► Alfa Romeo launches first compact SUV
► Mild hybrid and plug-in hybrid for UK buyers
► Tonale on sale now priced from £39k
You can now buy the new Alfa Romeo Tonale Plug-In Hybrid Speciale in the UK, priced from £44,595. It joins the existing mild hybrid version of the car, making it a more well-rounded rival for the likes of the BMW X1 and Volvo XC40 – both of which are already available with PHEV powertrains.
If you prefer to pay monthly for the Tonale PHEV, main dealer finance starts at £445 a month over four years with a £9899 deposit on an Alfa Romeo PCP for a Tonale Plug-In Hybrid Speciale model.
It’s in the same ballpark as the BMW X1 plug-in hybrid at around £41,000, while the cheapest Volvo XC40 PHEV costs around £45,000.
The Tonale’s PHEV system comprises a 1.3-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, a 90kW electric motor and a 15.5kWh battery pack. The system has a combined output of 276bhp and 295lb ft of torque – and Alfa Romeo says it’ll return up to 256.8mpg on the WLTP cycle and drive for up to 43 miles on electric power alone.
Pie-in-the-sky figures, unless you always pootle short distances around town – but a useful indication of the efficiency of the powertrain nevertheless.
What about the mild hybrid Tonale?
It’s a bit less sprightly than the PHEV, but it’s no less interesting. It’s a 48-volt mild hybrid system based on a 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine. Unlike most mHEVs, which replace the alternator with a belt-integrated starter generator (BISG) to boost torque and recuperate mechanical energy (and run the stop/start system), the Tonale has a small electric motor on the input shaft of the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission.
The e-motor produces 15kW (20bhp) and 55Nm (41lb ft) of torque, which is just enough to spin the front wheels. It can launch the car from standstill and trundle it forward in congestion or during parking manoeuvres. The system can also switch off the combustion portion of the powertrain when cruising on the motorway for better economy – something else a BISG can’t manage.
The petrol engine has high compression ratio, high-pressure direct injection and dual variable valve timing. The latter is important because it allows delayed inlet valve closure, which is complements for the engine’s Miller cycle and turbocharging to deliver a double-digit efficiency boost.
Alfa offers the engine in two states of tune – 128bhp and 158bhp – but only the more powerful option will be offered to UK buyers. Alfa Romeo says both systems have the efficiency of a diesel engine and, thanks to the electric motor, they’ll both offer strong acceleration. During WLTP testing, Alfa also said the system’s electric motor operated for around 50 percent of the time.
Prices for the mild hybrid Tonale start from £38,595 for the launch edition Speciale model. The middling Ti specification starts from £39,995 and the flagship Veloce model (which features a sporty body kit and adaptive dampers) starts from £42,495. The firm is also offering leasing deals from £429 per month.
New Alfa Romeo Tonale design: just like the concept
The production Tonale is incredibly faithful to the 2019 concept car. The hooded 3×3 headlamps are present and correct, though noticeably fuller than the Geneva show car’s. Other changes are limited to the addition of trad door handles and mirrors and a spot of window dechroming: this is good news.
We meet with Alfa Romeo’s new head of design Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos (below right, with CAR’s group editor Phil McNamara), who points out the crispness of the Tonale’s bonnet creases. ‘It’s a car that you will discover little by little,’ he says of the work led by his predecessor Klaus Busse.‘ The hood looks very simple. But when you start looking at the lines, the surfaces, it has a level of complexity which makes it really nice and sophisticated.
‘The Tonale has this new interpretation of the Scudetto shield at the front which blends very well with the lamps. The concept of 3×3 lamps is reminiscent of the SZ Zagato or the 159. There’s a familiarity but it’s also a new way to express the front end, and it has a homogeneity with the rear lamp graphics.’
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New Tonale interior: a first-hand view inside
The Tonale’s cockpit is luxurious and sophisticated, showing a dramatic improvement in design and material quality over the 2016 Giulia and 2017 Stelvio with their billion-dollar dynamics and Poundstretcher cockpits.
There’s a big leap forward with the digital screens: the driver’s telescopic binnacle – or cannocchiale – measures 12.3in across and features some lovely animations of the 3×3 lamp motif.
Factor in the 10.25in central touchscreen, and Alfa claims the interfaces offer the biggest surface area in class, though the overall impression is of subtlty not technological overload. The dashboard’s backlit strip is a thing of beauty too.
The Tonale’s bulging leather driver’s seat feels both commandingly high and sportily snug, flanked by a wide centre console with an artfully embossed central cubby. The steering wheel feels silky to the touch, the switches high quality and with the DNA drive mode selector offered up to the driver. Veloce cars have aluminium shift paddles. The only detected weakness was a slightly hollow-feeling, unpadded central tunnel.
