Alexandre
As it does every quarter, Stellantis has just released its figures (well, the ones they're willing to release). The brand Maserati is always the focus of particular attention, as it is the group's only luxury brand. And the figures aren't good - well, not as good as the year before. But still, good for a brand that claims to be luxury...
Stellantis announces that Maserati sales down 20 %. By the 3rd quarter of 2023, the trident brand will have delivered 5,300 vehicles, compared with 6,600 the year before.
To justify this, Stellantis points the finger at China. Stellantis is a very strange man, who could have blamed any country except Italy or the USA, the brand's two best customers. Note that FCA had already blamed China in 2018 when sales collapsed.
A special mention for France, with 97 ridiculous models registered. from January to September 2023... with 14 dealers. We're thinking of them...
As a reminder, here is the breakdown Maserati sales by country in the first half of 2023.
So it's true that, as in other countries around the world, Maserati sales collapsed in China.
And I've done my little research on Chinese news sites for you.
Maserati sales in China
| Year | Sales |
|---|---|
| H1 2023 | 1860 |
| 2022 | 4855 |
| 2021 | 7747 |
| 2020 | 4810 |
| 2019 | 6000 |
| 2018 | 11000 |
| 2017 | 14500 |
| 2016 | 12000 |
Clearly, yes, China has been a very good customer for Maserati. At the brand's peak, in 2017, out of 51,500 sales, 14,500 were units in China.
How to explain that sales almost divided by 10 between 2017 and 2023? Here's what Chinese news sites have to say.
1. Contested interior quality Chinese critics have often pointed the finger at the mediocre interior design of certain Maserati models. For a luxury brand, the interior finish should be commensurate with the price, which some consumers feel has not always been the case.
2. Technical problems : The year 2022 was marked by three Maserati recall announcements in China. Flagship models such as the MC20, Levante hybrid and Ghibli hybrid were affected. The most notable recall concerned 755 Levante hybrid cars from 2022 for a problem with loose bolts. Such negligence on such a high-value luxury car is surprising, to say the least.
3. Maintenance costs After-sales maintenance costs have also been a bone of contention for many Chinese owners.
4. Disappearance of the Ferrari engine When the Fiat group handed over control of Maserati to Ferrari in the 1990s, many Maserati models benefited from Ferrari engines. This was a major selling point, all over the world. Since then, new models have featured 4-cylinder and 6-cylinder engines with sounds less bewitching than Ferrari's V6 and V8.
Above all, it's the fact that Maserati's products are ill-suited to the Chinese market, and that the competition (German, British or Japanese in recent months) has been in a downward spiral.
The Chinese have decided to play the protectionist card, targeting only domestic products and apparently finding European cars has-been. Maserati's problem is the loss of the Russian market, which is very fond of this type of product. Switzerland is holding on thanks to the Grecale. It's time to renew the Ghibli (they want to stop it), the Quattroporte and the Levante.
What's also missing are showrooms and after-sales services similar to Ferrari's, and putting Lancia and Alfa in the same category.
above all, he gets Maserati out of FE and gives them more convincing sporting support (raise your hand if you're a FE fan).
In short, the only way out for FCA is to leave Stellantis for the Alfa/Lancia/Maserati business, as well as for Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep.
And once again, the Alfieri is sorely lacking from the range.
Maserati's problem isn't China, it's that they sell crap products, that's all!
Like Alfa Romeo in the premium segment, Maserati is finished in the luxury segment, having suffered too much from years of poor management by Fiat to match the competition in terms of brand reputation, product quality and customer perception.
Meanwhile, Lamborghini's average price is 2 times higher than Maserati's:
"Our trajectory of growth and development continues and this shows that our direction is the right one and that our choices are paying off, 2023 will be a year of challenges and changes for which we are ready, going from strength to strength."
