The Ferrari Luce’s sleek silhouette, futuristic line work, and two-tone color scheme look very cool. It might look familiar, too. As soon as the public had eyes on this car, many commenters were making comparisons not to other supercars, but to the $30,000 Nissan Leaf. Nissan playfully acknowledged the comparison by posting a simple two-shot of both cars and a little ad copy reading, “We admit, we’re flattered.”
One way to look at this situation is to acknowledge that Nissan is simply having fun with the comparison to a car that costs around 20 times the price, and grabbing a little free press. Another way to look at it? Ferrari just took a shot at the king, and that 1,036-horsepower electric monster better have the goods to back it up! But seriously, we rarely get a chance to compare such wildly different cars to one another, so humor us as we go point-for-point with these EVs.
The Ferrari Luce Does Look A Lot Like A Nissan Leaf
At a distance, the Luce and the Leaf have at least a passing similarity with each other. Someone unfamiliar with the current crop of EVs might even mistake the Ferrari and the Nissan. The Ferrari’s lines are a little tighter, its bodywork a bit less bulky, and there are hints of aggression in some of its angles around the hood and front fascia. However, you need to get within spitting distance to see what really sets them apart.
The Leaf has been designed in-house by Nissan from the start. The third-gen redesign was spearheaded by Nissan Design Europe’s vice president, Giovanny Arroba, pushing for a look that embraced the brand’s Japanese heritage.
We wanted the team to truly explore and rev their imagination. The design philosophy for the new Leaf really is keeping a spirit of timeless Japanese futurism and bringing impactful, striking design as we reimagine it as a crossover for the next generation.
– Giovanny Arroba, Nissan Design Europe Vice President
The team was going for a sportier look on the road, and seeking to take advantage of the unique opportunities presented in designing an EV. Not incorporating a grille, for instance, means you can incorporate more body color into the front fascia and have a lot of fun with light placement. To that end, the team connected the LED headlights with a razor-thin light bar stretching horizontally across the car’s face, and stamped the center with a light-up Nissan badge.
To be clear, it’s not necessarily a dig to suggest that the new Luce looks like Leaf, because the Nissan doesn’t really look like a budget-priced vehicle. The Leaf’s sleek profile and forward-thinking design elements suggest a more expensive car – but maybe not one that costs over $600,000.
Ferrari Looked To The Tech World To Design The Luce
Ferrari Luce designed by Sir Jony Ive.Ferrari
The Ferrari Luce doesn’t look like any model from the Prancing Horse we’ve ever seen before. Arguably, its styling is more akin to an Apple device. There’s a good reason for the similarity because Ferrari turned to the firm LoveFrom for the car’s design. Jony Ive, a former Apple designer who helped shape iconic products like the iPod, founded the studio.
This might seem like a weird pull for Ferrari, but Ive attributes his design career to his love of cars, which you can see in his work. Before he helped establish the modern Apple look, with its flashy colors, smooth lines, and rounded corners, electronics typically had a very basic, utilitarian appearance.Ive was employed to make Apple’s offerings look more like Ferraris. Now he’s working to make Ferraris look more like Apples.
Ferrari Chairman John Elkann was a fan of the Apple Watch, in particular, and wanted to bring some of that form-meets-function magic to the Italian car brand.
What Are Ferrari Owners Saying About The Luce?
Ferrari luceFerrari
To check in with Ferrari fans, we skimmed the r/Ferrari subreddit to turn up the following comments.
“The days of actually yearning for and dreaming of owning a brand-new Ferrari seem long gone now.”
“Not a single ounce of me would ever want that car.”
“For me, it’s tarnished the brand.”
Ouch. We were able to dig up a couple lukewarm positive comments, though.
“I’m guessing the current reaction will turn out to be an overreaction, and the car may find a place in the Ferrari story after all.”
“I didn’t hate the car.”
And one user called it “the best looking Kia Ferrari ever made!”
