Ferrari makes the most stylish electric car on the planet, but of those who can afford it, very few will ever get the chance to buy one.

While most details about Ferrari’s Elettrica EV, including its appearance and price, remain a mystery ahead of a planned launch in spring 2026, the company said it will go from 0 to 62 mph in 2.5 seconds; Obtaining a 122 kWh battery to ensure recharging in less than eight minutes; It boasts a range of up to 323 miles on a single charge. In other words, the company promises the kind of excellence that fans of Ferrari, beloved since 1947 when it began building cars renowned for their beauty, exquisite engineering and astonishing speed, have come to expect, both on the streets and on the racetrack.

Ferrari hasn’t said how many Elettrica EVs it will produce, but one thing is clear: it’s unlikely to produce many. Ferrari’s reputation for innovative design and technological prowess works together with a strategy of maintaining extremely limited supply to raise the company’s level of mystique. Based in the northern Italian city of Maranello, Ferrari sells about 14,000 cars a year (compared with 6.2 million at GM or 6.4 million at Stellantis).

This extreme scarcity creates fear among wealthy car enthusiasts, allowing Ferrari to charge prices of up to $250,000 for one of its entry-level cars, and $3 million for a supercar like the F80. Customers have to endure long waiting lists, such as those who want a Birkin bag from Hermès.

Vigna makes no apologies for keeping production very limited to focus on innovation, customer service and personalization. “If the customer is happy, the investor is happy,” the CEO said. “The opposite is not always true.” In fact, Ferrari is expected to take in nearly $8 billion this year, a fraction of the revenues of Ford or GM, but its market capitalization of $70 billion is larger than that of either of those competitors.

Competitive sector

Lamborghini, Bentley and Porsche are already in the electric car market, and Ferrari feels the need to have a horse in the race to defend its position as a leader in the luxury car market no matter how it develops, CEO Benedetto Vigna said. luck.

“We are pioneers,” said Vigna, a former Silicon Valley executive who took the helm of Ferrari four years ago. “A leader has a responsibility to push the boundaries of what is possible. If we don’t do that, we don’t deserve to be called a leader.”

Vigna says the plunge into electric cars doesn’t mean internal combustion engine cars will be any less of a focus for the company. The 56-year-old said that electric vehicles are “an addition to it” and not “a replacement for it.”

Meanwhile, the EV market has slowed: many automakers have partially backed away from their plans, as demand for EVs has declined recently. Ferrari isn’t immune either: At its Investor Day (which it called Capital Markets Day) on October 9, Ferrari said it expects 20% of its car production in 2030 to be all-electric models, down from a previous forecast of 40%. This, combined with lower-than-expected profit margin expectations, sent Ferrari shares down 15%. Last year, Lamborghini postponed production of its first electric car for one year until 2029 due to market conditions, while Porsche announced a similar delay last month.

Bernstein analyst Steven Reitman said Ferrari’s results were disappointing. “The market was expecting a confident story of further margin development, and instead received thin gruel with respect to 2030 guidance,” he wrote in a research note cited by Bloomberg.

More innovation please

Vigna studied physics at the University of Pisa, then spent 30 years working his way up from engineer to CEO at a French chip manufacturer. ST Microelectronics. This helped him get a job at Ferrari, as much of the innovation in the automotive industry at the highest level has to do with computational power.

As someone who has always been fascinated by luxury and beauty, Vigna bristles when someone suggests that Ferrari is just a car manufacturer. For him, it’s a luxury brand that makes cars. “I was never using technology for the sake of technology, but always for how technology affects the emotions generated in humans,” he said.

Coming from the tech world was a culture shock, he said luck. When he arrived at Ferrari in 2021, Vigna found the company’s metabolism slow, which is ironic given its reputation for extremely fast cars. This has been hampered by a culture of isolation and executives too far removed from the top ranks, he says.

Early in his tenure, Vigna conducted a listening tour, meeting with 300 of the company’s 5,500 employees in roles up and down the organizational chart, to understand Ferrari’s challenges and strengths. The CEO also found it important to arouse emotions in Ferrari’s workforce to fully harness their ideas and not let them die on the vine.

Vigna claims the result of his changes is an innovation rate five times what it was before he became CEO. He points to 201 patents last year, compared to 26 in 2019.

When he first arrived, Vigna was surprised to learn that many Ferrari employees had never been inside one of the company’s cars. (Vigna, a fan of the brand since his childhood in Italy when he carried a Ferrari backpack bearing the famous dancing horse logo, drove a Ferrari for the first time just a few years ago, when a friend in Silicon Valley lent him his car.)

So he invited employees to a track at headquarters for a ride with a test driver. Now, it’s going one step further and allowing all Ferrari employees to drive the cars, meaning about 50 people per weekend. The slots, placed on Ferrari’s intranet, fill in seconds, so snatching up one is a coup, says Vigna.

“It’s very emotional for them,” the CEO says.