The Tonale gets everything you love about an Alfa Romeo – striking looks and a promised sporty drive, with the option to fit a powerful 275PS plug-in hybrid engine that has a pure-electric range of 37 miles.
The Alfa Romeo Tonale is expected to cost from around £35,000 when it goes on sale in April 2022. That'll buy a basic petrol model, you can expect to pay closer to £45,000 for the plug-in hybrid model.
How does that compare to rivals? Well, the Audi Q3, Mercedes-Benz GLA and Range Rover Evoque are priced from £31,265, £33,030 and £32,590 respectively, so you can expect the Alfa Romeo to come very well equipped to make up for its price premium.
The big news about the new Alfa Romeo Tonale is its petrol-electric hybrid engine which is borrowed from the Jeep Renegade.
It uses a 1.3-litre four-cylinder petrol engine to drive the front wheels via a six-speed automatic gearbox, while the back wheels are driven by an electric motor. Combine the two and you end up with a power output of 275PS, enough to push the 1900kg Alfa Romeo (hefty for a car this size) from 0-62mph in just 6.2 seconds.
But while the PHEV powertrain is good for power, it's also excellent for fuel economy. Alfa is claiming the PHEV Tonale will be able to run for up to 37 miles on electric power alone, meaning you could save a fortune if you mostly do short drives. Charging the battery should cost less than a fiver using a wall-mounted 15.5kWh home charger and take around 2.5 hours to do.
The downside? As we’ve noted earlier, the PHEV model is not cheap to buy, which is where the two other engines come in. They’re more conventional 1.5-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrols producing 130 or 160PS through a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox, but have mild-hybrid technology that’ll help them achieve competitive fuel economy.
That’s thanks to a 20PS electric motor that can give a light electrical boost under acceleration, allows the stop-start to work more efficiently and can creep the car at low speeds.
All very clever, but how will it drive?
Sportily, according to Alfa Romeo. Quick steering means the Tonale should feel responsive in bends and you’ll be able to specify adjustable dampers that stiffen up the ride for better control. Both can be adjusted via the car’s DNA drive select switch. The cherry on top is the fly-by-wire brakes, which have big four-pot callipers.
Inside, the Alfa Romeo Tonale has a classic cocooning interior, with modern touches like a 12.3-inch digital instrument binnacle and a 10.25-inch centre touchscreen that comes complete with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
We’ve yet to see the car in person, but you can expect the Tonale to carry four adults in comfort and it has a 500-litre boot - that’s 30 litres down on an Audi Q3.
You’ll also be able to specify kit such as heated and ventilated seats, an electric bootlid, Harman Kardon stereo and wireless phone charging. A full suite of autonomous driving aids, which mean the car will more or less be able to drive itself on motorways and A roads, will also be available.
We’ll have a full review of the Tonale on heycar in the coming months.
With the Tonale soon to be the hot new car in town, now's a perfect time to save a little bit of cash on its larger sibling, the Alfa Romeo Stelvio. The Stelvio does without the Tonale's plug-in hybrid technology, but shares its sporty drive and is even more practical inside. A budget of £25,000 is enough to get you a clean example, although you'll pay upwards of £75,000 for a plus-500PS Quadrifoglio model in decent nick.
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