When you attend auto shows as often as we do, it starts to become obvious what automakers are arrogant, which ones get more attention than they deserve, and which ones are completely lost. Maserati falls into a couple of these categories, and the middle one isn’t one of them. It’s not that the company doesn’t have good-looking cars; it surely does. The Ghibli, Levante, and the GranTurismo are all gorgeous cars in their own right. For starters, the brand keeps its show vehicles blocked off like there’s a dead body hidden in one of their trucks – this is where the arrogance comes in. But, part of its biggest problem is that the Maserati booth almost never gets any attention. The Maserati booth is almost empty for the press preview and manufacturer preview days, and when the doors open to the public, they don’t get the attention they really deserve.

Part of that has to do with an aging lineup and the fact that the company doesn’t really do much to differentiate its models from each other or other models on the market. All of that is set to change, though, starting in 2020, but things will get even better within the first few years of the new decade.

Maserati Aims to Go Electric With a New Sports Car

That isn’t all that groundbreaking. Not at all, actually. But, what comes after that is, and it will send the Maserati brand in an all-new direction. There’s a baby Maserati SUV in the cards and, more importantly, there’s an all-new sports car that will be built in the company’s Modena production facility. And, since that’s production facility is being revamped to accommodate pure-electric powertrains, you know what that means – Maserati’s new sports car will be all-electric, at least in one form, anyway.

Maserati hasn’t said much else outside of this, but it did previously confirm that there are a new coupe and convertible on the way. Of course, at the same time, it also confirmed that there would be three Ferrari-developed powertrains, and we know that probably won’t happen now that we know the company is cutting off its engine supply after the turn of the decade. We have learned that the new sports car, in all-electric form, will be able to hit 100 kph (62.1 mph) in “around 2.0 seconds.” I don’t know who came up with that figure and it seems quite outlandish, but these days you never really know.

The new sports car could arrive sometime toward the end of 2020 as a 2021 model, but that has yet to be confirmed. Even if that is the case, don’t expect to see the all-electric version until at least a year or two later. This model, in its entirety, is set to replace the aging GranTurismo and GranCabrio while the new “baby SUV” will sit below the Levante in the lineup. It will compete against the Porsche Macan, among others, and should go into production within the first 4 or 5 months of 2020 and be on sale by 2021. It will share the plug-in powertrain with the Ghibli but won’t be offered as a full-on EV.

There’s no official time table, but the company is starting with level 2 autonomy (pretty basic stuff) and will eventually move on to level 3, which will allow for some autonomous steering, accelerating, braking, and lane changes without any input. We figure we’ll start seeing this technology by 2022 or 2023 at the earliest.

Further reading

Read our full review on the 2019 Maserati GranTurismo.

Read our full review on the 2014 Maserati Alfieri.

Read our full review on the 2017 Maserati Ghibli.

Read our full review on the 2018 Maserati Quattroporte.

Read our full review on the 2018 Maserati Levante Trofeo.

Read our full review on the 2019 Maserati Levante GTS.

Read our full review on the 2016 Maserati Levante.