Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV 2022 Review

There is much guesswork at play here but we’re suggesting the Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV will be somewhere around the $75,000 range (plus on-road costs) when it lands here in the fourth quarter of next year.

That would put the Tonale plug-in hybrid’s entry point well above the Alfa Romeo Giulia mid-size sedan (currently from $63,950 plus ORCs) and even the Stelvio mid-size SUV (from $64,950), and easily at the head of the Tonale family that will launch here in the first quarter of 2023.

We’ve arrived at that figure because Alfa Romeo either isn’t sure yet or isn’t saying, but the entry-level Tonale in Australia, powered by a 118kW 1.5-litre mild-hybrid powertrain, will be priced from $49,900 plus on-road costs for the Ti and $56,400 plus ORCs for the Veloce version.

We’ve also used a comparable premium that Alfa applies to the PHEV version in Europe.

Thing is, in its presentations, Alfa Romeo benchmarks “main competitor” frequently, but we are assured that is a mash-up of two main rivals: the BMW X1 and the Volvo XC40, with the Audi Q3 and the Mercedes-Benz GLA both half a segment up in size.

The Volvo XC40 is no longer available as a PHEV in Australia, with the range kicking off at $52,990 for the 2.0-litre mild-hybrid turbo-petrol (or from $72,990 for the EV), while the BMW X1 has just been replaced, with prices starting from $53,900. The all-electric iX1 launches early next year.

For sporting plug-in hybrid performance in a stylish premium small SUV, we’d suggest the Cupra Formentor VZe is also worth a close look, priced from $60,990 plus ORCs.

The Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV will have a range of technologies that step up the game from its more basic 1.5-litre mild-hybrid siblings, but much of the detail is yet to be confirmed by Alfa Romeo’s Australian arm.

And, a year away from its local launch, that’s probably wise.

The grades we are likely to get will lock out the more complicated spec mapping of the European range and may simply include the entry Super (which includes an optional Sprint spec pack with larger wheels) and the upper-level Ti, which has its own option pack, called the Veloce.

As mentioned above, the regular Tonale will be offered in Australia in Ti and Veloce grades, so expect a premium specification in whatever PHEV model is offered here.

The launch editions in Europe will include a 14-speaker Harman Kardon premium sound set-up, heated and ventilated front seats, dual-zone climate control, LED headlights and tail-lights and an electric tailgate.

There are options for paint, too, ranging up to €1500 ($A2316) for Verde Montreal green metallic, but again, it’s too far away to lock that figure in.

You can give the same ambiguity to the Premium Pack (€2400 or $A3706), which includes premium leather upholstery, eight-way adjustable seats and a 13-speaker Harman Kardon sound system.

There’s even a Winter Pack that heats the windscreen washer nozzles, along with the seats and the steering wheel, which they’re bound to love in Melbourne, but probably won’t be a big mover in Darwin.

Alfa Romeo has confirmed the Tonale PHEV will be covered by a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty.

Alfa Romeo claims five Euro NCAP stars for the 2022 Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV, and that’s not surprising given how much access it now has to the might of the Stellantis brain pool.

That said, small-car crash safety was always an Italian KPI, but there is a lot in the Tonale to suggest it should be just fine for the compact SUV segment’s par score on safety.

Its 20-inch wheels and tyres prop up adaptive two-stage dampers and there’s a Level 2 driver assistance system, with lane departure warnings and active cruise control, to go with its autonomous emergency braking (AEB).

There’s an automatic high beam assistant, traffic sign recognition, speed limit assistance and front, side and curtain airbags, for a total of six poppers.

What technology does the Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV feature?

In Europe, the launch editions of the 2022 Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV include a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster and a 10.25-inch multimedia display in the centre of the upper dash, and it can also help you out with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

It has a built-in Amazon Alexa, and a 4G system that delivers over-the-air updates.

There’s a wireless charging pad that doesn’t do a great job of holding phones in place in corners and 360-degree surround view cameras.

Alfa Romeo has shrunk the petrol engine in the 2022 Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV, but added two electric motors to balance that out and push the power figure out to 205kW.

While the two mild-hybrid Tonale models use a 1.5-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine, the PHEV version makes do with a 1.3-litre engine instead.

The rear electric motor drives the rear wheels, while the petrol motor drives the front wheels, with the front electric motor serving mainly to charge up the 15.5kWh lithium-ion battery from the combustion motor when it’s needed, and flatten out any turbo lag at other times.

At no point does the front e-motor actually drive the wheels.

Where the entry-level Alfa Romeo Tonale has only 96kW of power (in Europe) and it’s middle brother has 118kW (as offered in Australia), the PHEV has a more convincing 205kW of system power.

That breaks down to 132kW and 270Nm from the turbocharged combustion engine up front and another 90kW from the back end’s e-motor, but Alfa doesn’t make a claim for the Tonale’s combined system torque because it constantly varies on demand.

That slashes the sprint time to 100km/h down from the 8.8 seconds of the strongest of the entry Tonale models to just 6.2 seconds, and it will run on to a top speed of 206km/h.

Impressively, though, it will run at up to 135km/h as a pure EV, running purely on the 90kW from its rear e-motor.

