Everyone calls the Ferrari Luce an ugly Nissan Leaf knockoff, one collector emailed Ferrari back to call it an “abomination” he’d be caught dead driving, and yet all 88 units for China just sold out before the Beijing launch, even though BYD’s supercar costs half as much and is faster

The Ferrari Luce has been the internet’s favorite punching bag since it broke cover in late May. Critics compared Ferrari’s first electric car to a Nissan Leaf, and the company’s stock slid about 6% in a single session.

Even former chairman Luca di Montezemolo piled on, joking it might be the one car Chinese brands won’t bother copying. Then Ferrari went ahead and put it on sale in China anyway.

The Luce landed in Shanghai on June 26, and for a couple of days the reception over there looked nothing like the pile-on in Europe and the US. Then the headline number started to wobble.

Ferrari launched the Luce in China at a discount

Ferrari priced the Luce in China at 3,988,000 yuan, or about $586,600. That works out to roughly a 7% discount on the European price of €550,000 (about $626,000).

Which is genuinely strange, because Ferrari usually charges more in China, not less. There’s a tax logic behind it.

Combustion Ferraris get hammered by China’s displacement-based and luxury taxes, and getting a license plate for a gas car in a big city is a slog. The Luce is electric, so it skips the consumption tax and gets a plate almost immediately.

Ferrari is also careful to say the Luce isn’t a supercar. It’s a four-door, five-seat grand tourer designed with Jony Ive’s LoveFrom studio, and the most spacious car the company has ever built.

The instant sellout is already looking shaky

China got just 88 Luce allocations, and the first reports said every single one sold out almost immediately. Great story. It might not be the whole one.

On June 29, Beijing Business Today reported that a Ferrari dealer in Beijing was still taking Luce orders, with sales staff pushing back on the idea that the allocation was gone.

So Ferrari either has more cars earmarked for China than the original 88, or the “sold out in hours” line oversold how final that number really was. A separate Beijing launch event runs July 3 to 5, so the real picture should firm up shortly.

Either way, the commercial side is having a moment. Ferrari reshuffled its marketing and sales leadership right before the China launch, replacing Enrico Galliera with former BMW Italy boss Massimiliano Di Silvestre.

A Chinese supercar outguns it for less than half the money

The awkward part for Ferrari is that China builds its own electric halo car, and on paper it makes the Luce look expensive.

The BYD Yangwang U9 starts at around $264,800 in China, less than half the Luce’s sticker.

It also makes about 1,287 horsepower from four motors, against roughly 1,036 for the Luce. It hits 100 km/h (62 mph) in 2.36 seconds versus the Luce’s 2.5, and it charges at up to 500 kW where the Luce tops out at 350 kW.

The Luce does carry a bigger 122 kWh battery and a longer claimed range, and Ferrari would point out the U9 is a two-seat track weapon while the Luce is a five-seat GT. Different cars, different jobs.

But if you’re shopping pure numbers, it isn’t close. The U9’s track-only Xtreme version is also the fastest production car in the world right now, having run to nearly 308 mph.

None of that is really the point for the people writing the checks. A $586,600 Ferrari in China is a rolling membership card for the country’s wealthiest 1%, and you don’t buy one of those off a spec sheet.

One collector torched the sales pitch and posted the receipts

The Luce’s other bad week didn’t come from a spreadsheet. It came from inside Ferrari’s own client list.

A Ferrari sales consultant emailed hypercar collector Jeffrey Cheng, who goes by @speedy_jeff, pitching the Luce as “a new chapter for Ferrari” while promising the driving experience hadn’t changed. The email also dangled the thing Ferrari buyers actually care about: allocation.

Cheng was not moved. He posted the whole exchange on Instagram and replied that he “wouldn’t be caught dead in this thing,” calling the Luce an “abomination.”

He reckoned the design would look more at home on a Hyundai or Kia than a Ferrari, and argued the only people who’ll buy it are clients angling to stay in Ferrari’s good graces for the next allocation. The same money, he said, could buy top-tier EVs from Tesla, Rivian, or Lucid with change left over for a private-jet trip.

For good measure, he told the consultant to forward the whole thing straight to Maranello.

That part stings, because Ferrari has spent weeks denying exactly this kind of story. The company has rejected claims that buying a Luce gets clients access to special models or moves them up the waiting list.

The leaked email openly references allocation, which puts that question right back on the table. No one has shown Ferrari broke any rule, but it’s not a great look to have the pitch leaked by someone you personally invited to buy.

So is the Luce a flop or not?

The scoreboard so far: a stock dip, a reshuffled sales department, a sellout that may not be a sellout, and at least one would-be buyer publicly torching the pitch.

And yet the orders, however many there really are, keep coming. Status still sells, even when the car gets compared to an Apple mouse and a Chinese rival will smoke it for less than half the price.

Then again, for $586,600 you could line up a couple dozen Mazda Autozam AZ-1s in your driveway and have more fun in every single one. Your call.