Ferrari’s first electric car sells for record $40 million at auction

One-off Ferrari Luce ‘Chassis 0’ sold for $40 million, with proceeds going to charity

Last updated: August 17, 2026 | 11:02

Nivetha Dayanand, Assistant Business Editor

2 MIN READ

Ferrari’s first electric car sells for record $40 million at auction

RM Sotheby's

Dubai: Ferrari’s first all-electric car has sold for $40 million at a charity auction, making it the most expensive new car ever sold at auction.

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The 2026 Ferrari Luce Tailor Made, identified as “Chassis 0”, is the first production chassis of the Luce programme and was sold at a Sotheby’s charity auction during Monterey Car Week in California.

The $40 million sale surpassed the previous record set last year, when a customised Ferrari Daytona SP3 fetched $26 million.

All proceeds from the Luce auction will be donated to The Ferrari Foundation, a recognised 501(c)(3) public charity, to support future educational initiatives.

Ferrari’s first electric model

Ferrari unveiled the Luce in May with a price of €550,000, or about $636,356, marking the company’s entry into fully electric cars.

The model was designed with LoveFrom, the studio founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive, and combines more than 1,000 horsepower with four doors.

The Ferrari Luce has nothing to do with electric cars you have seen from other players,” Vigna said. “You have to see it and drive it to understand that it wasn’t copied — not the interiors, not the exterior, not the performance.

Ferrari Chief Executive Officer Benedetto Vigna

A one-off ‘Chassis 0’

The auctioned car was configured through Ferrari’s Tailor Made programme and carries a dedicated plaque identifying it as “Chassis 0”.

Its exterior uses a Madreperla Semi-Gloss finish developed specifically for the car, with a pigment that creates iridescent reflections ranging from green to violet depending on the intensity and angle of light.

Inside, Ferrari used Perla Le Mans metallic leather developed for the Tailor Made programme, with Grigio Corvara replacing traditional black on secondary interior elements.

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The specification also includes dedicated wheels, bespoke brake calipers and Ferrari logos set against an optical white background, all created specifically for the car.

Ferrari said the configuration was developed around the theme of light, using white and reflective materials across the exterior and cabin.

- With inputs from Bloomberg.

Nivetha DayanandAssistant Business Editor

Nivetha Dayanand is Assistant Business Editor at Gulf News, covering aviation, financial markets and commodities. A business and financial journalist with a strong interest in multimedia storytelling, she regularly takes complex financial and economic subjects beyond the written word, producing explainer videos that make them easier for a wider audience to understand. Nivetha has interviewed senior policymakers, business leaders and global financial figures both on and off camera. Her past guests include UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, a member of the House of Saud and the founder and CEO of KBW Ventures, Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund and Indian ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and N. Chandrababu Naidu. She has also hosted and moderated panels, conferences and awards shows, bringing her newsroom experience to live conversations on business, finance and the economy. An Erasmus Mundus journalism alum, Nivetha is drawn to stories that affect people directly and to reporting that gives a platform to voices that might otherwise go unheard. She was among the first journalists to speak to Petrofac employees in the UAE about unpaid salaries, broke the news of the planned demolition of Dubai’s well-known “Toyota Building”, and helped set the record straight on widely circulated claims that a giant replica of the Moon was coming to Dubai. More recently, her exclusive interview with EDGE Group CEO Hamad Al Marar revealed how the UAE-based defence group deployed its systems along the country’s shore border and established a geofence around the UAE within 48 hours of the February 28 escalation. Prior to joining Gulf News, Nivetha worked at ITP Media, where she helped launch Finance Middle East, a new publication covering the region’s financial sector. Her role spanned reporting and editing, video production, interviews and events. Across print, digital, and video, she focuses on finding the people behind business stories and explaining why those stories matter to the audience reading or watching them.

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