There’s enough gristle, on paper, to threaten its rivals, but the weight gets in the way and instead it feels strong enough, rather than muscular.

There are some bold claims for the 2022 Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV, not least of which is that it can run for 82km as an EV in the urban WTLP test cycle.

Even in the combined WLTP cycle (urban and highway) it ekes out 69km of EV range and, running as a pure hybrid, it pulls a claimed 600km of petrol-EV range.

That’s good enough for a WLTP claim of between 1.1 and 1.4L/100km (depending on tyre choices), or 26-33g/km of CO2 emissions.

The other upside to all this is the Alfa Romeo Tonale’s smartphone app, which lets you turn on the heating or the air-conditioning (now run off the 33kW front e-motor) while it’s still attached to the charging station.

It’s not bad from 1835kg worth of small-ish plug-in hybrid with a 15.5kWh lithium-ion battery.

Oddly, the 2022 Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV doesn’t drive the way we’ve traditionally thought of Alfa Romeos as driving.

That’s a double-edged sword. It’s good, because not being anchored to traditional Alfa Romeo values, where obsessions with sportiness discoloured key parts of the ownership experience, leaves it free to be more things to more people.

But it’s worrisome because sportiness is what people expect of Alfa Romeo and if it doesn’t provide it, why else would they come?

In fact, we’d probably posit that the new BMW X1 is dynamically superior to the Tonale PHEV, while the Volvo XC40 is a bit more relaxed.

Alfa, it seems, has unusually chosen the middle road.

The steering wheel adjustment works for most body sizes and it’s a mostly comfortable place to sit.

The Tonale PHEV is effectively an all-wheel drive, with no connection between the two different powertrains or the two axles, and sometimes that shows.

It can be a little slow to translate driver input into correctly divided actions, but it always gets there in the end, and this takes a little sparkle off the handling crispness.

It is an effective EV, and it has a mode to hold back some charge for urban or emission-limited scenarios, and the rear e-motor is certainly strong enough to run in traffic on most days.

The chassis is a bit of an odd-feeling duck; at once tied to a higher-riding version of the same architecture that traces a line all the way back to the Fiat Bravo (and sits beneath the Jeep Renegade and Compass).

It feels initially a bit tippy-toed with some passenger head toss, but when it’s pushed harder it’s all kept ultra-stable by the 125kg battery pack, sitting low in the middle and rear of the wheelbase.

The ride is choppier than we expected when the ‘DNA’ mode switch is in Dynamic mode, but it’s acceptable in the Natural mode. It lacks the ability to mix and match the settings, but you can disconnect the damping, so that it runs with the softer settings.

The steering is accurate, but oddly light, and the Tonale feels sluggish to initially change direction – but only because we’re used to Alfas being so ‘pointy’ at the front-end.

Still, it’s a constant battle with the weight, and that’s probably why it feels more comfortable and flowing on highways and at higher-speed bends than it does trying to string some corners together.

But it’s rock-solid in terms of safety, and even with the skid control systems switched off, it’s hard to imagine coming unstuck in one of them.

First up is the layout, and the 2022 Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV cabin is claimed to be tickety-boo for four x 1.9m-tall adults.

Big claim, and while it stacks up for legroom, people with taller torsos may find rear headroom a bit of a struggle.

Plus, there’s an odd bit of design that extends the top of the rear door to a point that, unless you’re aware of it, can hit ribs, shoulders or chins when opened from the outside, depending on the passenger height.

The PHEV also loses 115 litres of luggage space from the stock Tonale’s 500 litres down to 385 litres, with a rather high floor.

The driving position is oddly straight, with the two front passengers crammed together along the centre line while staying as far away from the doors as possible (for crash safety scores), leaving one of the driver’s legs solidly attached to the centre console.

In right-hand drive cars, this might lead to the driver’s throttle foot languishing in the breeze, with nothing to support the knee.

The interior design is more than a match for the exterior, though, and so are the materials Alfa has used inside the cabin, and the fit and finish are exemplary. And that’s exemplary by German standards, not just Italian ones.

It’s a design that stands out for all the right reasons.

It’s likely that Alfa Romeo will drop the Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV at, or about, the price points of high-spec BMW X1 and Volvo XC40 models, because those are the vehicles they keep referencing.

And, if that’s the case, the Tonale PHEV is now good enough to be a credible alternative to both of them, not least because it uses very little fuel and its interior and exterior designs have been beautifully thought through and executed.

There are some issues, including the driver’s proximity to the centre line of the cabin, its lack of driving thrills and the low-speed ride.

It’s not the most athletic vehicle in the category and that might not be a bad thing, because it now does the frequent-use stuff better because of it.

2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV at a glance:
Price: $75,000 estimated (plus on-road costs)
Available: Final quarter 2023
Powertrain: 1.3-litre four-cylinder turbo petrol-electric
Output: 132kW/270Nm (electric motor: 90kW)
Combined output: 205kW
Transmission: One-speed automatic
Battery: 15.5kWh lithium-ion
Range: 69km (WLTP)
Fuel: 1.1-1.4L/100km (WLTP)
CO2: 26-33g/km (WLTP)
Safety rating: Five-star (Euro NCAP 2022)