News

Ferrari’s first Electric Vehicle is not for you

Published

3 weeks ago

May 26, 2026

Preport

Everyone seems to be mad about Ferrari’s first electric vehicle.

Called Luce, and revealed on Monday, the design of the five-seater (gasp!) was led in large part by Jony Ive and the design firm he runs with Marc Newson, LoveFrom. While it ticks a lot of spec sheet boxes — it boasts 1,000 horsepower and the ability to hit 60 miles per hour in just over two seconds — it’s tracking to be the most mocked new vehicle since the Cybertruck.

This widespread rejection of the wedge-shaped, Nissan-resembling car covers seemingly the whole spectrum, too, from the typical flimsy knee-jerk reactions, to the positively vitriolic. The company’s stock price is down, and even some of the most down-the-middle news outlets are admitting it in their own ways. (Bloomberg said the Luce is “quite a stretch.”)

The question underneath all of this immediate backlash is singular: Who is the Luce for?

Certainly it’s not for me, or for almost anyone reading this. The Luce will cost around $650,000, and this is Ferrari we’re talking about, so even if you have that kind of money, you’re dealing with a company that is, shall we say, selective about its customers.

Is it for existing Ferrari owners? Typically that answer is yes — more than 80% of the 14,000 people who bought a Ferrari last year already own one of its vehicles. It’s hard to imagine that crowd being sufficiently excited about a car that is so devoid of the fierce Ferrari angles that have adorned bedroom walls for decades.

Is it for other car designers? Possibly. Car companies borrow ideas all the time, and there’s definitely plenty on the interior — which features a lot of clicky buttons and knobs, a marked departure for Ive — that I’d personally like to see repeated elsewhere.

Is it for regulators? Well, maybe. The European Union is placing severe limits on the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines in 2035. The Luce may be the first step Ferrari’s taking toward a lineup that complies with those looming rules.

In fact, during an interview with Cleo Abram, we learn that this external pressure seems to have weighed heavily on Ive. Abram was given access to one of four “secret” books Ive created when he started the project, which contains a mix of mood board-style imagery and text written by the iPhone designer himself.

Abram quotes Ive as comparing the task of designing an electric Ferrari to how luxury Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe adapted during the evolution from mechanical power to quartz crystals. Ive wrote that Patek Philippe survived “primarily because it survived and grew in the transition” by making a mix of traditional timepieces and watches with batteries and quartz movements.

But then, he added: “If it had been legislated that Patek Philippe had to transition its entire product line to quartz, the resulting challenge would appear similar to the transition Ferrari is facing.” Telling!

Still, I find it hard to believe this is purely a compliance car. The company has said it expects the Luce to be profitable from the jump. And Ferrari’s own chief marketing and commercial officer told the Financial Times that the company wanted the Luce to be “polarising.”

He also made another admission in that interview, saying that Ferrari’s main target with the Luce is someone who “already owns an electric car.”

That statement is nearly as radical as the Luce’s design. By definition, that likely means Ferrari isn’t looking at current owners to make up the bulk of Luce sales.

Which brings us to what may be the truest answer: China. While Chinese buyers have typically only made up around 10% of Ferrari’s overall sales, those numbers have declined in recent years, and the automaker’s executives haven’t been shy about wanting their first EV to turn things around in the largest market for battery-powered vehicles in the world.

Viewed through that lens, the Luce’s design makes a bit more sense, as — to my eyes — it certainly resembles some of the designs that have come out of China’s booming auto industry over the last few years.

So maybe the more proper question to ask is this: Will Chinese buyers, who are currently awash in high-performance, high-tech, affordable options, care to pay up for the prestige of a prancing horse on the hood?

Business

Insider Dealing: Mutual Benefits Director, Ogunbiyi Sells Shares Worth Over ₦6.3 Million

Published

11 minutes ago

June 18, 2026

Preport

BY NKECHI NAECHE-ESEZOBOR—Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc has disclosed an insider transaction involving one of its directors, Dr. Akinade Ogunbiyi, who sold more than 1.5 million shares in the insurance company in a deal valued at over ₦6.3 million.

The disclosure, signed by Jide Ibitayo, Company Secretary, filed with the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) and the investing public, showed that Ogunbiyi, a Non-Executive Director of the company, disposed of 1,507,309 ordinary shares of Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc between June 3 and June 9, 2026.

According to the notification, the shares were sold at prices ranging from ₦4.20 to ₦4.33 per share, placing the total value of the transaction at between ₦6.33 million and ₦6.53 million.

