Alexandre
It will soon be 2 years since Maserati runs its Folgore prototypes. The initial product plan announced the Maserati Granturismo, Grancabrio and Grecale for 2023... ahead of the competition! However, to date, there's nothing in the showrooms. Worse still, there's a backlog...
Whether you like electric cars or not (see our podcast on electric cars and luxury), Maserati has been fully committed to this approach for several years. Rightly or wrongly, the fact remains that the Trident brand has been heavily impacted by the ecological malus in several European countries, with a sad record for Franceand therefore needs these 100 % electric models in its range.
And at the time, we really believed it, since the Granturismo Folgore and Grecale Folgore were unveiled almost 2 years ago, plus a roadtrip to California for the GT.
Yet here we are in 2023, the date when we should be seeing all 3 models on the road, and nothing. According to our information, the Grecale Folgore was due to arrive first, in early summer. Then finally the Granturismo, in September, then October...
A sledgehammer blow, Maserati is now announcing the first deliveries of the Granturismo Folgore for June 2024... for no official reason.
It seems that in the world of luxury electric cars, nobody wants to be the first to launch.
To compare launch dates, Lotus, the Chinese-British brand, is already there. Alpine will go soon... The Porsche Macan BEV will arrive in 2024, the Cayenne BEV in 2026, Lamborghini not before 2028...
Except that when you see the sales of the 33, you understand that the clientele isn't there, so what's the point in rushing if customers only order the V6 version?
If you have a choice, you always go for the internal combustion version. Presenting electric cars that customers won't want is pointless.
The thermal 33 Stradales found buyers straight away, but for the electric 33 Stradale, as I understand it, it was more complicated.
What's the point of offering something that Maserati buyers won't want?
Not everyone dreams of a Tesla, we'll leave that to the eco bobos who buy a big iPad on wheels.
The proof is that there's only one 33 electric reserved, and even then it's not certain that it'll hold an order for long, because the customer can change his mind.
I doubt that EV drivers are first and foremost ecologists...(at least, that's what I see around me).
They're not environmentalists at all, they're bobos who want to look trendy, who believe that America is a Paradise (without knowing it 3/4 of the time) and hope to look good in the eyes of the clowns of the earth who call themselves intellectuals (but dumb as balls 🧹 at c......!
EVs have no appeal. Not even an ecological one. The problem is that the world is pandering to a minority of incompetents. Rousseau, Tonnelier and others are stupid people who talk nonsense and whom we listen to instead of thinking about finding viable solutions to climate change.
If you ride a bike in the city, you'll quickly understand the benefits - it's a matter of public health. As for the ecological aspect, it all depends on whether you want to build panzers like the "Lotus" Eletre or continue to work on weight. One thing's for sure: economically and geopolitically, Italy and France have no oil, so we import it at the price set by the Saudis and Qataris, on whom we depend, and we're far from being their priority customers. And we know that they finance a lot of other things.
Except that having stopped nuclear power and the fantastic plant that recycles it... we haven't shot ourselves in the foot... we've shot ourselves in the head.
It's mostly Total that sets the prices in France... stop believing what television 📺 tells you.
The price depends above all on the barrel of crude oil, which in turn depends on the production decided by the OPEC countries, led by Saudi Arabia, with the USA self-consuming their production and Russia boycotted (preferring to sell to the Chinese anyway). Biden asked Saudi Arabia to increase its production in 2022, but the country sent Biden packing and instead reduced it. The moral? Saudi Arabia is in charge, and that's a fact.
But that doesn't stop Totale from making huge profits, and she doesn't hesitate to pass herself off as a victim while raking in colossal fortunes.
But that doesn't stop European countries like France and Italy from eating out of the hands of leaders like Gaddafi (whose son is starting to show his face again) or MBS. And they're financing people who have a real grudge against us, with the billions we've been sending them since their independence. We can dig all we want, but we won't find oil here. Generally speaking, there will be less and less of it, and supertankers will always go first to China... On the other hand, we know how to make electricity with wind, sun, sea or geothermal energy, which we have plenty of. Since energy is vital to the functioning of our societies, the conclusion is quite simple and has a name: transition. Of course, we mustn't let things get out of hand the way they've been going, in the sense that we manage nothing for twenty years and then suddenly realize that all photovoltaic and battery production is in South-East Asia...
"That doesn't stop European countries like France and Italy from eating out of the hands of leaders like Gaddafi (whose son is starting to show his face again) or MBS. And they're funding people who really have it in for us, with the billions we've been sending them since their independence."
So when I said you should stop watching television, it's true, because you're very, very far from reality, which is much more sordid than that. I work for international organizations, and between what you're told and reality... it's night and day, and the best thing, Fredo, would be for you to see it for yourself.
As for the rest, you're partly right, but the proposals you rightly put forward are excellent, but they don't make it possible to have a vital contribution if we include means of locomotion in general. Which brings us back to the same problem.
For example, Switzerland has had everything you're proposing for a very, very long time, especially geothermal energy, but without various types of fuel, they couldn't do it, and yet their population is only the equivalent of Paris and its suburbs.... So what about France?
Which comes back to what I've been telling you all along... the solution is an "ALL" like at the beginning of the last century.
There is a solution but no government wants to hear about it in the West and above all are ready to do anything to prevent it... the quantum engine because that would prevent multinationals managed by unscrupulous cockroaches from lining their pockets!!!!