2025 Maserati Grecale Folgore First Drive: Electric SUV Feels The Heat From Day One

At no point over the course of a long travel day to Puglia, in the south of Italy, did the thought of off-roading a Maserati Grecale Folgore ever flit into my vision of the highly anticipated electric SUV's official media launch. Instead, I imagined beautiful azure ocean views down around the "heel of the boot" to match the Grecale's luxurious athleticism, and some winding Italian roads to experience the new top-spec trim's presumed performance potential.

Having driven the most powerful internal-combustion Grecale last year, the Trofeo spec with a tuned-down version of the MC20 supercar's stunning "Nettuno" twin-turbo V6, I admittedly arrived in Puglia harboring high expectations. The Grecale Trofeo, after all, perfectly nailed Maserati's goal of combining spectacular driving dynamics and avant-garde design, aiming squarely at Porsche's Macan and Cayenne best-sellers.

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Then again, I also drove a GranTurismo Folgore prototype last year—very much not yet a finished product, but even in those early stages, clearly a heavy and pendulous version of an otherwise impressive grand tourer. So I arrived in Italy after around 24 hours of flights very curious how to learn how the Grecale's additional development time and status as a Porsche hunter might result in real-world form.

First of all, I can also admit that we never approached anything near true hardcore off-roading in the Grecale. Instead, the planned drive route included a few miles on graded dirt roads sprinkled with puddles from rain the day before—picturesque, but not really the point given the all-electric Folgore's rather surprising stat sheet.

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Unlike the GranTurismo, the Grecale uses a skateboard-style battery layout with a pair of 205-kilowatt electric motors that send a combined 550 horsepower and 605 lb-ft of torque to all four wheels. That comes out to 28 hp more than the Grecale Trofeo's official rating, but more importantly, the 105-kilowatt-hour battery and the dual motors still use 400-volt architecture. Even with a coefficient of drag improved by about 5% thanks to exterior design revisions, in European WLTP testing, the Folgore managed a high rating of 501 kilometers (311 miles) and a low estimate of 426 kilometers (264 miles).

The 400-volt system also likely contributes to the Grecale Folgore maxing out at only a 150 kilowatt charging speed when plugged into a DC fast charger, good enough to fill 20-80% in 29 minutes. An onboard charger can do 22 kilowatts when plugged into AC, meanwhile, at least in Europe. Along with numbers that seem straight from a previous generation of EV performance, the battery pack made of 33 modules containing six prismatic cells each still contributes 1,490 pounds to the Grecale Folgore's 5,467-pound curb weight.

For context, the Grecale Trofeo weighed in at 4,469 pounds—not exactly a featherweight, but somehow still manifested an absolutely magical combination of straight-line speed and confident cornering ability, in a superb package sized somewhere in between Macan and Cayenne. The Folgore version offers the exact same interior and nearly the same exterior dimensions as the Trofeo, but hauling around so much weight—in the form of a large battery pack installed below a unibody SUV—clearly stressed Maserati's ability to finetune the shared chassis.

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The skateboard battery pack does lower the center of gravity (or, more accurately, the polar moment of inertia), but looking at a rolling chassis with enormous battery cells and two huge electric motors between each pair of wheels, the same air springs and adaptive shock dampers look puny in comparison. In the real world, the setup struggles to handle that additional heft. Rough Italian roads winding around the heel of the boot did the Folgore no great service, either, as the suspension bounced and bumbled over speed bumps, rafted over wavy sections, and clanked into potholes, sending jolts and reverberations into the highly bolstered front bucket seats.

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In a straight line, meanwhile, the 0-60 time of 4.1 seconds never translates to the kind of punchiness that even budget EVs can manage thanks to instantaneous torque delivery. The Grecale Folgore is quick, sure, but not devastatingly so—and not even faster than the ICE Trofeo, all while quickly overwhelming Pirelli P Zero tires in corners and emitting faux driveline sounds (inside and out) that can never match the whooshing turbo noises of the Nettuno V6.

