Alfa Romeo to offer up to five EVs

Alfa Romeo may only sell three to five models after it makes the transition to a pure electric vehicle (EV) maker in 2025 – two years earlier than it previously said it would – and so far only the Giulia, Stelvio and new Tonale have been confirmed for replacement.

The premium Italian performance car maker will go from a standing start with its first EV in 2024 to a full-line EV-maker within three years, after which time it will only introduce battery-electric vehicles.

Alfa Romeo will build its last combustion engine in 2027, even though it will introduce an all-new halo sports car, with both EV and combustion power, just three years before that.

“The markets will not be just EV, but we want to be facing on one side,” said Alfa Romeo head of product, Daniel Tiago Guzzafame at the global launch of the Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV.

“Are they [the markets] all ready? No. If we wait for everybody to be ready we will never throw the switch.

“There will be parts of the world that will not be ready at all but we are in the premium segment and that is open to us.

“2027 will be the last combustion car for us. The trend is set and there is no way we are coming back.

“The point is not to try to respond last to be relevant there.”

Regulations are looming in the US and the European Union that will make it increasingly harder to produce and sell combustion-powered vehicles, even in plug-in hybrid (PHEV) form.

That will leave Alfa Romeo models like the just-launched Tonale PHEV in an awkward position, with a product cycle of just five years compared to the usual norm of seven to nine years.

“We will decide if we go for the EV with this generation of Tonale or the next generation.

“There are markets now where we can’t deliver 200 grams of CO2 for tax reasons,” he explained.

“The Stelvio 280hp is paying taxes that are out of what people want to spend. You don’t buy a car if you can’t drive it into the city.

“The next car like a Quadrifoglio Verde will not be a full ICE and because I need to sell in all the markets.

“Today I would not be developing the Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde the way it is today. I can’t sell it in the places where you pay 20,000 euros just for the taxes for emissions.

“In the US you can’t keep up the supply of Quadrifoglio Verde Giulia but in France you don’t sell it because of emissions tax and in Italy it costs 5000 euros a year just in road tax.”

Guzzafame admits it’s unlikely Alfa Romeo would electrify the Giulia sedan or the Stelvio crossover, simply because the only electrification they could take without major re-engineering would be a mild-hybrid drive, which would not help enough.

“Most probably we will go straight from Giulia and Stelvio to fully electric. If the decision was now, the decision would be yes, straight to EV.”

Guzzafame confirmed there would be at least four EVs on the Alfa Romeo wish-list, but wouldn’t confirm they’d carry over existing badges.

“If you think about the most successful EV player, it’s not how many models you have,” he confirmed.

“You don’t need 26 models. You need three, four or five to be very well fitted.

“At the global level, we can cover 90 per cent of the premium people with three to five – a Giulia, a Stelvio and a Tonale and something bigger.”

The big loser in the chase to switch to EVs for Alfa Romeo will be the more special dream cars, like large coupes or sporty convertibles.

“The condition is to be profitable and then there are the special cars and dream cars.

“If you look at the two-door coupe, it is non existent.

“We are in transition phase and car makers are putting a huge amount of resources to transition.

“That does not mean that this could not happen when the switch is up and it’s the same for the cabriolet.

“In five to seven years from now, I am sure the car companies will be starting to build dream cars again.

“We will give the direction on concept cars. Not looking at the future, though they do point out the next car, but in dreams of design and technology and software.

“We will be realising the dream in the next year or 2024.”

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