Looks Aside, The Luce Is A Beast On The Track
Ferrari Luce interiorFerrari
Straight-line performance is one place where the Ferrari easily beats the Nissan. The Luce smokes the Leaf in the quarter mile, and it’s not even close, if you can believe it! Okay, jokes aside, here’s how these EVs stack up in terms of pure numbers:
Nissan Leaf S+
Ferrari Luce
Power
214 hp
1,036 hp
0-60
7.2 Seconds
2.4 Seconds
Quarter-Mile
15.3 Seconds
10.1 Seconds
To no one’s surprise, the Luce absolutely blows the Leaf out of the water. However, the Nissan does have one performance spec on the Ferrari in spades: horsepower per dollar.
In a Nissan Leaf, you’re only spending around $140 per hp. In a Ferrari Luce, the number is closer to $618 per hp. If anyone from Nissan is reading, you can go ahead and print that in your ads. “Four times the horsepower per dollar when compared to a Ferrari supercar!”
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With more range, better pricing, and a crossover-ish design, the latest Leaf is the best of its lineage (and maybe even best-in-class).
The Leaf Is Obviously The More Practical Option
2026 Nissan Leaf rear 3/4 angle in blue while parkedJared Rosenholtz/CarBuzz/Valnet
The Luce is a four-motor supercar that doesn’t even feature any fake motor sounds, allowing drivers to simply take in the raw power for what it is. Ferrari promises 329 miles of range on a full charge, which would come out to around 282 miles of range, by EPA standards. There’s no way the Luce can deliver on that number, though, unless you’re actually driving it like, well, like a Nissan Leaf. Those big energy bursts that produce a 2.4-second sprint to 60 mph also quickly eat into the total driving distance.
For 2026, the Leaf S+ is EPA-estimated at 303 miles on a full charge, which comes out to around $700 a year, assuming 15,000 miles driven, split 45/55, highway/city.
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The Aftermarket Has Already ‘Fixed’ The Ferrari Luce’s Styling
Tuners are already dodging the Luce’s design bullet.
Nissan Is The Smart Choice If You Want Performance, Too
2024 Nissan GT-R front 3/4 angle in green while parkedNissan
The Ferrari Luce is a bit of a head-scratcher. It’s got plenty of horsepower, but the Corvette ZR1X delivers 1,250 hp through a hybrid system, and the ‘Vette costs less than half of what you’d spend on a Luce.
The look may have a certain appeal for tech-oriented buyers who want their car to match their phone, but does that describe people who spend more than half a million on a sports car? Do those buyers want a Ferrari to look like a Ferrari? The car may find its fans, but at a glance it just leaves you wondering, “Who is this for?”
2026 Nissan Leaf ExteriorNissan/James Lipman
If you want our take, you can still find homes for well under $300,000. So look for something with a two-car garage in that price range. Then buy a Leaf for $29,990 and a 2024 Nissan GT-R (currently trending at around $208,000), so you’re covered for the daily commute and weekend track days.
This setup will leave you with a little over $100,000, which you can use to tune that GT-R up to 1,00 horsepower. Jotech Racing promises a 1,200-hp upgrade for $91,000, meaning you could bring your Nissan up to par with a Ferrari Luce and still have several thousand dollars left over.
1,000+ HP Isn’t The Selling Point It Used To Be
Ferrari Luce interior detail.Ferrari
In 2026, an EV cranking out 1,00 horsepower at a price point well above half a million… “unremarkable” is too strong a word, but power output alone is not enough to convince anyone a car is worth $640,000 these days. The Lucid Air Sapphire can do 1,234 hp for around $250,000. A GMC Hummer EV 3X will get you to 830 hp for an MSRP of $107,995.
One way Italian sports cars have always stood out is that they’ve been drivable works of art, like high fashion. It’s a Van Gogh you can park in your driveway. You’re not just driving a sports car, you’re driving a Sergio Pininfarina.
We wouldn’t list the Luce among the ugliest cars we’ve ever seen, but it looks more like a product than a museum piece. When you pair that with a powertrain that’s kind of par for the course in cars that cost a fraction as much, it’s easy to see why longtime Ferrari fans are so disappointed.
Sources: Nissan, Ferrari, Jotech Racing, r/Ferrari.