To an extent, however, the little off-roading section actually gave the Folgore a chance to shine, because pumping up the air springs to their second-highest level firms up the suspension enough to prevent some of the unfortunate handling effects. Though riding higher should reduce potential performance, the improvement to the suspension's overall ability to manage extra weight made for a marked difference in comfort and confidence. I decided to stay in Off-Road mode for the rest of the drive, in fact.

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Riding higher all the time will likely result in reduced electric range, though, and the Grecale Folgore needs every last mile to keep up with the competition. Over the course of around 136 miles of testing—admittedly with some overenthusiastic driving at times but, for the most part, at tame slow speeds dictated by the tight Italian roads—the digital gauge screen reported 54% of range depleted. Some calculator work suggests that even at the speeds where EVs generally perform best, the Grecale Folgore will probably manage a real-world range of around 250 miles. (EPA testing is still underway, though it will almost certainly result in a range estimate well below the WLTP numbers.)

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In reality, 250 miles should serve most Grecale Folgore buyers just fine. Maserati also plans to sell the car with a Wallbox system for home charging, which can also handle load management to maximize charging efficiency based on overall energy usage during peak pricing periods. I can see the Wallbox topping up a Grecale Folgore at night, but the prospect of road-tripping and waiting for 150 kW top-ups on the side of the highway would have you envious of the new electric Porsche Macan's 270 kW charge rates.

Grecale Folgore buyers probably own another internal-combustion car for hauling the family, however. An electric SUV for running around town fits into the garage much more reasonably. And yet, Maserati's EV falls short of the competition in almost every significant statistic such buyers are judging on. In that regard, the Audi Q8 e-tron (a renamed version of the five-year-old SUV formerly known as e-tron) seems like the closest comparison with similarly solid—if not quite impressive—speed, range, and charging times.

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But Audi's supremely serene ride quality and superb suspension take the cake with ease. And taking a look at the forthcoming Macan EV on the other hand, shows how far VAG has come in the interim years. The Macan will offer up to 381 miles of range, weighs a few hundred pounds less than the Grecale Folgore, boasts up to 630 horsepower with 833 lb-ft of torque, and might even hit the market before the Maserati, which will officially arrive in the US for the 2025 model year bearing a price tag over $100,000.

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At the very least, some of the Grecale Modena and Trofeo's best selling points do shine through on Folgore, as well. The overall design arguably looks even better with the new grille, which curves inward à la early racecars, and some subtle exterior styling revisions that contribute to the improved aerodynamics (along with the battery's flatter underbody surface). On the interior, nifty cords of copper woven into carbon fiber trim hint at the all-electric powertrain, and otherwise the clean and futuristic lines fit perfectly into an EV ethos.

As on the Audi, Maserati opted not to allow the Grecale Folgore to drive in full one-pedal mode, and playing with the column-mounted shifters produces 0.1 and 0.2 g of deceleration with D- and D= selected. The point seems to be to make the gap between driving an ICE car and an EV seem less intimidating, as an effort to attract those last holdouts on the fence about making a leap of faith into the electric era. 

The undeniable appeal of a gas-powered Grecale Trofeo might not help those holdouts, who are exactly the kind of potential buyers most likely to peruse the Folgore's specs and decide that the disappointing range and charging statistics will not fit into their lifestyle. Instead, the electric Grecale will probably attract real-world customers already accustomed to the shift in mindset that EV ownership requires.

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For those prospective customers who want to shell out for this particular electric SUV, speccing the smallest 19-inch wheels with the tallest tire sidewalls, instead of my tester's 21-inchers and low-pros, might help in two regards: improving off-road capability and also maximizing potential range. Maserati likely made the right choice delaying the Folgore, since it's better to wait and deliver a finished product, but limitations of hardware and tech leave it facing an uphill struggle from day one, especially in an increasingly crowded electric crossover segment where it needs to stand out as much as possible.