Verdict

The all-electric GranTurismo Folgore is a key car for Maserati, because it represents the future for one of Italy’s most famous car companies. In most ways it’s a strong contender that has huge on-paper performance, looks good and has an obvious sense of occasion at its core. But the electric powertrain lacks charisma and the performance isn’t as dramatic as it should be in practice, so the jury’s still out – for the time being.

The new GranTurismo Folgore – which means ‘lightning’ in Italian – is a crucial new car for Maserati. Why? Because the all-electric powertrain that sits beneath its elegant new nose then runs all the way beneath its aluminium floor and stylish new body will – eventually – become the only powertrain available in a Maserati, once fossil-fuelled cars have left the building sometime within the next decade. So Maserati needs to get it right, no excuses.

For the time being, the Folgore will go on sale alongside V6-engined versions of the all-new GranTurismo so that by 2025 all new Maseratis will be offered with a choice of either EV or V6 petrol propulsion.

The version we’re driving here is a late-stage pre-production car with a non-representative dashboard, hence the reason there are no cabin photographs of this available yet. The proper interior will be revealed in late spring, says Maserati. But for the rest of the car, what you see is what you get, and in simple terms this means you get an awful lot. That is on paper, at…