- Stephan Winkelmann, Lamborghini CEO
Lamborghini has produced, produces and will always produce crap in a box, because when you can't make a sports car with a gearbox and a clutch that burn out after 5,000 km, not to mention engines that have to be completely rebuilt every 25,000 km, you can't take it back. Lamborghini wants to be Ferrari's competitor, but not only will they never succeed because Ferrari creates its cars from scratch, something Lamborghini's daubs can't do, but when Ferrari sells its models with several years of orders in a short space of time and voluntarily limits its number of vehicles, Lamborghini is obliged to make daubs on Audi chassis (a total washout) to make a crappy URUS that was wiped out by the arrival of the Purosangue. Ferrari is able to sell unique cars, while Lamborghini has been trying for years but failing miserably. The Lamborghini Egoista, which looks like a CORN SPREADER and looks like nothing, and many others that were supposed to be made in ultra-limited series have been a total failure (in short, an absolute disgrace), and soon they'll be making their sports cars on Chinese car chassis!😂🤣👎
Comparing Maserati to Lamborghini shows that you don't know the first thing about cars, because Lamborghini is "supposedly a sports brand" (or "sports junk", which is more in keeping with the brand's image), whereas Maserati is a luxury-sports brand whose competitors include Aston Martin and Jaguar, to name but two brands that are dying! What's more, the Grecale is a thousand times more efficient than the URUS (which is just as ugly as the Maserati) and it's not in China that Lamborghini mainly sells, but in the Middle East with their URUS, because the rest of the range is not at all selling as advertised and was supposed to take Ferrari's place, whereas even McLaren is doing a thousand times better in terms of product and sales of sports cars than Lamborghini, even though McLaren hasn't been making production cars for ages.
What's more, Alfa is not a prenium brand but a sports brand and has created the absolute reference sedan like the Stelvio. Competitors who have tried to do the same have fallen flat on their faces (the proof is in the video: ( https://youtu.be/2grDqqQdwhs?si=dz2amTqwv7FMqb2R )
We're not going to talk about BMW, which tries to make sports cars that are always a resounding flop, like the M1, the 8 series, the I8 or the 7 series limousines, which are an abyss for BMW because Mercedes and especially Lexus bury it like no one's business.🤣👎
When you see the look on Audi's face with its rotten cars, just like VAG, which has just announced 11 BILLION in losses and is crying to the Chancellery like a hobo because it's on its last legs and the German government has had to go to China to try and offload the VAG and Audi crap that nobody wants, giving them billions on the sly and having to make "so-called prenium" on Chinese car chassis, Not only does this prove that this group is the BULLSHIT of the automotive world, but they've never been able to make decent chassis and have always been steamrolled by the competition (it took Lexus 1 year to steamroll them in the USA 🇺🇸 and 3 years to steamroll BMW and Mercedes with it). Their Audi A8 is such a piece of garbage that it's always been sold at a loss, and even now nobody wants it, and they've announced that they're going to stop making HDG sedans because their unsellable crap is a fiasco.
The Seat takeover was an absolute failure and the brand will be bankrupt by 2030, just like Bugatti, which was sold to Rimac because their hypercars were rubbish and were wiped out by the competition.
And then there are the VAG Group scams:
-diesel Gate not finished
-Aluminium cartel (not yet judged)
-Truck Cartel (they dumped the others to get away)
-Cartlel particulate filters
-falsification of the serial numbers of their Audi, Porsche, VAG garbage taken back to the USA to sell them on the sly in Asia but they got fooled like nickel feet)!😂👎
When you see Audi's sales in China and in the USA 🇨🇳, it's laughable because it's a FIASCO since they only make crap 💩! Not to mention their Etron, which was supposed to revolutionize electric cars but has revolutionized nothing at all and is a resounding flop.
Before saying that Maserati and Alfa make crap, you would have to try the products (which proves the opposite of what you say) and surely have the financial means to afford them... which I don't think is your case!😂
Speaking of Audi, would you also say that the RS 6 and RS 3 are crap?
I haven't driven them, but I think they're pretty good.
As for the other Audis, I've never understood what they really bring to the table compared with Volkswagens, apart from superior finish.
Lamborghinis are perfect for two-bit show-offs, but they're nothing like Ferraris.
Go and try an RS3 to see if it's so fantastic, because when you're constantly forced to put 4WD on a sports car, while the competition does better with simple traction or rear-wheel drive, and on the RS3 you're forced to have a much wider set of tires at the front than at the rear.... yes, it's a real piece of crap, and the RS6, if we stay with German cars, doesn't hold a candle to the M5 or the E AMG, to name but two, because if you go around the world, there are a whole bunch of them, even American ones, that are way above the rest.
You've lost nothing by not trying them.
