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Comment by epsteingpt | Hacker News Reader

The commentary seems pretty uninformed.

My strong guess is the buyer of the electric Ferrari is not your typical Ferrari buyer.

These same people probably criticized the Porsche Cayenne for 'not being fast enough' or 'lacking features that Toyota SUVs have'

The target buyer is probably more like Dubai housewife with kids.

They have a different aesthetic. They LOVE their iPhone.

Everyone hating on it probably needs to reconsider. There's almost 0 chance that a company like Ferrari did this to not embarrass Jony Ive.

They legitimately expect this thing to sell to its target audience.

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> They legitimately expect this thing to sell to its target audience.

"Selling" is not an issue that Ferrari has. Of course this thing will sell. They produce so few cars that every car they make will sell.

Whether it will help or hurt their brand in the long run is a much more interesting and important question.

I just hope it doesn't lose signal when you touch the metal.

For Dubai you gotta consider the resale value. Which doesn't seem very high to me once the initial hype bump is over. (Sir why dont you buy this famous ugliest ferrari ever for the bargain price of 500000)

Unrelated personal take: the tray screen is very nice. Great for changing navigation when your partner is helping you. There are some nice touches.

Exterior is not my style, but then again, I'm not the target.

> tray screen is very nice

If you're talking about the screen on the arm w grab handles, I'd say it looks very practical, but looks like a design for a public space - like an accessible screen for buying tickets in a fairground.

If you look recently Ferrari is already getting killed on SF90 sales which was "just" a hybrid, this costs about as much ($750K out the door with options) and is a pure ev that looks unimpressive. These will not do well.

Every other expensive EV is doing awfully on the resale market, Rimac, Lucid, Taycan, Bautista, etc.

I could see this being true, except that other high end electrics (Porsche, Audi) have not sold well. So the theory would be:

> people want either $30,000 electric cars (Tesla), $100,000 electric cars (Tesla), or $500,000 electric cars (Ferrari)

I do think Ferrari is trying to expand their audience with the Luce, but not to Dubai housewives. Ferrari's are for Ferrari collectors. There exists the guy with a few already, who daily drives a Tesla. Probably hundreds of those guys! This is for them (IMO).

It's entire run is almost surely entirely presold already. That's the way Ferrari works with these types of halo cars.

This is a $300k car with over a thousand horsepower. Housewives are not the target market.

Why would you think that? Rich housewives/spouses do exist.

The Urus is at least to me the equivalent kind of car. Captures a market that does not appeal to traditional lambos. I could see this doing the same.

I would assume even they would prefer buying something sexier than an iphone on wheels.

You’re confusing your taste to the taste of someone who is probably making a purchase solely on brand and it being an EV.

This thing might sell incredibly poorly but one thing I have always found to be true. The taste of HN commenters is wildly different than target demographics.

Most housewives in dubai buy Rolls royce anyway. It looks better

Ok? Still does not defend anything you are saying.

why would the ultra wealthy care about it being an ev? operating cost and climate impact are not a priority when you are dropping 650k and living in a oil rich ME kingdom.

performance and aesthetics s would be more important, surely?

EVs are legitimately better to drive.

Why fixate on Arab countries? Rich people live all over the world and there are increasingly more emission restrictions. And again, as I keep repeating myself, just because you are not the target demographic does not mean it does not exist. I could easily see someone who does not care about cars wanting this because of the brand and yeah even EVs can matter depending on social circles.

You guys are defending this to death. I am only pointing out that it would not surprise me it fits a demographic they were targeting.

Wouldn't the Purosangue be the competitor though?

I am pointing out that manufacturers introduce models to capture new demographics. Just like the Urus did.

The car isn't $300K. It's $640K (€550K).

You think ultra rich housewives don't want ultra expensive cars?

Yeah, classic strategic mistake - lets try to attract a set of buyers completely different from our core base. The only thing that may save them, i.e., exotic playbook 101, is require core buyers to purchase one in order to get "the opportunity" to buy one oof its halo cars.

Everyone hating on it probably needs to reconsider.

Why?

IDGAF if Dubai Housewives like it. My world doesn't revolve around what they think.

It's not about being informed, I for one am sick of minimalism spreading it's bland wings (just slats, really) everywhere.

Porsche Cayenne has hurt Porches brand immensely.

Not really. It shifted Porsches brand somewhat, but Porsche is still very strong.

And if a bunch of SUV buyers want to subsidize my 911 habit--I have no complaints.

Can you point to any evidence in the last 12 months of Porsche being "very strong"?

Any change in the past 12 months is abolutely not up to the Cayenne, which came to market 24 years ago. Or the Macan, which came to market twelve years ago. And that was the main point of the GP post--how adding SUVs to the mix didn't ruin the brand.

But in any event, Porsche sold more cars in 2025 in North America, than any year prior.

https://newsroom.porsche.com/en_US/company/porsche-cars-nort...

It did take a big hit to profitability in 2025, mostly on one-time restructuring charges. But until then it was one of the most profitable auto-manufacturers out there. And its annual revenue is still higher than most of its history, especially on a per-car basis.

So sure, recently Porsche hasn't done well. But it has very little to do with SUVs and that transition. And I would argue that the brand itself is still very strong, even if operationally they have mishandled the electric transition.

> But in any event, Porsche sold more cars in 2025 in North America, than any year prior.

Porsche sells about as many cars every year as Ferarri has sold in its entire existence. I'm not sure that's a strong indicator of whether or not it "brand" (AKA public perception) is doing well or not. Clearly Ferarri has a strong brand than Porsche, despite only selling 330,000 cars in the past 80 years. And despite Porsche selling 310,000 in 2024 alone.

Yes they have very different business models. But it would be like using "number of Window's licenses sold" to argue that Microsoft has a really strong brand right now.

Which is why I was comparing Porsche's 2025 sales data with its own prior years' sales data and not with Ferrari's sales data. Year over year is an imperfect but reasonable-directional proxy for brand staying power, especially given that the product mix didn't change all that much (except that the 718 series were put on hold, which one would expect would make it worse, not better).

"While loyalty has fallen slightly since last year’s study, some brands held strong with buyers. Porsche was the top premium car brand with a 58.2 percent loyalty rate, followed by Mercedes-Benz with a 49.7 percent rate. Lexus ranked highest in the premium SUV segment, with BMW a close second."

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/cars/news-blog/j-d-power-p...

For Microsoft, number of licenses sold year-over-year would be relevant. Although the comparison isn’t great because it is harder to switch operating systems than car brands.

What? It saved the brand. It's their best selling model ever.

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