Ferrari’s Chief Marketing Officer, Enrico Galliera, has firmly denied reports that the brand has been pressuring customers into purchasing its Luce electric vehicle as a condition for securing access to its coveted Special Series models.
Speaking to The Drive, Galliera described a Bloomberg report making these allegations as completely inaccurate, and he was visibly frustrated by the claims.
“I was mad because we don’t respect what is written in this article, and it’s totally not correct,” Galliera said. He went on to explain that from the outset, Ferrari positioned the Luce as a product aimed at a distinct type of buyer, and that any purchase of the car must be entirely voluntary.
No Coercion, by Design
According to Galliera, the reasoning behind this stance is straightforward: selling a car to someone who never wanted it in the first place is counterproductive. In Ferrari’s experience with previous models, an unwilling buyer quickly becomes a vocal critic.
“If you sell a car to a client who doesn’t want to buy it, they will become the first negative ambassador,” he explained.
The Bloomberg piece cited conversations with several Ferrari clients who claimed they had been contacted by the brand and told that purchasing a Luce would help maintain or improve their standing among Ferrari’s top-tier customers. New buyers were apparently also led to believe the EV could serve as a gateway to more exclusive, higher-spec models.
Protecting the Brand and the Product
Galliera, who oversees Ferrari’s global marketing strategy and works closely with the product development team, made clear that this kind of pressure would ultimately backfire. Forcing a customer’s hand doesn’t just create a bad experience, it risks damaging Ferrari’s carefully cultivated relationship with its clientele and undermining the perceived value of the product itself.
“If a customer is forced to buy a vehicle and says ‘I don’t like it,’ then they will destroy the value of the product, which is what happened to some other EV labels in the market,” he warned.
Luce Is Its Own Thing
On the question of whether buying a Luce confers any special advantage within Ferrari’s ecosystem, Galliera was emphatic: it does not. The Luce carries exactly the same client benefits as any other model in the lineup.
“Buying a Luce complements their garage, but does not give the right or push to buy something else,” he said. “This car is not going to be forced on people, it should be given only to the client who would like to buy it.”
Ferrari’s position, then, is that the Luce stands on its own merits. Whether customers ultimately warm to it will come down to the car itself, not any behind-the-scenes incentive structure.