When you look at the finish of an Audi, Lamborghini or Porsche, you can't come close to matching Lexus, who are the pinnacle of the field, which is why Lexus has been unbeatable in many countries for 1994.
Yes, but most customers buy for the image and because they have the money and know nothing about cars, and since it looks less good for them to say I drive a stelvio than an x3 or Mercedes, Alfa sells a lot less 😐
Dav is just in France, because in other countries it's the opposite (Switzerland, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Austria, Belgium, etc.). In France, the Audi cars we come across are often second-hand imports, and the new ones we buy are diesels!
The proof that it doesn't work is that the TT, the R8, etc. are finished, and I bet that like the electric Macan, the boxster and the Cayman will be a flop in all-electric form.
It's true that most drivers are big rednecks who don't know much about cars. Driving a German makes them feel safe, and they feel they're buying social status.
Except that when you go to countries with high purchasing power like Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and others, it's mostly Lexus products that you come across, and I'm not even talking about the USA, which sees in Japanese brands a reliability that the Germans will never achieve (apart from Mercedes before the 2000s).
In 2 words, Lexus must be making the Germans dizzy, and the fact that Lexus has just announced the arrival of the new VAN de Luxe is going to push the nail in even further, and Mercedes is going to end up in cardiac arrest, because from what I understand, the order book in Switzerland for the Lexus VAN is already full, and it will be mid-2025 before any more are ordered.
Even in the Permanent Missions, we see Lexus everywhere and a few Quattroporte, but Mercedes, apart from a few armored limousines, is really struggling, and we're not even talking about Audi, which hasn't been in the race for 10 years, and the 7 series, which are selling so slowly that we hardly ever see them except in limousine companies, and even then they're gradually disappearing.
Dear Sir, to say that MASERATI products are crap is too much! And even the comparison with Lamborghini doesn't hold water, even if we're talking about the MC20. We're talking about two different levels: levels of performance, engine and chassis type.
Since 2013 with the Ghibli, the 5th Quattroporte and the arrival of the Levante, sales have evolved and reached 50,000 units in 2017. Of course, this was followed by the inevitable evolution to hybrids, which led to a loss of verve towards true all-mechanical engines such as the V6 and V8, not to mention the abandonment of the diesel. With the arrival of the FOLGORE versions, the market will take off again.
Above all, he forgets to admit that the URUS is really a beast when it comes to reliability, because it's just an Audi clone and even has the same problems. In Switzerland, they're sold after 50,000 kilometers, because the invoice costs more than the product itself, and in Talloires there's one that's been for sale for 18 months, and even after lowering the price by 20%!below the going rate... it can't find a buyer... nobody wants it. Their so-called SUV coupé sedan is going the same way.
The Chinese are moving away from European products, so why is Stellantis still trying to get his teeth into them?
Maserati sales in France are ridiculous, on a par with Belgium, which has a population one-sixth the size, but that's hardly surprising. The €50,000 malus (soon to rise to €60,000) deters a lot of buyers.
For France, all of them are leaving, as Lexus, Toyota, Subaru, Mazda and many others announce that their sports cars will no longer be sold in France.
Maserati doesn't sell shitty products, I don't see what this has to do with Lamborghini, Maserati is deliberately in a lower range than Ferrari but today a Maserati is very expensive and the clientele doesn't necessarily follow, plus they might need better stores and good service. Let's hope that the renewal of the range will give them a boost, but as long as Stellantis doesn't understand that people still want thermals 🤔🤔🤔
Forget it, because ever since the VAG fan boys found out that their group was on the verge of bankruptcy (new 11 billion loss, total failure of Audi in the high-end segment, bankruptcy of Seat, judgment in progress for all the other scams, total failure of Bugatti and resales, Chinese chassis to make the group's electric cars)... they've hated it!🤣
You only have to look at the electric Porsches that were supposed to become benchmarks in terms of products and sales, and which are backtracking because nobody wants them and are benchmarks in... nothing at all!😂🤣
In any case, Lamborghini is a Premium brand, because when you share platforms and mechanical components with a generalist, you're not a sports brand.
In short, if you really want exclusivity, you have to go to Ferrari, McLaren, koeninseeg, who do everything themselves (even Pagani has Mercedes make a lot of components for them, and they're just an assembler).