Ferrari's First Electric Prancing Horse.

Ferrari’s first electric car has arrived, and the Ferrari Luce is causing exactly the sort of argument you would expect when the most famous maker of roaring petrol-engined supercars decides to plug one into the mains. The new fully electric Ferrari Luce has more than 1,000 horsepower, four electric motors, a top speed of around 192 mph and a claimed range of 329 miles. It will cost about £440,000 in the UK. Which is quite a lot to spend to avoid buying petrol.But even that figure was comprehensively upstaged when the unique Ferrari Luce “Chassis 0” was sold at Monterey Car Week for an astonishing $40 million, around £30 million, setting a world record for a new car sold at auction. The proceeds are going to educational projects through the Ferrari Foundation, so at least somebody has managed to spend £30 million on a car and emerge looking reasonably public spirited.In this episode of Mark and Pete, we ask whether an electric Ferrari can really still be a Ferrari. For generations, the Prancing Horse has meant noise, petrol, cylinders, exhausts and that unmistakable Ferrari engine note. The Luce has none of those. Instead Ferrari has developed a system which uses the genuine vibrations and sounds of the electric drivetrain to give the car its own character. No recorded V12 noises being piped through the speakers, thankfully. There are limits.The numbers are certainly Ferrari-ish. The 1,036 bhp Ferrari Luce does 0–62 mph in around 2.5 seconds, has a 122 kWh battery and, unusually for Ferrari, has four doors and five seats. Former Apple design chief Jony Ive was involved in creating the interior, which rather pleasingly includes proper physical controls instead of turning the entire dashboard into an enormous touchscreen.But Ferrari itself is being cautious. It now expects fully electric cars to make up only around 20% of its range by 2030, rather than the 40% previously envisaged.So is the Ferrari Luce a glimpse of the supercar future, an engineering masterpiece, or a beautifully made solution to a problem Ferrari owners never actually had?And if you had £440,000 spare, would you buy the electric Prancing Horse, or demand twelve cylinders and some proper noise?