“We will be last (with a production EV), and we have to arrive to the market with something different,” Fedeli said. “Very different.” As such, Maserati has no interest in taking cues from other makers, and certainly won’t be making a Telsa copycat.
“A Tesla fighter probably [is] not a good idea,” he mused, and then added, “I don’t think that Tesla is the best product in the market but they are doing 50,000 cars a year. The execution and quality of the products of Tesla are the same as a German OEM in the 1970s. Their solutions are not the best.” Those are some fighting words if we ever heard any.
So how will Maserati engineer a best-in-class solution? Part of it, Fedeli said, will be to make it feel like a Maserati. “Acceleration for three seconds, maximum, and that’s all the emotion that is found. After that there is nothing,” he lamented, commenting on the weight of most EVs today. “The EV is something different and we have to [give] the car [Maserati character].”
Ultimately, Fedeli hopes to create a car that is not only green and efficient, but also on-brand with the signature Maserati sports car feel. Consistency, Fedeli said, is absolutely key, and “needs to be solved” come 2020.
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