Maserati is no longer the flagship of the Stellantis group. Dimised sales, too high prices and poor investments in new models have led to the doubling of losses in 2024. And now the top management must decide how (and if) to relaunch the great Italian brand.
Theme: how to destroy an icon of Italian luxury and engineering. Carrying out: describe the decline of the Maserati. A perfect case, because the House of the Trident is sailing in the deepest crisis of its ultra -actor history, a storm unleashed by a concatenation of strategic errors that brought this glorious brand on the edge of the abyss. And today Maserati represents a complicated rebus for the leaders of Stellantis, led by the new CEO Antonio Filosa and by the president John Elkann, already struggling with the group’s crisis, in red for 2.3 billion in the first half.
The most evident symptom of the difficulties of the trident is revealed in all its crudeness with economic results. The loss of 701 million euros in 2024, in dramatic escalation compared to the already worrying 96 million lost in 2023, is the direct consequence of a shoulder strap of global sales, dropped by 58 percent to only 11,300 units. As a reflection, the turnover fell by 60.6 percent and the operating margin has sunk from +6 percent to a disastrous -25 percent. This bleeding forced Stellantis to an urgent intervention with an injection of capital of 350 million euros, an operation that appears more as a buffer to avoid bankruptcy than as a strategic investment for the future.
The most tangible reflection of this crisis is the suffering of the factories. In the historic factory in Modena, in the first half of 2025, just 45 cars were produced. In Mirafiori, only 70. While on the Cassino website the overall production of the first semester stopped at 10,500 units (-35 percent), of which only a quarter relating to the Greek SUV. This led to a massive use of the layoffs and a specialized personnel escape, an incalculable damage to the precious human and artisan capital of the brand.
But what are the causes of the disaster? The failure lies in a series of incorrect strategic choices. The heart of the problem was the claim to impose prices from pure luxury for a range perceived as obsolete. Key models like Ghibli and Quattroporte, launched in 2013, were left to age without heirs, while Stellantis imposed a policy of aggressive increases. This strategy created the “false luxury trap”: it alienated historical customers, not willing to pay an unjustified surcharge, and did not conquer the true customers of luxury, who, on the same expense, continued to prefer Porsche or Ferrari.
The ambition to position Maserati as a “first electric luxury brand” has also turned into an expensive failure. With just 150 electric vehicles sold in European key markets in 2024, the Folgore project has never breached. Fuorted by delays (the new Quattroporte Folgore has been slipped from 2025 to 2028), second thoughts and cancellations (the Mc20 Folgore), has shown a serious weakness of planning. Maserati blindly chased a directive fallen from above without mature technology and without understanding his client, ending up discontent both the thermal engines of thermal engines and the new followers of the electricity.
Ultimately, the responsibility falls on the management of Stellantis by the former CEO Carlos Tavareswhich applied to the trident a logic as a generalist manufacturer, obsessed with the efficiency and sharing of platforms, without grasping the unique dynamics of luxury. The winning strategies for Peugeot or Jeep proved to be catastrophic for a brand that lives on uniqueness, desibilities and history. “The company, after the Tavares treatment, made of cuts in the personalization options, pricing of product outside Target (a Maserati GT it cost almost as much as a Ferrari Entry Level), the absence of investments for the renewal of the range on key models such as Levante and Quattroporte, has lost the support of the sales force and production continuity” underlines Francesco Zirpoli, professor of Economy at the Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice and Director of the Center For Automotive and Mobility Innovation and the Observatory on the transformations of the automotive ecosystem. «The Maserati brand is still strong and can position itself between Ferrari and Alfa Romeo, in competition with brands like Porsche. To do this, it will be essential to restore investments in the Quattroporte and Levante key models and revitalize the Grecale. However, this will require imposing investments, both technological and productive and a new pact with the sales force ».
The product roadmap announced instead appears weak. With the models of volume (Ghibli, Levante) out of production, Maserati will face the market with a range essentially reduced to Grecale and Granturismo. It is a risky bet that risks collapsing the sales network before the new models, expected between 2027 and 2028, see the light. To complicate everything, the threat of the US duties, which could give grace to a brand for which the USA represent a crucial market, is looming.
Faced with this picture, the future is wrapped in uncertainty. Officially, Stellantis denies any sales hypothesis and promises a new industrial plan. However, the group entrusted McKinsey the task of evaluating “all possibilities” for the future of Maserati and Alfa Romeo, a move that feeds doubts.
In the meantime, rumors confirm the interest of potential buyers, such as the Chinese house Chery. According to a top manager who for years has worked at the highest level in FCA (the former Fiat Conflitita in Stellantis) “Maserati is now in a structural crisis that involves products, technology, distribution network, residual values used. You need a lot of money to raise it. I don’t think any western manufacturer can afford this luxury ». The unions instead hope for us. “We ask that Maserati remains inside the group and that there is a real relaunch plan because we must not forget that the luxury pole was originally had to be a flagship of Stellantis” comments Samuele Lodi, national secretary Fiom-Cgil. “The problem is that the will to invest and our fear is missing is that in the end we arrive at a moment in which they will decide to put it on sale, as in the case of Iveco”.
There are three options on the table: a serious relaunch within Stellantis, which requires a financial and managerial commitment so far absent; the sale to another group with a true luxury culture; Or a deep synergy with Ferrari, who would solve the problems of technical credibility but perhaps unattractive for the rampant horse. In the absence of one of these drastic solutions, the risk that the trident slips towards irrelevance or disappearance is tragically concrete. Time, for Maserati, is about to expire.
