As was rumoured, Alfa Romeo was indeed harbouring a new concept for the Geneva Motor Show. The Tonale, as they call it, is a appears surprisingly street-ready and is quite likely an early preview at a future production model to sit below the Stelvio.
For now, though, the Italian marque is using the Tonale as a platform to showcase their electrification tech and the vision of what a future PHEV wearing an Alfa badge might look like. They certainly picked the right form factor considering that a small crossover is the safest and most marketable product to offer to the market.
So little of Tonale is actually known at this stage so it’s difficult to construct an informed projection as to where the car might land in terms of its viability within the wider Alfa Romeo portfolio and that of their parent company, FCA.
It is obviously a smaller crossover that’s quite a bit more sporty and than rugged, as is the trend of the times, but wears a fascia that is more reminiscent of the previous generation of cars - specifically the iconic SZ, the 159 and the Brera, that it does with contemporary models like the Giulia, but swapping the circular front lamp array with a string of LEDs.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Tonal is very Alfa Romeo in its styling, even including the obscured rear door handles most recently utilised in the Giulietta hatch, hinting that this could be a preview of its replacement and giving the crossover a more coupe-like profile.
Alfa Romeo has not confirmed powertrain details, but with this being pushed as a plug-in hybrid, we can look to fellow FCA umbrella-mate Jeep for a possible parallel. The SUV-specialists are also at the Geneva Motor Show with a PHEV variant of their Compass, a model that could form the basis of a production-spec Tonale.
In the Compass PHEV, a 1.3-litre turbo-petrol works in tandem with an electric motor driving the rear axle to produce a combined output of up to180kW and a fully electric range of about 50km. We can safely assume the Tonale to be using very similar tech.
For more on Alfa Romeo cars, check out our Showroom.
