Ferrari has turned to technology industry veteran Benedetto Vigna to drive the luxury sports car maker known for its roaring, high-octane engines into a new era of silent, electric powertrains.

Mr Vigna currently runs the biggest division of semiconductor maker STMicroelectronics (ST), where he has worked since 1995 and helped pioneer the sensors first used in iPhones to rotate the screen by turning the handset.

Mr Vigna’s appointment announced yesterday shows Ferrari’s development strategy remains firmly anchored in manufacturing cutting-edge, high-end sports cars for an electric era, rather than repositioning itself as a pure luxury goods company.

It also highlights the challenges facing carmakers as they adapt to the green revolution forcing the industry to move away from combustion engines and embrace new technologies from batteries to connectivity to autonomous driving.

“A semis guy who did his thesis on quantum quarks and has hundreds of patents to his name ... running Ferrari? We live in extraordinary times,” Morgan Stanley analysts said.

Chairman John Elkann, the scion of the Agnelli family which controls Ferrari through investment firm Exor, said Mr Vigna’s deep understanding of technologies driving change in the car industry would strengthen Ferrari.