You might not know what to expect from the 2024 Maserati Grecale Folgore, its first battery electric SUV, unless you know what its name translates to. Grecale means Greece, Folgore means lighting. Is the 110-year-old Italian automaker secretly trying to tell us something?

Maserati is the top luxury brand in Stellantis’ grab bag of automakers. As such, it’s being revitalized with a host of new products. By this time next year, it will offer a battery electric variant of every Maserati under the Folgore name. By 2028, when a new Maserati Quattroporte is due, the brand intends to be fully electric.

The strategy comes as Maserati realigned its business strategy a couple years ago. Having once produced more models than sales warranted, and then resorting to move the metal with cheap leases and incentives, Maserati has since changed course, limiting production and raising prices in effort to reinstate its proper luxury status in the market.

The change in attitude came with the release of the MC20 in 2020, a limited-edition mid-engine supercar meant to take on the world’s finest.

The automaker has since stuck to its playbook, despite releasing vehicles like Grecale, which is meant to be its mainstream offering. Nonetheless, mainstream has a different meaning at Maserati – the Grecale starts at $68,500, and the new Grecale Folgore EV expected to top $100,000.

The 2024 Maserati Grecale Folgore, like its fossil-fuel-powered Grecale SUV stablemates, is built using Stellantis’ Giorgio architecture that underpins the Alfa Romeo Giulia sedan and Stelvio SUV. But the engineers had to accommodate the Grecale Folgare’s 105-kWh battery pack, so it lowered the Grecale’s floorpan by 1.6 inches, causing some loss in ground clearance, although it’s still sufficient for most tasks, at 6.7 inches.

And those cells produce 550 horsepower and 605 pound-feet of torque, enough to move this mass of metal to 60 mph in about four seconds. Top speed is 137 mph. Power comes on smooth and strong, much like a petrol-powered Grecale. Thankfully, engineers resisted the temptation to endow it with the excessive torque punch typical of too many SUVs. As a result, it feels for more substantial and less juvenile than other EVs.

Range is rated at 311 miles, but that’s according to the optimistic European WLTP rating, not the EPA’s, which hasn’t been released. Don’t be surprised if the range is actually closer to 250 miles. Blame the lack of range on the Maserati Grecale Folgore’s fancy footwear, which is comprised of grippy 21-inch Pirelli P-Zeros, rather than the EV-friendly rubber typically used to extract miles at the expense of traction.

Why? This EV wears the famous trident badge, and there are certain performance expectations that come with it.

Like noise. Maserati models typically sing a cylinder-fed symphony made of an exhaust note that make anyone weak in the knees. But EVs are silent as there’s no controlled explosion, as there is in a petrol-filled vehicle. So, there’s an artificial noise generated inside and out to help mask the powertrain’s true nature. Such fakery is an anathema, particularly since it can’t be shut off or turned down. But it does serve as aural ear candy that links the present to the past.

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