Enzo Ferrari once said he sold engines and threw the rest of the car in for free. Which was fair, his V12s sang like Pavarotti with exhaust tips. But now comes the awkward part: what happens when there’s no engine? No pistons, no crankshafts, no oil-stained poetry. Just batteries, motors, and a whole lot of voltage. That’s the riddle Ferrari’s trying to solve with its first-ever electric car, a four-door, four-motor, four-figure-horsepower statement that electricity can have emotions too.
Let’s start with the heart, or, fine, the ‘motors.’ There are four of them, two per axle. They’re permanent magnet synchronous motors with fancy Hallbach array rotors, basically F1 tech that’s trickled down to the street. The fronts make 282 bhp together, the rears 831 bhp, and while Ferrari hasn’t given us the official combined figure, it’s comfortably above the 1,000 bhp mark. The torque? Absurd. Around 357 kgm at the front and 815 kgm at the back. You could tow the Colosseum if you wanted.
The 0–100 kmh sprint takes just 2.5 seconds, about as long as it takes your brain to say ‘wait, this is electric?’ Top speed? 310 kmh. So no, it’s not a hairdryer on wheels.
Ferrari says the rear motors spin up to 25,500 rpm while the fronts scream to 30,000 rpm, all in less than a second. There’s even a front axle disconnect that switches to rear-wheel-drive mode in half a second, not for smoky slides (though, let’s be real, you’ll try), but to save juice on the highway.
Speaking of juice, the battery is a 122 kWh monster. Range? Over 530 km. Charging speed? Up to 350 kW, courtesy of an 800V architecture. Ferrari also claims its batteries, designed and built in-house, boast the highest energy density of any production EV at 195 Wh/kg, a nice flex over Rimac’s 170 Wh/kg cells.
But here’s the real sorcery: Ferrari’s figured out how to make an EV sound interesting. A sensor on the rear motor translates what the electric bits are doing into a kind of synthesised-but-authentic soundtrack that pipes into the cabin. Not fake engine noise, more like ‘electric opera,’ as if the car itself is humming along with excitement.
And to make driving feel a bit more… Ferrari, there’s something called Torque Shift Engagement. Instead of a flat, monotonous wave of acceleration, you get five distinct power steps. Pull the right paddle and you’ll feel a surge like a gear change; pull the left one on corner entry and it ramps up the regenerative braking, mimicking engine braking. It’s clever, the kind of detail that turns numbers into sensations.
Now for the bit that’ll make Enzo turn in his grave and then probably smirk, it’s a four-door. Yes, Ferrari’s first EV won’t be a low-slung supercar, but something more… crossover-shaped. CEO Benedetto Vigna says it’s not a ‘supercar,’ but a new category entirely. The design is being done in collaboration with LoveFrom, the Bay Area design firm led by former Apple legends Jony Ive and Marc Newson, which means expect something minimalist, expensive-looking, and probably with a charging port that feels like a religious experience.
Spy shots show it’ll sit on a 2,960 mm wheelbase, just a shade shorter than the Purosangue, suggesting the EV will have some proper stance to go with all that stance-juice.
So yes, Ferrari’s going electric. But it’s doing it the Ferrari way, over-engineered, dramatic, and just a little bit bonkers. The brand that once sold engines is now trying to sell emotion through electrons. And if anyone can make voltage feel visceral, it’s probably Maranello.
