After 5 years of development, Maserati officially cancels plans for their all-electric supercar. The car in question is the MC20 Folgore supercar, which was slated for launch in 2025. This move by Maserati seems to be an on-going trend in the automotive world. Another car company, Mini, also recently announced that it was putting a hold on electric vehicle (EV) production. As for Mini, they claimed that the pause on EV production was because of the uncertainty in the automotive space. The said uncertainty is in part brought about by Donald Trump’s mobility-focused executive actions. So, what about Maserati? What is their reason for halting the MC20 Folgore EV production?
Reasons for Maserati Halting EV Production
According to Maserati, there are two reasons for halting production of their all-electric supercar. The first being that Maserati senses ‘a perceived lack of commercial interest’ for an all-electric supercar. Maserati also added in a statement to Car and Driver that, ‘Market studies for the super sports car segment and especially for MC20 customers has demonstrated that they are very keen on driving powerful ICE engines… [they] are not ready to switch to BEVs for the foreseeable future.’
Noteworthy is that Maserati already has an ICE-powered version of the MC20, hence they intend to, ‘focus on refreshing the ICE-powered MC20, which could boost the horsepower numbers of its 3.0-liter V-6 engine with about 10 additional horsepower (boosting the model to 631bhp) ’ according to Autocar.
Maserati’s Other Reason for Halting EV Production
Another major reason for the MC20 Folgore’s cancellation is perhaps Maserati’s owner, Stellantis, withdrawal of a 1.5 billion USD (approximately 289 billion naira) investment in the brand, much of which was meant for EV development. A cut in the EV budget automatically means a halt in EV production. However, this may also mean a halt in the production of other proposed Maserati EVs like the electric version of Maserati’s Levante SUV. Additionally, this may also mean that Maserati’s plan to go all-electric by 2030 may no longer be feasible.
Despite the halt in EV production from car companies like Maserati and Mini, the European Union reaffirms the ban on new gas cars by 2035. However, there seems to be a lot of uncertainty in the automotive space as mentioned earlier. So, these car companies are probably banking on having more time for EV development. I wonder which car-maker is going to halt EV production next. Based on the backlash and reduced sales due to Ferrari deviating from their naturally aspirated V12 days to hybrid (electric) power trains, I would say Ferrari, what about you?
