New Maserati GranTurismo Folgore 2025 review: near-£200k EV is quick, but compromised

Verdict

If you simply must have an all-electric, luxury 2+2, the Maserati GranTurismo Folgore will tick plenty of boxes. It’s mind-bendingly fast, decent to drive, and even pretty comfortable on the right road. Yet the usual compromises when it comes to weight, efficiency and range all apply – even if you can recharge the battery in the blink of an eye. Whether it feels special enough to command its near-£200k list price is up for debate, too.

Making an electric sports car isn’t easy. Fitting a bulky battery into a low-slung, two-door body is only the start – dealing with the inevitable weight penalty and dynamic compromises is another issue entirely.

Yet Maserati is one of the few manufacturers to have deemed it possible – albeit for an eyewatering starting price of almost £200,000. The GranTurismo Folgore is a five-metre-long, triple-motor 2+2 with 751bhp and up to 1,350Nm of torque. On paper it has all the right ingredients, but how does it perform on UK roads?

Slipping into the leather-covered cabin, the first thing you notice is how low you’re able to sit – even with that chunky 92.5kWh battery hiding beneath your backside. There’s an extensive amount of adjustment in the seat and steering wheel, so you can tweak things to provide a decent view out – even if the reflections in the rear screen can limit rearward visibility on a sunny day.

Used - available now

2020 Maserati

Granturismo

36,000 milesAutomaticPetrol4.7L

Cash £46,000

View Granturismo

There’s something to be said for being able to move off without that crescendo of revs you get in petrol rivals – not to mention the Folgore’s Trofeo-badged brother. Being able to creep out silently before sunrise is something your neighbours will no doubt thank you for.

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Another pleasing personality trait is the initial softness to the electric GranTurismo’s ride. This isn’t a car that’ll crash into potholes or bounce over speed humps around town; there’s a suppleness to both the chassis and suspension that makes it an incredibly comfortable thing to use when cruising from A to B.

Yet nor does it all come undone as you push on. There’s a slight delay to the throttle response in the car’s standard GT drive mode, although without it you’d be pinging into bushes or brick walls, or launching towards the horizon at the slightest flick of your right foot. Breach this small dead spot – or switch the car to Sport via the rotary dial on the steering wheel – and the Folgore is absolutely, unequivocally, mind-bendingly fast.

It’s accompanied by a subtle yet well-engineered soundtrack that somehow feels quite in-keeping with the car’s personality. It doesn’t mimic the brand’s Nettuno V6, and nor does it come across as too sci-fi or futuristic. The fact it adds to the driving experience without totally dominating proceedings is an achievement in its own right.

The triple-motor layout – one motor at the front, two at the rear – provides clever torque vectoring that not only gives incredible grip out of tight bends, but lightning-fast power delivery exactly where it’s needed. Agility, despite the car’s near-2.3-tonne kerbweight, is impressive.

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This is still a big car, however, and we often found ourselves wincing and breathing in as we attempted to pass trucks or tractors on narrow backroads. The Folgore would feel right at home on a wider Alpine pass, however.

So it’s a largely positive showing so far, but this isn’t a car devoid of compromise. At first glance, the materials look of decent quality – with leather and soft-touch fabrics covering almost every conceivable surface. Yet we noticed a couple of creaks from the dashboard, and our car’s denim-coloured carpets marked all too easily. 

The tech offering is reasonably intuitive, with a fully digital instrument cluster and two central screens – the lower of which is dedicated exclusively to the climate controls. It’s snappy and responsive to use, although we found the main screen’s refusal to default back to Apple CarPlay after changing drive modes rather frustrating. Confusingly, we couldn’t replicate this annoying quirk in the petrol GranCabrio we tried later in the day.

Then there’s the car’s range and efficiency, which, when you consider how quickly the petrol Trofeo can guzzle through a tank of fuel, may not be as atrocious as it first appears. We ended our test route with 69 per cent charge and 146 miles of range remaining – equating to just under 200 miles on a full battery. That said, it wouldn’t be too tricky to extract quite a bit more if you made use of the ‘Max Range’ function and approached proceedings with a lighter right foot.

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Yet if you do rinse through your charge quicker than expected, you’ll be able to top back up just about as fast as anything else on the road, thanks to the Folgore’s 800-volt electrical architecture and 270kW peak charge speed. Find the right DC charger and Maserati claims it can fill the battery from 10 to 80 per cent in just 18 minutes.

Only you can decide whether any of that is a deal-breaker, but few buyers will turn their noses up at the standard kit list. Every Folgore gets 20-inch front and 21-inch rear, diamond-cut alloy wheels, electronically variable adaptive dampers and air suspension, plus dual-cast, ventilated and drilled high-performance brakes, with black calipers. 

Inside, there’s loads of leather, ambient lighting for the doors, dash and footwells, a frameless mirror and a set of gorgeous aluminium gearshift paddles. The three screens are complemented by a 14-speaker, 860-watt Sonus Faber sound system and a whole host of connected features. And if that’s not enough, every car also comes with 18-way, electrically adjustable heated sports seats, wireless phone charging, keyless entry and go, plus two-zone climate control and matrix LED lights.

While you’re unlikely to buy this car if you regularly need to carry adults and their luggage, it’s good to know that the rear seats aren’t completely useless should you need them. The boot measures a reasonable 270 litres – about the same as your average supermini’s – despite a small step in the floor due to the complex rear motor layout.