Prove your competence, and the Luce will loosen its reins. As the brand’s first electric vehicle, the Ferrari Luce is full of new ideas and technical innovations from Ferrari. And one of those, it seems, is a learning and evolving traction control system.
Recently, Australia's CarExpert spoke with Ferrari chief test driver Raffaele de Simone to get the details on what this system is capable of doing. “Our traction control starts with a fixed grip estimate, but it then evolves according to how the driver’s skill shows through,” said de Simone. “If you are good enough, your Sport mode can grow into the Race mode of a track-focused sports car.”
View Price on AmazonNow that’s some fascinating tech. De Simone doesn’t dive too deeply into how this works, but we suspect it must make use of machine learning to make determinations about your driving skill once it has enough data to go on. “My sport [mode] is not your sport,” de Simone continued. “The system is always evolving, helping you grow in terms of skill and confidence. Drive cleanly, and it follows you, and unlocks a higher level of power.”
The Luce has Ice, Wet, Dry, Sport, and ESC Off drive modes. The lack of a race mode was purposeful, it seems, as the test driver's comments make it sounds as though skilled drivers will unlock a Race mode-like TCS experience in the Sport mode in due course. Smooth steering inputs and proper throttle modulation on corner exit will help let the Luce know you’re to be trusted.
Road & Track reached out to Ferrari to learn more details, and will update this post upon hearing back. What we do know so far is that the traction control dubbed “eTrac” is an extremely quick, highly precise traction control system. As the Luce is a four-motor EV, each wheel has its own torque actuator, allowing Ferrari to program interventions with “surgical precision” while leaving the other wheels untouched from interference.
Source: roadandtrack.com
