Maserati Grecale Folgore Is All-Electric Luxury Performance in an SUV Body

• Maserati's sporty Grecale Folgore two-row SUV goes all-electric, making it the third such drivetrain available in the SUV along with gas and hybrid powertrains.

• It's part of Maserati's march to all-electric power by 2028.

• The Grecale Folgore arrives in July priced over $100,000.

Lightning has struck in Modena.

Maserati has said that by 2025, all its models will be available in a full-electric version, and the entire Maserati range will run on electricity alone by 2028. First with the Gran Turismo Folgore, and now with the new, sporty and efficient Grecale Folgore SUV you see here, it is making good progress toward that goal.

Folgore means “lightning” in Italian, or, more precisely, “thunderbolt,” a good name for an electric performance SUV.

“Grecale,” meanwhile, is the name for the wind that blows in from the northeast, or it just means “Greece” in Italian, a country which is sort of northeast of Italy if you start in Syracuse down on the Italian island of Sicily and aim up and to the right. Maserati likes to use wind names for its models: consider the Ghibli, Bora, Karif, Khamsin, and Shamal.

In this case, the thunderbolt comes from a 105-kWh battery (96.7 useable) riding under the floor of the Grecale, powering one electric motor on the front axle and another on the rear. Together the motors make 550 hp and 605 lb-ft of torque, enough to zap you to 62 mph in 4.1 seconds, and to a top speed of 137 mph, Maserati says.

With a few efficiencies over the gasoline- and hybrid-powered Grecales, the five-passenger Folgore has an all-electric range of 311 miles. Perhaps if it had more efficient tires it would go farther, but Maserati wants it to be a performance SUV, not some sort of gigantic Fiat 500e.

So the sleek beast rides on meat-eating Pirelli P-Zeros, 255/40s in front and 295/35s rear, mounted on 21-inch rims. The exact model of P-Zero is “ELECT,” where the “C” in ELECT is shaped like an electric plug. So the delicate balance between performance and efficiency is maintained.

Likewise, while an electric drivetrain can be downright quiet, Maserati wants their electric SUV to sound like a performance vehicle, so you not only get sounds pumped inside the cabin, but three speakers send sounds to the outside, and you can’t turn any of them off. True, the exterior sounds are required by law, to a point, but Maserati felt it was important to have some sounds accompanying the driving experience at all times.

“This was a discussion inside Maserati, there was a discussion,” said engineering vehicle line executive Andrea Zizak.

“I was not a believer in the beginning, but then after driving a lot I became a believer in this sound,” said Maserati E-Mobility Expert Carlo Lazzaroni. “We want every Maserati to make a sound, which is the Folgore sound. We even think it could be a signature sound for the Maserati of the future. Like they used to be in the past.”

Lazzaroni said the mandatory sound could be changed in the future so customers could turn it off. The tones weren’t intrusive, but sometimes you just want the sound of silence.

The Grecale Folgore rides on a modified version of the gas- and hybrid-powered models, but a look at a chassis laid bare in front of us sure looked like a bespoke platform. The main part of the platform consists of a big rectangular aluminum frame surrounding the big battery, with separate subframes attached front and rear holding the big motors.

Air shocks are positioned at all four corners and can be adjusted to four different drive modes: GT, which is the normal mode for everyday driving, Sport, Offroad, and Max Range.

Over a few hundred miles of Italian two-lanes down around the heel of the boot, the Grecale did feel fun to drive. Given more curves than we were able to find that day it would probably feel pretty sporty for a largish SUV.

It’s sportier than the Q8 e-tron and BMW iX, for instance, though only a little more, and definitely sportier on a curvy road than the Mercedes EQS SUV and Tesla Model X, though all of those hold their own in those environments.

And yes, this might actually go off-road, though most owners probably won’t take them very far. I got to try it off-road for a short stretch, just a flat dirt road down around the heel of the boot, and it did fine. Offroad mode raises the ride height 1.4 inches from the default “GT” mode, the latter which is the most comfortable. “Sport” lowers it a little more than a half-inch from GT.

But this is still a Maserati, so even in the softest GT mode the ride is firm, maybe just a little too firm for the average buyer. For them there are plenty of other choices available in luxury SUVs: the BMW iX, Rivian R1S, Audi Q8 e-tron, Mercedes EQS SUV, and Tesla Model X, just to name a few around this price range and approximate size. If comfort and price are priorities, the Cadillac Lyriq and Lexus RZ are similar-sized luxury crossover EVs.

Prices for the Maserati Grecale Folgore weren’t released at the time of our drive, but I was told it’ll be over $100,000 when it arrives in showrooms in July. It’s a good compromise that leans more into the sporty category than its competitors.

Mine did have a few hiccups. The navigation system took a bit too long to respond most of the day, then crashed during my drive. The screen went black, took a minute to reboot, then the “tom tom” brand name appeared for a while.

Engineers went to work on it and it operated just fine the rest of the day, but be sure to hire a couple full-time Maserati engineers to ride with you if you need NAV (it’ll be fun—the ones I spoke with were charming conversationalists).

Yes, I could do without the performance sound, subtle as it was. The electric power steering could have been a bit more communicative. And then there’s the six-figure price, but this is a brand that has competed directly with Ferrari for a half-century or more.

When I get a chance to drive a Ferrari Purosangue, I’ll tell you how it stacks up against the Grecale Folgore. But remember, the Purosangue costs four times as much.

For now, this is a molto bene, very sporty entry in a field that keeps growing.

Are you in the market for a six-figure electric SUV? Would this do it?