The Apple Car lives through the Ferrari Luce

If you’ve ever wondered what could’ve been with the Apple Car, you’ll now be able to satisfy your curiosity a bit. Ferrari on Monday announced the Luce, the company’s first electric vehicle. And the main designer behind the car’s cabin and controls is LoveFrom, the company headed by Apple’s former Chief Design Officer Jony Ive.

Ferrari has posted several images of what the interior looks like, and you can’t help but think that this is a glimpse into how the Apple Car could have looked.

Ferrari

Ferrari

The look of the graphics and fonts is quintessential Ive, though some control panels seem more crowded than you expect. Ferrari’s announcement of a documentary about the Luce states that Ive was involved in “key interface components,” but it’s not clear to what extent he was involved.

Did he only design the software UI? Or did he have input into the hardware, such as the steering assembly, or the (very cool) key dock and the (also very cool) overhead control panel? One noticeable omission from the announcement is that there are no exterior shots of the car body whatsoever. Ferrari is saving that for the full launch in May. We also don’t know how much it will cost, but we’re expecting it to be well out of our price range.

Ferrari has a marketing video for the Luce, where you don’t actually see anything significant about the car, but you do hear a lot of marketing speak. At the 5:02 mark, you can see Jony Ive himself, looking at…something.

It was only recently that the public got acknowledgement (but not directly from Apple) that the Apple Car was a real project. It was expected to be a luxury vehicle (think BMW, not Ferrari) and possibly self-driving. But after years of working in secrecy, the project was killed two years ago. It looks like many of the ideas Ive had for the Apple Car have been brought to life, thanks to Ferrari.