I was told by our service manager the main one is like $280,000. They had a LaF in for service for about a year because of the wait for a warranty replacement. There was only one spare in the US, they had to have the vendor make a new one...
That is a downright shameful price for a battery. Seems like a potential business opportunity for aftermarket exotic car batteries.
IMHO he should delete the video and try again. I generally like his stuff but this seemed like an unfair treatment in view of how many other good reviews the car got.
For sure. Worse than printer ink! I kept saying if I paid $3mm for a used LaFerrari that had to sit for an entire year for a battery replacement, I would not keep the car.
I thought the same thing, he even referred to the EVO video and yet was stuck driving it on frosty wet roads…
He did pick on things for the McLaren as well but he did not emote a dislike of that car like he did for the Maserati. I'm not even interested in the MC20 and I thought it was a poorly done and an unfair video. I haven't seen his video for the 296. He's too much of a gentleman to outright pan the Maserati, unlike Jeremy Clarkson. But essentially he did
Considering the Project 24 is claimed to be under 2800 lbs. It should be reasonable for a lightweight street version to fit within the 500 lbs difference between the MC20 coupe & Project 24.
I think he is saying that if a track only version is 2800lbs, its possible for a road going version to weight 3200lbs, which makes sense. In other news we read the electric version will be 500Kgs more, so 1100lbs. That explains some of the weight in the current version, extra structure to support the future electrics. The electric version will have something like 1000Ftlbs and over 800Hp, so acceleration will not be an issue. For road given the power of the electric, that extra weight will be somewhat irrelevant.
What is the actual weight of a MC20? I see what the factory claims but elsewhere I see that it's almost 4000 lbs!
Evo magazine weighted one it was close to 1700KGS marginaly lighter than a 296. The 296 is aluminum frame and has electrics. The Macalren artura which has a cf tub and electrics is significantly lighter. But then a CF 4c weighted 600lbs more than a Lotus Elise. I suspect that while the tubs on these italian cars may be relatively light, bodywork and subframes are really heavy. If the MC20 is designed to carry an extra 1110lbs of batteries that would imply everything from subframes to suspension etc is built to handle that extra weight and related forces. Probably the tub is designed heavier for the weight too. The electrical system for the MC 20 looks to be the same as the one on the Fogalore, and designed for future Maserati's and stellantis vehicles, so not an especially lightweight system, especially as they are building an all electric not hybrid version. This probably contrasts with Ferrrari and Maclaren who have designed lighter systems specifically for the hybrid sportscar. Whatever one may feel about the Maclaren Artura, it weights 3200lbs with electrics. That shows what can be done in a hybrid setup. My bet is the MC20 was designed/engineered to carry a lot of weight from a production(for various vehicles) battery electric system. As an ice car its probably significantly overbuilt in terms of strength, but even then remarkably heavy as a pure ICe car given the Ferrai hybrid already weights the same. The vette is similarly weight afflicted although there are other reasons. On the vette they wanted a narrow and low sill, that means the centre tunnel has to carry a lot of structure, that makes a heavier car, and a wider one. Add to that the edict for two sets of golf clubs, engineering for a hybrid version, cost of materials/bottom line, and you get the weight. With todays HP, multigear paddle systems, brake tech, tire tech, adjustable shocks, eps etc, the extra weight in a road car is really not an issue in terms of road performance metrics. On track these heavy cars will chew up the consumables (tires and brakes) at an alarming rate. There is one youtuber who's saying the tires on his new z06 seem to last not more than 45 mins on track. I guess someone else could do better, but weight is an issue. Now maybe 99% are not going to track, and if they are its for casual club event, so maybe this is all irrelevant. However there is an element that takes the track very seriously. the Poche club seems to have thousands of cars tracking, and it is a major market and one where cars are judged by those who actually use them. If porche can make a 4000lbs 911 Turbo and a 3100lbs Gt3 off the same platform, its possible masser can make a MC20 that is more than a fast Gt. As an example, Ive yet to see a new C8 vette really doing the biz on track, the c7 z06 was a bust, the c7 Gs worked well. We did see last summer more than a few 4000lbs zl1 1le camaros really doing the job on track. Those camaros are now as quick as 992 Gt3s, and their consumables seem in line with a Gt3. So someone has figured out how to work around that weight. True the track capable camaro is really only notionally streetable, whereas a Gt3 can work on road, but the camaro cost 75K to buy and things like brake rotors last and are economic to replace, tires seem to last 2 days too, so it can be done. A Gt3 if you run