Maserati Says Goodbye To Its All-Electric Dreams – Jalopnik

Good morning! It’s Friday, September 19, 2025, and that is The Morning Shift, your day by day roundup of the highest automotive headlines from world wide, in a single place. This is the place you may discover an important tales which might be shaping the way in which Americans drive and get round.

In this morning’s version, Maserati says it is performed with the concept of going all electrical, Subaru says goodbye to Legacy manufacturing within the U.S., the AM radio may be saved and Ford ends the week the precise manner (with one other recall).

Oh, how shortly issues modified. Not so way back, it appeared just about inevitable that Maserati would comply with via on its plans to be totally electrical by the tip of the 2020s, however these desires are all however forgotten at this level as Stellantis’ Italian luxurious model appears to be like to vary course. Instead of that wholesale switchover, the plan is for it to maintain providing a mixture of powertrains.

It must do one thing to show the ship round as rumors swirl about its general future and it makes an attempt to dig itself out of a deep monetary gap. Clearly, an all-EV lineup in right this moment’s local weather wasn’t going to be the reply. From Automotive News:

“The market has spoken” on electrical autos, mentioned Maserati Americas head Andrea Soriani, so the model has turned its consideration to promoting “the right products for the clients” in gasoline in addition to EV kind. It’s seeing “a mix of demand,” he mentioned, and can produce each.

The Grecale, GranTurismo and GranCabrio every have gasoline and electrical variations already. Soriani mentioned the model is engaged on a variety of recent merchandise.

In the final two years, Maserati has eradicated V-8 engines from its lineup by dropping the Levante, Quattroporte and Ghibli. Instead, it has been targeted on delivering electrical supercars, with costs starting from round $200,000 for the 751-hp GranTurismo Folgore to greater than $300,000 for the 621-hp MC20.

The Grecale midsize crossover, out there in mild-hybrid, gasoline and electrical varieties, now carries the quantity load as Maserati’s solely providing underneath $100,000.

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“We live in a time of high uncertainty,” Soriani advised Automotive News in August throughout Monterey Car Week in California. “We get different news every day on the global economy. It’s a very tough political environment. Globally, there are a lot of disruptions in the supply chain.”

Everything has been a giant bummer for Maserati currently. Its adjusted working margin was a less-than-ideal -25% throughout all markets in 2024, and its international gross sales dropped 58% to only 11,300 models. A bit greater than half of that quantity got here from the U.S. alone: 5,720 gross sales.

I’m actually not paid sufficient to know methods to flip Maserati round, however I really feel like specializing in high quality and autos folks really need to purchase is an efficient place to start out. The transfer down market of the mid-20-teens was a strategic error from the appears to be like of it, so it may be time to desert that kind of repeat transfer.

Goodnight, candy prince. Production of the Subaru Legacy — the primary mannequin the automaker constructed at its Indiana plant — has come to an finish. The last 2025 Legacy sedan, completed in Magnetite Gray, rolled off the road in Lafayette simply previous 3 p.m. native time on September 12 — practically 36 years to the day after it first began.

The Legacy, after all, would develop into an icon of the model and served as a genesis for the Legacy wagon and Outback crossover, which nonetheless endures right this moment. Unfortunately, there’s simply not sufficient of an urge for food for midsize sedans to maintain the Legacy round. I get it, however it’s a bit unhappy nonetheless. From Automotive News:

The plant was a three way partnership between Subaru’s mother or father firm, then often called Fuji Heavy Industries, and Isuzu Motor Co. In addition to the Legacy sedan, Isuzu produced a small pickup on the plant. Subaru quickly added a Legacy wagon, and later the Outback midsize crossover, to the manufacturing line.

Isuzu added the Rodeo SUV and later constructed a model for Honda known as the Passport.

The three way partnership resulted in December 2002. In 2005, Toyota Motor Corp. grew to become a serious Fuji investor, and by 2007, the primary challenge between the 2 firms started: Toyota Camry manufacturing on the Indiana plant. Camry output lasted there till May 2016.

While the plant has produced quite a lot of merchandise — Subaru later added the Impreza compact sedan and hatchback, Ascent giant crossover and, extra just lately, the Crosstrek subcompact crossover — the Legacy remained a continuing presence in Lafayette.

The plant mentioned it constructed round 1.4 million Legacy autos throughout seven generations.

In April of 2024, Subaru mentioned the Legacy nameplate could be retired. It’s kind of straightforward to see why. Last yr, gross sales hit simply 19,591 models. That’s a 23% drop. Ouch. So lengthy, Legacy. We owe a lot to you.

A panel of U.S. House lawmakers has superior a invoice that will mandate AM radios be included in all new autos for at the least eight years. I do know this sounds a bit foolish — as a result of who the hell makes use of AM radios anyway — nevertheless it’s really a brilliant precious software in emergency conditions. On prime of that, who desires a automotive with fewer options? 

The invoice directs the Transportation Department to, inside a yr, concern a rule requiring automakers to supply AM radios on new autos at “no additional” price “beyond the base price of the passenger motor vehicle.” From the Detroit News:

“I know quite well how crucial AM radio is for receiving emergency alerts during hurricane season, for consumers and rural communities to people stuck without electricity or internet during a national disaster,” mentioned U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Florida. He is the chief sponsor of the measure.

Bilirakis continued: “AM radio is their lifeline to critical and life-saving information. This bill makes sure that consumers don’t lose that lifeline.”

The measure, amended Wednesday by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, is an obvious compromise between emergency administration teams, automakers and followers of discuss radio exhibits which might be broadcast primarily via AM channels. The auto trade has opposed AM necessities in new autos, citing prices and declining AM radio listenership.

Michigan U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, urged that she brokered the compromise after talking with automotive executives, broadcasters and different stakeholders.

“When this issue was raised in the last Congress, I personally engaged with the automakers and their CEOs about the critical role AM plays, and they told me directly that they would continue offering it in their vehicles and work in good faith with us on a path forward,” she mentioned. “And they kept their word. That’s why we’re here today.”

The panel voted 50-1 to advance the measure out of committee, with some Republican joker from California — Jay Obernolte — as the one dissenting voice.

I’ll inform you what, it is good to see Congress really maintain firms accountable for one thing for as soon as… even when that one thing is as small because the inclusion of an AM radio antenna.

Folks, it has been a attempting week to say the least. It’s laborious to know the place the world is heading as social and societal norms appear to maintain eroding round us. I do have some excellent news, although, that’ll deliver us all some sense of normalcy: Ford issued one other recall, its 112th of the yr. From Reuters:

Ford Motor is recalling 101,944 Taurus sedans within the United States attributable to a defect that would trigger door trim to detach whereas driving, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration mentioned on Friday.

The concern includes the B-pillar trim on the driving force and entrance passenger doorways, which can come free throughout car operation. Detached trim items may fall onto the highway, inflicting a highway hazard, NHTSA mentioned within the discover.

The recall impacts autos from mannequin years 2016 via 2019, the U.S. auto security regulator mentioned, including that Ford sellers will examine the affected autos and restore or change the trim as wanted, freed from cost.

While I do really feel for the homeowners who need to take care of this, there are some things that make me really feel higher: 1) They knew what they had been moving into. 2) It’s a small sacrifice to make the remainder of us really feel higher.

History.com

I’d even be tremendous ticked off if somebody advised me I could not go to Disneyland if I actually wished to. If you need to be taught extra about one of many stranger chapters of the Cold War, head over to History.com.

Folks, it is Friday. Turn the music up and luxuriate in your self. It’s been a tough week. You’ve earned this.