The transaction was reported as an initial notification of insider dealing in line with regulatory requirements that mandate directors and other insiders of listed companies to disclose transactions involving the securities of their companies.

Mutual Benefits Assurance identified the financial instrument involved in the transaction as its ordinary shares, traded on the Nigerian Exchange under the ticker symbol “MBENEFIT.”
Insider dealing notifications are a key component of market transparency and corporate governance, providing investors with information on share transactions undertaken by directors, executives, and other individuals with access to potentially price-sensitive information.

While insider transactions often attract investor attention, market analysts note that such dealings do not necessarily indicate changes in a company’s outlook, as they may be influenced by personal investment decisions, portfolio rebalancing, or other financial considerations.

The disclosed transaction took place in Lagos, Nigeria, and was executed over a seven-day period between June 3 and June 9, 2026.

Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc remains one of the companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange that regularly complies with insider dealing disclosure requirements, reinforcing transparency in the capital market.

The post Insider Dealing: Mutual Benefits Director, Ogunbiyi Sells Shares Worth Over ₦6.3 Million appeared first on Business Today NG.

News

NASA picks Eric Schmidt’s rocket company for Mars mission, setting up a race with SpaceX

Published

13 minutes ago

June 18, 2026

Preport

Relativity Space—a rocket maker acquired by former Google executive chair Eric Schmidt last year after stumbling on the path to orbit—might just beat SpaceX to Mars.

On Tuesday, NASA said it hired the company to build a spacecraft to house a suite of scientific instruments, launch it into space, and fly it to Mars.

The structure of the contract is akin to the deals that NASA made with SpaceX to fly cargo to the International Space Station, or Firefly Aerospace to put a lander on the Moon. The government agency handles the science, while the private company provides low-cost infrastructure.

Aeolus, as the mission is dubbed, will contain four instruments to measure and image Mars from orbit, providing what NASA expects to be the first daily, global view of dust, winds, and temperature in its atmosphere. The agency said that data will make it safer for landers and, someday, astronauts, to visit the surface of the Red Planet.

“By pairing NASA’s world‑class instruments with commercial innovation and investment, we can deliver more science, more often, and reduce the time it takes to get essential data into the hands of researchers preparing for future human missions to Mars,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said in statement.

The mission is set to launch in 2028—a rapid pace that will require Relativity to design and build the spacecraft to carry the Aeolus instruments, and finish building the rocket that will carry it to space, all on a tight timeline. NASA did not disclose how much it is paying Relativity for the mission, and Relativity did not respond to questions from TechCrunch.

Isaacman, who has flown to space twice on private SpaceX missions, has championed public-private partnerships like this. Under this model, the company working with NASA takes on some of the development cost of the project, in exchange for allowing NASA to stretch its budget further—a structure that has become a template for how the agency funds ambitious missions without bearing all the financial risk itself.

But NASA is taking on risk as well: Relativity is unproven, and there’s no guarantee the mission will even make it off the ground. Past startup partners of NASA have gone bankrupt or seen Moon landers arrive askew. The potential payoff for the company is meant to extend beyond the NASA contract itself, including commercial applications, like launching satellites or delivering cargo to the Moon. Still, the further out into space these partnerships reach, the murkier the market becomes for commercial services.

Relativity was founded in 2015 by two former SpaceX and Blue Origin engineers, with the idea of using 3D printing to its maximum potential as a path to building a cheaper rocket. The company’s first design, Terran-1, launched in March 2023 and failed mid-flight. Relativity doubled down by moving on to a larger design, dubbed the Terran R.

Before Relativity could get it to the launch pad, the company ran into fundraising challenges, and Schmidt took a majority stake in the company in it last year, installing himself as CEO. He’s been tight-lipped about the investment but has expressed interest in orbital data centers, and is thought to be using Relativity to launch a space telescope, Lazuili, financed by his family philanthropy, Schmidt Sciences.

The former tech executive’s decision to take over a space company last year puzzled some observers because rocketry is a crowded and capital-intensive field. But pent up demand for new rockets—fueled by delays at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin—could still lead to a payoff for Schmidt if Terran R can actually make it to space.

And the new contract might give Schmidt a chance to put one over on Elon Musk, a regular sparring partner of his on the issue of AI safety. While Musk has long talked of his Martian ambitions, SpaceX has never actually sent its own mission to Mars (no, the Tesla he launched into space in 2018 missed).

If Relativity’s Aeolus launches on schedule, it could be the first private mission to reach the Red Planet.

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