Maserati Found Supercar Buyers' Big Dealbreaker, And The MC20 Folgore Paid The Price

Maserati has, for all intents and purposes, done exactly the same thing since 1914, and that is make Italian supercars with classically beautiful looks and wacky engines. It's fairly traditional, at least as far as Italian sportscar companies go. The contemporary Maserati MC20 is a continuation of that tradition. It has butterfly doors that all Italian supercar should have, a huge Maserati badge on the grille, and a wild 621 horsepower V6. 

Maserati, in its push towards electrification, thought it was a good idea to make an electric version of the MC20, by the name "MC20 Folgore" ("Folgore" being Italian for "thunderbolt"). On paper, that all sounds great and pretty straightforward as far as current car trends are going. After all, the automaker already made a GranTurismo and GranCabrio Folgore.

Instant torque and the low center of gravity that are inherent to EVs tend to make for a pretty enjoyable driving experience. But here's the rub, apparently no one wanted an electric MC20 Folgore, so Maserati canceled it, and that might actually be more Maserati's fault than the sometimes fickle tastes of the supercar market.

The news, first reported by Autocar, doesn't mean eager preorder customers will be left disappointed. In fact, Maserati never actually put the MC20 Folgore up for sale in the first place; the automaker is framing the project as part of its usual "market studies" to gauge potential new models. Turns out, the answer they heard was that buyers aren't so swayed yet, even by the promise of very fast electric cars.

"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 like the Maserati Nettuno V6, which incorporates F1-derived technologies, but are not ready to switch to BEVs for the foreseeable future," a Maserati spokesperson told SlashGear. "In light of this, Maserati is currently managing the manufacturing ramp-up of the GT2 Stradale version of the MC20 in Modena, which will be available to North American customers this summer, but has decided to discontinue the MC20 BEV Project due to a perceived lack of commercial interest."

Italian supercar brands like Lamborghini and Ferrari, by their very nature, don't much follow prevailing market trends. The core of both product lineups remain the same: the best Italian performance cars that (a lot of) money can buy, with cars that remain faithful to the brand. 

Advances in technology are certainly present in contemporary Ferraris and Lamborghinis. The Lamborghini Revuelto utilizes a hybrid drivetrain, for example, and Ferrari has dabbled with hybrids since the LaFerrari. But change came very slowly, and neither company has risked a full EV yet. Changing the newest Lambo or Rosso Corsa Red-colored Ferrari to utilize an entirely electric drivetrain would undoubtedly polarize a number of stalwart fans and collectors, a very good reason for why neither brand has made the switch, or even promised to electrify their whole lineup.

Maserati, on the other hand, made the aggressive call to electrify its entire lineup by 2028. That would've left the automaker with less than three years to completely revamp what everyone knows Maserati for. Electrifying a lineup isn't a bad thing, and there are plenty of fantastic electric performance cars out there–Lucid Air Sapphire, we're looking at you–but there's something to be said about a slow, measured pace as opposed to a wholesale change made seemingly for its own sake. 

If Maserati wanted to modernize the MC20 in the "right way," I think, it would adopt a hybrid drivetrain. It worked tremendously well for Porsche and the 918 Spyder, McLaren with the P1, and Chevy with the Corvette E-Ray. Those brands are no strangers to tradition either. 

A hybrid drivetrain wouldn't compromise on the intangible "soul" that's inherent to internal combustion engines, yet it would still possess the wild performance metrics of an EV. Maserati could also lean into the poetry that's present in "old" technology working with cutting-edge electric motors. It would be a win-win for Maserati as more traditionally minded customers would like the growl of an engine and the whistle of turbochargers, while new buyers could get behind the technology aspect.

In that way, maybe cutting the idea altogether was a better idea than pushing forward and failing after the fact. It might have saved Maserati a little bit of dignity down the line, and granted the rest of us a little longer with that sweet-sounding Nettuno V6.