hard on track, youre talking 2-3K per day. A macalren when all is said and done seems to be over 10K per day. Thats if you take yearly costs tires brakes ancillaries and divide by the number of track days. The thing is with exotics there are lots of really expensive little bits, and things ceramic rotors are both really expensive and dont last in that environment. Its not necessarily the cost to buy the car, so much as what it cost to run on track, and its ability to last in that environment. Even those with unlimited budgets dont run their exotics regularily on track for that reason, they respect money and there are other better options.. Note I am referring to cars that can be used on road too, and can drive to the track, run on r compounds or switched to slicks. Dedicated pure track cars are a different animal. If the masser is overbuilt/strong, and if they can loose some weight it could be the champ in the track enviroment, maybe the first exotic to really shine there. The drive to the track ice car is in many ways the future of actual high performance driving, not least because you cant really exploit any of these cars on road, (except maybe very brief bursts) due to traffic, legal, and sanity. There has been an explosion of De events and tracks to cater to this. The USA manufactures along with porche have tapped into this with near dedicated models. The Mustang GT350R, mach1 were not bad, the Camaroi ZL1 1 le really good, porche GT3 GT4 GT4rs excellent. The Italians are pretty much absent. We'll soon see whether a c8 z06 can work there. the progenitor of the breed is the 250SWB, a car good and rewarding on road, that could run on track all day and drive home, after that road cars and track cars specialized further and parted paths. Ferrari accidently rediscovered this with the 288 which begat F40 and F50, and then went all techno again. Porche has reinvented this type of car in the modern world. Masser could do it. The MC20 lossing a few hundred pounds and with a little focus(not too much hardness, no extra wings)imo could become the modern day 288, beautfiful, fast, classy, cable on road and track) talk about a future collectable, ice swansong and a keeper.
I don't think you're going to quite get what you want out of Maserati with this car. Just drive the Gt3 and save all of that maintenance money. Porsche has been excelling at this for decades. Once when I was running my Ghibli Open Cup at the Glen this guy showed up in one and it was brand new to him. He followed me around for a couple of sessions and we were talking in the garages and he remarked about how he found the course quite challenging and that he didn't think he'd ever be able to go around as fast as I was. Most non professionals find that track to be a challenge their first couple of times. My car never got fully set up properly a lot of which was due to a terrible incident with a Viper at Pocono during a very poorly run event. Not a Ferrari club event. I told him sure you will and sure enough the next session out he was blowing the doors off me. My car was not quite the equal of a 355 Challenge in the turns but was fast on the straights. Lots of guys I ran with complained bitterly about the expense of running those and the 360 Challenge cars. Three of my friends stop running their Ferraris and brought Corvettes. I don't think Maserati has the sort of development budget when launching new vehicles to be able to have a bespoke design for the pure electric vs ICE vehicle. They seem to want to offer a single model in multiple drivetrain configurations and I think that means compromises have to be made. For most customers this car is going to be plenty fast enough. I've heard similar concerns about the Folgore which no one is going to take to the track but the basic ICE layout may not suit the electric drivetrain version as well.
I don`t want to be more Pope than the Pope himself - but please correct spelling: its McLaren (an not "macalren" or "Maclaren") its Porsche (and not "Poche") its Camaro (and not "Camaroi")
First to be clear, Bob’s incident at Pocono did NOT occur at one of my Le Belle Macchine d’Italia events. It took place at a rival event that used a Ski Patrol group in place of experienced Corner Workers. On the decline of owners running their Ferraris at track events, this was something I recognized early on. I approached Alfa NA about setting up a program of taking a 4C to Ferrari club track events. The 4C was a 60k throw away car that was much cheaper to run than any Ferrari, could easily be modified for more performance. It was the perfect niche for the 4C. the problem was I was dealing with Chrysler personnel in Auburn Hills. They didn’t understand Alfa, it’s History, nor it’s customers. They were completely clueless on the Italian car world, it was just another brand in their portfolio much like Maserati. You follow the Chrysler playbook.
There's a track focused car "GT2" coming soon, (this year) cost about 2x of the current version. I would assume it will be lighter
It will increase the value and desirability of the ICE model. Can you imagine the difference in value if there was an ICE SF90? Cheers
Most of the LaF`s are not be driven and sitting as trailor queens or "stored" in garages...! And most of their owners don`t care about the batteries of theses cars.
