Fiat Chrysler chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne is considering adding full electric vehicles to the carmaker's line-up including the Maserati Alfieri sports car and a small city car.

"I've always thought the economic model that supports Tesla is something that Fiat Chrysler could replicate as we have the brand and the vehicles to do it," Marchionne told Bloomberg Television in Venice.

The Porsche 911 and Jaguar F-Type rivaling Alfieri concept was launched to great excitement at the Geneva motor show back in 2014, but the word is that plans to launch a production version this year or next were pushed back. Some reports say that’s because Maserati sales of the Ghibli have been unsatisfactory, so more energy had to be put into the marque’s other potential volume seller – the Levante– instead. The Maserati brand currently sells fewer than 40,000 cars annually, but the Fiat Chrysler business-plan demands sales of 75,000 by 2018. That means a replacement for the GranTurismo will likely arrive before the production Alfieri breaks cover too.

Named after one of the founders of Maserati, the Alfieri was introduced to Geneva Motor Show crowds by CEO Harald Wester, who proclaimed it “the future of Maserati.”

Speaking at the launch Wester described the Alfieri not as a substitute for the GranTurismo however as an extra model in the Maserati line-up. "It's an entirely different recommendation-- the Alfieri is not a GT, it's the ideal size 2 +2 sports car that can finish the Maserati range."

The concept was based on a shortened variation of the GranTurismo MC Stradale platform-- concerning 24cm shorter-- and also powered by the very same 4.7-litre normally aspirated V8 as that auto. It created regarding 460bhp and was connected to a six-speed automatic transmission. Nonetheless resources recommend that when the production version arrives it will certainly have a new generation platform related to the supports of the brand-new GranTurismo that's potentially as a result of be disclosed next year.