A 6ft rear passenger has sufficient legroom and headspace behind an equally sized driver, despite the Tonale measuring just 4.53m-long. It’s 1.84m wide and the 1.6m height is bang on the X1 or Q3’s.
New Tonale: based on modified Jeep architecture
Yes. Underneath, the Tonale is based on the same basic chassis as the Jeep Compass and Renegade – but Alfa Romeo’s engineers have thoroughly overhauled it. The biggest updates related to a host of material changes designed to boost stiffness while minimising weight gains and the electronic architecture is all-new.
The Tonale features MacPherson struts at all four corners and, at the back, there are an extra two independent transverse links and one independent longitudinal link connected to the wheel hub, in what Alfa calls a three-arm strut. Engineers say this design maximises lateral stiffness and decouples longitudinal forces, to boost road holding and compliance.
Alfa’s engineers have also come very close to a 50:50 weight distribution with the plug-in hybrid, thanks to the heavy battery pack slung over the rear axle. Sadly, that’s a pipe dream for the mild hybrids, which carry a higher proportion of their weight in the nose. Wheel sizes span 18–20 inches: the top two rims can offer Alfa’s gorgeous five-hole telephone dial alloys.
New Tonale: adaptive damping and direct steering
Base Tonales have Frequency Selective Damping, a hydraulic system that switches between high and low rates depending on road conditions and driving style. Veloce trims upgrade to a Marelli electronically switchable dampers, operated by Alfa’s DNA drive mode selector. Advanced Efficiency (offering pure electric driving in the PHEV) and Normal use the Comfort setting, with an electroactuated valve changing to stiffer damping in Dynamic mode.
‘We’ve developed the suspension set-up specifically for the Tonale, we worked very much on it,’ says Tonale product manager Luis Miguel Dasso Lang. ‘We wanted to repeat the same feeling as the Giulia and Stelvio, particularly with very direct steering – as an Alfa should be.’
The product manager reckons the Tonale will replicate its siblings’ deliciously rapid responses off the dead-ahead, thanks to a fast, 13.6:1 steering ratio and front geometry designed to enhance feel and turn-in. ‘To drive, it feels alive,’ says the Dasso Lang. ‘Of course it’s a driver’s car, but we also wanted it to be a comfortable car, with enough space for the family. We wanted a good balance between the driver and the other occupants.’
The front-drive mild hybrids have dynamic torque vectoring, simulating the feel of an electronic self-locking differential by braking the outer wheel in corners to trim understeer and sharpen turn-in. Alfa is also talking up its Integrated Brake System, with by-wire electronic activation saving weight by eliminating the mechanical link. Veloce models get four-piston fixed callipers from Brembo.
New Tonale: a big quality push
The Tonale’s design was frozen before Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos joined in July 2021, but CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato has charged his design boss with finessing the perceived quality of Alfa’s soon-to-be best-seller.
That means trips to Naples to work with the engineers at Pomigliano d’Arco, the factory which started life building the Alfasud and will soon make the Tonale on a new line.
Imparato delivered a stepchange in quality while leading Peugeot, and he has the same ambition for the Italians: ‘Tonale will be launched when I have the right level of quality and we do not make any compromise on that topic,’ states the CEO emphatically.
To reassure wary customers, the Tonale is backed by a five-year warranty, extending to eight years/93,000 miles for the hybrid batteries. Alfa’s even using non-fungible token technology, to record the vehicle’s servicing record off-board in a bid to cement used values.
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New Tonale: will there be a high-performance Quadrifoglio variant?
Alfa Romeo has done a bit of a U-turn on that one. Back in 2021, Jean-Phillipe Imperato mentioned that his engineers were ‘working on a potential Tonale Quadrifoglio,’ hinting that the SUV’s chassis could easily cope with 300bhp. That plan has been shelved for the time being, though.
In November 2022, Imperato told us: ‘I don’t for the moment. I don’t plan for Tonale Quadrifoglio. It’s a specialist in the general market and I think it would be a waste of energy and money because [it would only be sold in] limited numbers.
‘So, I will jump on the Quadrifoglio probably for the next launches. And the next sporty – more than sporty – version of the next launches that means that in parallel, we are developing some interesting project for us to speak with you in the H1 2023.’
The more than sporty car in question will be a new twin-turbocharged V6 supercar, which will pull styling inspiration from the iconic 33 Stradale and engineering expertise from Alfa Romeo’s Formula One team. We expect the car will use similar mechanicals to the Maserati MC20.
Once the supercar has broken cover, Alfa Romeo will start its electrified product offensive, launching a new car every year between 2024 and 2029. Imperato won’t ignore the smaller vehicle segments, either – he told us that, in 2024, his company will ‘go on the market with […] a B-segment offer.’
Watch this space. We’ll update you with more news when it’s available.
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