Maserati GranTurismo Folgore gets £50k price cut thanks to weak EV demand
Demand for premium EVs isn’t strong. Maserati’s plan to tempt buyers in is an Alpine A110-sized discount
How to tell if a car isn’t selling all that well? Sometimes, it’s the fact that it’s been out for a while and you realise you’ve not seen them around. Sometimes it’s when you get wind of a hefty discount being applied. In the case of the new range of Maserati GranTurismo Folgore models, not only have I certainly not seen any out and about but that discount is almost enough to have bought an Alpine A110 when it was still on sale…
Yes, Maserati’s refreshed GranTurismo and GranCabrio Folgore are now on sale, starting from £129,604 for the coupe and £138,605 for the cabriolet. Those prices are a hair over £50,000 less, than the £180,000-£190,000 list prices of the pre-facelift models.
While they were by far the most expensive variants in the previous lineup, they now sit at less than £2000 more than the entry-level 483bhp Modena GranTurismo and GranCabrio variants, and at a full-bodied £20,000 less than the 581bhp GranTurismo Trofeo models.
This in spite of the Folgore’s considerable (you might say flagship-spec) power and performance: 770bhp and 995lb ft courtesy of three electric motors, that make it good for 0-62mph in 2.7sec. The Folgore has received some work for this mid-life facelift too, with the newfound ability to decouple the front axle from the powertrain affording a 50-mile bump in claimed WLTP range to 330 miles from the 92kWh battery.
In our testing – a winter test it would be fair to add – the previous Folgore was delivering numbers that suggested a real world range of around 200 miles, or around 0.714 miles for every mile of the claimed 280 miles of range. Applied to the new claimed range of 330 miles, a cold day’s driving could mean 235 miles of range in the real world. That's suggestive of over 250 miles of real world range in warmer conditions but not continent-munching range by any measure.
All the same, the new price point adds a new dimension of appeal to the Maserati, which it’ll surely need. Even as the only true ‘exotic’ EV on the market – and the only two-door for now, until Porsche’s new 718s and Alpine’s new A110 come along – you can’t help but compare its price, performance and presence with those of the Porsche Taycan, Audi’s e-tron GT and Polestar’s 5. Soon, there will be Jaguar’s new Type 01 and the Mercedes-AMG GT 4-door to contend with as well.
