Ferrari has ousted its marketing chief after an intense backlash to the Italian marque’s first ever electric vehicle (EV).
Enrico Galliera, a 16-year veteran of the supercar maker, has been replaced by Massimiliano Di Silvestre, BMW’s former head of Italian operations, after the disastrous launch of the Luce.
The €550,000 (£478,000) Luce is Ferrari’s first venture into the EV market, and its success is seen as pivotal in helping the company adapt to net zero.
However, the car was compared to Nissan’s cheap, mass-market EV, the Leaf, which sells for about £32,000 in the UK. One online commenter described the Luce as looking like “a slipper”, another compared it to “a boiler”.
Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the company’s former chairman, said the Luce “risks destroying the myth” of Ferrari, and should be stripped of the company’s prancing horse logo. Carlo Calenda, a former Italian economic minister, called it “an aesthetic and technological insult to anyone who loves Ferrari”.
Shares in Ferrari plunged by 5pc on the Milan Stock Market after the car was unveiled.
Mr Galliera, who was also Ferrari’s chief commercial officer, claimed Ferrari intended for the car to be “polarising”. He told the Financial Times: “The aim was to bring into the market something that is completely new that is designed to [divide] opinion.”
The Luce was designed by Sir Jony Ive, the former Apple design chief, who worked with Steve Jobs on the designs for the iPhone, Apple Watch and MacBook.
In a statement announcing Mr Galliera’s decision, Ferrari made no comments about the Luce, or its EV strategy.
Benedetto Vigna, the company’s chief executive, said: “I would like to thank Enrico for the extraordinary contribution he has made to Ferrari throughout his long career. He has the gratitude of the entire Ferrari team and my personal best wishes for the future.”
Mr Vigna has defended the Luce following the backlash, saying the company had already received orders from new and existing clients. Reports have suggested that Ferrari customers were being encouraged to buy a Luce if they wanted access to limited-edition models, something the company has denied.
The Ferrari boss also rejected comparison to cheaper models, saying: “The Ferrari Luce has nothing to do with EVs you have seen from other players. You have to see it and drive it to understand that it wasn’t copied – not the interiors, not the exterior, not the performance.”