Maserati is one of the few brands that has yet to offer a single model with a charging port.
That will change very soon, with the arrival of the GranTurismo Folgore in the fourth quarter of 2023. But to prepare for that, Maserati needs to equip its dealerships with chargers to service electric vehicles and charge them for customers. For this, they are turning to Future Energy in Michigan for customized DC fast chargers, which appear to be modular Blink DC fast chargers ranging from 60 to 180 kW, designed for Maserati. The chargers come with software for automation and energy management. Maserati’s images showed units with CCS and CHAdeMO connectors, potentially indicating that Maserati dealership chargers may be publicly accessible for other mass-market electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf.
The GranTurismo Folgore essentially employs three-motor electric propulsion instead of the vocal and swift V-6 biturbo of the GranTurismo, achieving a 50/50 weight distribution and a 0 to 60 mph time of approximately 2.7 seconds. With a T-shaped 92.5 kWh battery equipped with LG Chem cells from Poland, the Folgore EV leverages 800-volt charging, enabling rapid charging during road trips, given its high-power hardware.
Maserati is taking a slightly different approach than other brands under its parent company, Stellantis. Earlier this year, Maserati committed to using Bosch’s charging services behind the scenes of its electric vehicles. This will allow GranTurismo Folgore drivers to easily find and navigate to charging points using the vehicle interface or app-based payment details.
At that time, Bosch claimed that by mid-2023, its services would include 700,000 charging points across Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region. This suggests ample charging options for potential road stops. Bosch typically also includes phone support, which may carry the Maserati brand.
Stellantis earlier this year committed to aggregated electric vehicle charging and intelligent route planning in a single business called Free2Move Charge. However, for now, it seems Maserati will not be using this service.
The second electric vehicle, the Grecale Folgore, will arrive in the first quarter of 2024.
These two models align with Stellantis’ plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 and be a “world leader” in sustainability. Maserati announced plans in 2022 to offer a fully electric version of each of its models by 2025, with an exclusively electric vehicle lineup by 2030. It has also recently committed, along with six other automakers, to form a new high-power fast-charging network in the U.S.
Maserati’s electric vehicle announcements have sent mixed signals for years, reflecting uncertainty about its commitment to electrification and its future product portfolio, partly due to its shift from Fiat Chrysler to Stellantis. The actual arrival of a Maserati EV seems to resolve years of sometimes contradictory statements.
In 2015, brand executives claimed that an electric Maserati didn’t make sense. Less than two years later, then-CEO of Fiat Chrysler, Sergio Marchionne, stated that Maserati, in particular, made sense for total electrification. Even after a 2018 plan suggested four new battery electric models by 2022, comments from Maserati’s North American head seemed to contradict the brand’s announcements, saying it was “a brand that needs combustion engines.”
Now that chargers are arriving at dealerships and Maserati’s electric vehicles are imminent, it appears the brand is poised to thrive without those combustion engines.
