First Ferrari Luce sells for NZ$68 million, a record for any EV

The first Ferrari Luce has sold at auction for US$40 million, around NZ$68 million, making the marque’s first electric car the most expensive EV ever sold and setting a record for a new car at auction.

The pre-sale estimate was US$1.1 million, about NZ$1.9 million. The hammer price came in at more than 36 times that, and roughly 62 times what a Luce costs on Ferrari’s own price list.

Every dollar goes to charity. RM Sotheby’s ran the car at its Monterey sale on Saturday night without reserve and waived its buyer’s premium, so the full amount goes to The Ferrari Foundation, which funds educational programmes.

What the money bought

The car is chassis ZFF21BUA8T0338000, designated Chassis 0, the first production Luce built. It is a Tailor Made commission finished in a one-off Madreperla semi-gloss paint that shifts between green and violet with the light, with Le Mans metallic leather in Perla and Grigio Corvara accents, which Ferrari says is the first Luce interior to do without black. It also gets bespoke wheels, custom callipers and a prancing horse in optical white.

The buyer does not take delivery yet. Chassis 0 returns to Maranello for final assembly, with handover scheduled for the first quarter of 2027.

A pattern Ferrari keeps repeating

This is becoming an annual event, and the numbers keep climbing. At last year’s Monterey sale, a one-off Daytona SP3 built beyond the model’s 599-car production run went for US$26 million, around NZ$44 million, also for The Ferrari Foundation, and was billed at the time as the most expensive new car ever sold at auction. Ferrari has now beaten its own record by 54%, with an electric car. In 2017, a unique LaFerrari Aperta raised US$10 million, about NZ$17 million, for earthquake relief.

For scale, the highest prices ever paid at public auction belong to historic Ferraris: a 1962 250 GTO sold for US$48.4 million, roughly NZ$82 million, in 2018. A battery-electric car that has not yet delivered a single customer example came within striking distance of it.

It is also a long way clear of the rest of the electric field. The Rimac Nevera and Pininfarina Battista, the most expensive series-production EVs, sit between US$2.2 and US$2.5 million, or roughly NZ$3.7 to NZ$4.3 million.

Redemption of a sort

The result caps a turbulent year for a car that has been contentious since before it turned a wheel. The Luce’s Rome unveiling in May drew a hostile reception, Ferrari’s share price fell on the reveal, former chairman Luca di Montezemolo said publicly that the badge did not belong on it, and the company replaced its marketing chief a month later.

Ferrari then sold its entire 2026 allocation of just under 500 cars inside two months, before a single delivery. The charitable framing of Saturday’s sale clearly inflated the number, but a record for any EV, on the first example of a car the establishment lined up to criticise, will not be unwelcome in Maranello.

The Luce produces 735kW and covers 0-100km/h in under 2.5 seconds, with an interior shaped by former Apple design chief Jony Ive’s studio.