networks, updates and, increasingly, AI. Its valuation has long reflected this belief, with investors viewing it less as a car company and more as a data and AI platform.
For legacy automakers, the implications are clear. The car once carried us through the world, and its beauty lay in its shape, sound and driving experience. Now, it will watch, listen, compute, and perhaps even decide.
The automobile is being hollowed out as a machine and refilled with software. The question for carmakers is simple: will they build the next great device? Or become the beautiful metal casing around someone else's OS?
