‘That makes no sense to me at all’: Jony Ive rejects Tesla-style ‘giant iPads’ and reveals button-heavy Ferrari Luce cockpit
- We have our first look at the electric Ferrari Luce
- The cockpit was designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson
- Ive says he’s not a fan of touchscreens inside cars
Jony Ive never managed to make a car when he was head of design at Apple, but he is now teaming up with Ferrari to design the cockpit of the upcoming Luce electric car – as well as looking at the interior appearance of Tesla vehicles.
Teslas are well known for their large touchscreen dashboards and lack of physical dials and buttons. This was not the route I wanted to take with his own creation, made with design partner Marc Newson, according to roundtable quotes given to The Drive and Autocar.
“I think a big touchscreen doesn’t work functionally,” Ive says. “It’s indisputable. We have to look [at it]what you shouldn’t be. You designed [something that’s] layers and layers deep.
I’m definitely not a fan of Tesla interiors. “This idea that because the energy source is electrical, the interface should be digital is absurd. It makes no sense to me,” he added.
This might be surprising, given that Ive is largely responsible for the aesthetics of the iPad and iPhone. But the touchscreen on those products “served a purpose,” Ive says, while emphasizing that the interior of a car is “such a challenging and different environment.”
Inside the Luce
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So let’s move on to the Ferrari Luce, and for now we only have a teaser of the electric vehicle’s cabin. A full reveal is expected in May, but now we have an official look at the steering wheel, gauge cluster, dashboard and center console.
There’s a central touchscreen that can be moved depending on the driver, but there are also plenty of dials, buttons and levers to play with. This physicality and tactility appears to have been an important consideration for Ive and Newson.
“One of the things that was important to us was that we wanted to explore a physical, engaging interface, which was about taking the most powerful parts of analog displays and combining them with digital displays,” Ive said at the unveiling.
Ferrari’s first fully electric car has been a long wait and was initially expected to appear in 2025. The name Luce was chosen because it means light source in Italian, and it is also a colloquial term for electricity.
Anodized aluminum and reinforced Corning glass are used extensively here, which is another reminder of the iPhone and iPad. We’ll keep you updated on this highly anticipated electric vehicle as we get closer to Ferrari’s full reveal.
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