- Stellantis is taking investment in future Maserati products
- Aston Martin will remove the jobs and delay the EV beginnings … again
- The luxury automotive industry continues to fight with electrification
Aston Martin and Maserati re -evaluate their plans for future electrification models, because the budget and the job cuts oblige companies to decide if there is an appetite for future electric vehicles bearing recognizable performance badges.
Earlier this week, Aston Martin announced his intention to reduce 5% of his workforce following heavy defeats in the fourth quarter at the end of last year, according to The Guardian.
Supply chain problems and demand for demand in China were cited as reasons for poor financial performance.
Although the brand has not linked the job discounts directly to its future EV launches, Adrian Hallmark, the current director general, told Telegraph that electric cars are “too extreme” for many of its customers and that we will not see Aston Martin entirely electric until “this last part of this decade”.
We had to see the British brand’s first attempt to electrify its range this year, but the model was then postponed until 2027 … and it now seems that it could be even more delayed.
Instead, Hallmark told Telegraph that rechargeable hybrid vehicles will be a priority, because “you get more torque in the acceleration phase, but you always get all the advantages of the combustion engine when the electric motor becomes less effective in the higher performance range.”
The manufacturer of Italian luxury Italian sports car Maserati also experiences increasingly disturbing sales figures, its sales lowering more than 50% last year, from 26,600 in 2023 to only 11,300 in 2024, according to Carscoops.
The company, which has only recently announced its range of electric vehicle vehicles which includes Grancabrio, Granturismo and Greek, will have to be launched while its owner Stellantis has disconnected on a planned investment of 1.2 billion pounds Sterling ($ 1.6 billion) this week.
The money had been reserved to create new and exciting models, including an electrified Maserati MSERATI MC20 supercar and EV replacements for Quattroporte and Levante models.
According to Autocar, Stellantis’s financial director Doug Ostermann still blamed performance in China, noting that the company had higher expectations concerning the luxury market and the speed with which it would go to electrification.
Luxury brands continue to deal with EV difficulties
Although it is disappointing that Aston Martin and Maserati had to reduce their future electric vehicle plans, they are not the only luxury car manufacturers who are struggling while the world pivots towards electrification.
Porsche said that he would reduce 1,900 jobs by 2029, according to the FT, because it would fight against the poor demand for electric vehicles, even going so far as to reflect on the possibility of changing internal combustion engines, which he indicates that he will continue to develop, in models which, previously, are all-electrical.
Lotus Cars, which currently belongs to the Chinese multinational Geely, has been resurrected as a highly electrified brand, but it indicates that it will bring the power of gas next year with a new “hyper hybrid” technology.
The CEO of Europe, Dan Balmer, told Evo magazine that it “reads the room” when it comes to determining the best motorcycle group to appease a constantly evolving market.
Unlike smaller and cheaper electric vehicles, buyers in the luxury market have been pushed by attractive price labels and even more painful residual values than batteries and electric motors bring with them.
Add to that the persistent meaning of the anxiety of the range and the lack of v6, V8 and V12 sound petrol engines, and this proves a disaster recipe for those who intend to make desirable performance machines.
