Ghibli

Make
Maserati
Segment
Sedan

A few days ago we reported about Maserati's upcoming plans to significantly refresh the Levante, Ghibli, and Quattroporte in the very near future. A complete Quattroporte redesign isn't due until 2022 while the next Levante isn't set to arrive until 2023. An all-new Ghibli? It may not happen, but we remain hopeful. Maserati is planning to launch ten new or revised models between 2020 and 2023 unfortunately, it's been struggling financially and the second quarter of 2019 sales figures prove that.

It suffered a $132 million loss in Q2 while reducing production by 3,000 vehicles in order to limit dealership stocks. It also wrote down residual value in the US market. New vehicle shipments were cut down by 46 percent. New vehicles sales also declined by 17 percent to 7,200 vehicles. This new vehicle reduction is happening on purpose and will be reduced even more in the second half of this year.

Maserati's goal, by the end of the year, according to Automotive News, is to have enough supply to cover two to two-and-a-half months. Basically, the aging lineup isn't selling well and Maserati is making the short-term painful decision to not only produce less but also to slash inventory, but there's an upside to this: with less inventory to sell, Maserati dealerships will have room for the first crop of new models due to arrive next year.

However, Maserati is not expected to see profits until then, at the earliest. It should also be noted that Maserati's Q2 sales drop was still an improvement compared to the 32 percent decline it experienced in the first quarter of this year. The familiar crop of Maseratis will be joined by a new SUV slotted below the Levante in 2021. Compact luxury SUVs and crossovers are currently hot sellers.

Combined with the aforementioned refreshes of existing models, Maserati plans to add plug-in hybrid variants as well. A GranTurismo and GranCabrio replacement are also due in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Eventually, a production version of the Alfieri coupe is also set to arrive. Whether these new Maseratis will be enough to improve sales remains to be seen.