Alfa Romeo has big plans for the future: what it will launch

Alfa Romeo’s next flagship model will be a larger all-electric SUV than the current mid-size Stelvio and will be launched by 2027, CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato told reporters.

Speaking last week during a visit to the Stellantis Pomigliano factory in southern Italy, which builds the compact SUV Tonale, Imparato said the new flagship model will be crucial to boosting Alfa Romeo sales in Europe, the US and China, according to Italian media reports.

It will compete with the BMW X5, the brand that Alfa Romeo has set as a benchmark, said Imparato. 46,238 BMW X5s were sold in Europe in 2021, according to Dataforce.

The model will be the fourth SUV of Alfa Romeo, after Stelvio, which was launched in 2017, Tonale which was released this year and a small SUV that will debut in 2024, which will probably be called Brennero.

Alfa Romeo will not become an SUV-only brand, like Jeep, Imparato said. “We are not giving up the Giulia mid-size sedan,” he said. “There will be a future Giulia and it will be an exclusively electric model.”

Alfa Romeo has decided not to launch a successor to the Giulietta compact hatchback, which ceased production at the end of 2020.

Alpha returns to the top

“For the compact segment we have Tonale, which is a global product,” said Imparato. “Giulietta was just a European model and we want Alfa to be global.”

Imparato said in an interview with Automotive News Europe in February that a large model was the most likely addition to the range, while a replacement Giulietta is not among the top priorities.

After becoming part of Stellantis in the merger between PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Alfa Romeo was profitable in 2021 under Imparato, after decades of red ink.

The brand hopes to return to 100,000 global sales, possibly by 2023 and helped by Tonale.

Tonale went into production in March, with a capacity of 23 units per hour, indicating a potential production of 40,000 to 80,000 units per year. Imparato said in February that global sales of Tonale could be in the range of 70,000 to 80,000 units. Europe could have between 45,000 and 60,000 units, with 10,000 to 15,000 possible units in the US

Alfa plans to increase Tonale’s production to about 20,000 units this year. The model will go on sale in Europe in June and will arrive in the US by the end of the year.