In a nutshell: Ferrari’s first electrical car offered for $40 million at a charity public sale in California, setting a report for a brand new car offered at public sale. The consequence presents an early signal that Ferrari’s model energy, and its urge for food for restricted, custom-made EVs, stay sturdy regardless of a contentious launch.
RM Sotheby’s offered the primary manufacturing instance of the Ferrari Luce, a custom-made model of the corporate’s new electrical mannequin. The client was not recognized. The proceeds will go to the Ferrari Basis’s teaching programs.
The sale value was greater than 35 occasions the Luce’s ordinary value, and it additionally topped Ferrari’s earlier report for a brand new car offered at public sale. In 2025, a bespoke Daytona SP3 introduced in $26 million for Ferrari’s training initiatives.
The Luce is Ferrari’s first transfer into the electrical car market. It was developed with enter from former Apple designer Sir Jony Ive and was one of many firm’s most intently watched launches in recent times.
The mannequin has drawn criticism since its Might debut. Some critics stated the five-seat, battery-powered car strikes too removed from the designs that made Ferrari well-known. Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini and former Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo had been amongst those that objected. Montezemolo stated Ferrari was “risking the destruction of a legend.”
Ferrari chief design officer Flavio Manzoni stated in Might that criticism comes with innovation and that he believed folks would finally recognize the Luce.
The launch obtained uncommon public consideration. Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Pope Leo had been invited to see the car. Ferrari’s shares, nevertheless, fell the day after the disclosing as criticism of the automobile unfold.
Ferrari has not disclosed a gross sales goal for the Luce, although the Monetary Occasions reported that the corporate has already reached its objective for the 12 months, helped by demand from China.
Sotheby’s stated the public sale gave one purchaser an “unbeatable alternative” to personal the primary manufacturing Luce. The public sale home referred to as the sale a “tangible expression of innovation, duty, and long-term imaginative and prescient for future generations.”
Ferraris repeatedly deliver excessive costs at public sale, particularly limited-production and customised fashions, although the $40 million sale falls in need of the all-time public sale report for any car. That belongs to a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé, which offered for $142 million in 2022.
