Thoughts on the Ferrari Luce
Ferrari unveiled its first-ever electric vehicle last week. The 4-door SUV, priced at an astronomical $650,000, was designed in collaboration with none other than Jony Ive.
Cleo Abram interviewed him, alongside Ferrari chief designer Flavio Manzoni, about the new car. I watched it the other day and enjoyed it immensely. It’s long, about 45 minutes, but there are a lot of cool shots into the car, and Abram asked some really thoughtful questions to both men. I’m admittedly not a hardcore car guy—for obvious reasons—but I’m certainly aware, and appreciative, of Ferrari’s design and engineering prowess. Given such respect, watching the video was, again, truly enthralling to see.
Price notwithstanding, I couldn’t help but feel a huge sense of detachment while watching Abram’s interview. As someone with extremely low vision, I’ve never driven a day in my life—and I made peace with that piece of exclusion years ago. It is what it is.
Especially nowadays, what with services like Lyft, Uber, and Waymo, the times I need a car—like when I travel down to the South Bay to Apple Park for WWDC next week—I can easily get one with just a few taps from my iPhone. A big focus of Abram’s discussion with Ive and Manzoni centered on Ferrari’s decision to embrace EVs despite historically being known for their famous combustible engine technology. Although I can get behind electric vehicles in principle, mainly for the environmental benefits, I watched her interview thinking to myself how much more alluring the Luce would be were it self-driving. There are economic and regulatory hurdles, to be sure, but the salient point is only that, were I ever to win the lotto, a fully autonomous Luce would be my “dream car.” Part of my love for Waymo lies in the fact that, not only is the underlying tech cool in a Jetsons way, the autonomous systems means it’s just me, myself, and I in the vehicle. By contrast, relying on traditional rideshare like Uber means I have to deal with discourteous drivers who like to talk too much during the trip. Autonomous vehicles have endured somewhat of a big PR problem in the last several years, but as a Blind person, my bullishness cannot be overstated. Waymo has been a revelation.
My hope is that, as the technology improves and the vehicles become further entrenched in the mainstream, someday in my lifetime—before I’m too old, mind you—I’ll be able to buy my own autonomous vehicle to take me wherever I want to go, whenever I want it. The most avid technologists like to view autonomous vehicles from companies like Waymo and Amazon-owned Zoox as the pinnacle of AI and automation, and they’re not wrong. As a person with disabilities, however, a self-driving vehicle I could (reasonably) buy to own represents accessibility at its absolute zenith. Better even would be my own autonomous vehicle that featured support for Apple’s CarPlay.
What I’m saying is, what may be novel and convenient to you is an arbiter of agency and empowerment to me—and I’m assuredly not the only one who feels this way.
