Alfa Romeo has committed to becoming an all-electric brand by 2027, and to do that it will obviously need to introduce at least some new models in the short-to-medium term. This week, the company’s CEO announced one of those will be a new all-electric crossover. The yet-to-be-named EV will be larger than the Italian brand’s current Stelvio, a midsize gas-powered SUV.
Jean-Philippe Imparato said the new crossover will compete with the X5 – or, we presume, its electric equivalent – and attack the all-important markets of China, Europe and North America. In the process, it will be the fourth crossover to feature in Alfa Romeo’s lineup, after the Stelvio, the just-introduced Tonale compact model and the just-announced smaller crossover to come in 2024, which according to reports, is getting the name Brennero.
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At the same time, Imparato stressed that Alfa Romeo has no intention of becoming an SUV-only brand, even going so far as to say that there are plans to develop an all-electric successor to the Giulia midsize sporty sedan. In his words, “We are not abandoning the Giulia. There will be a future Giulia, and it will be an electric-only model.”
Alfa Romeo’s CEO also alluded to a schedule that would see the automaker introduce a first all-electric model (with no hybrid equivalent planned) in 2025. Could that be the Giulia EV, or whatever the Giulia’s all-electric successor would be called? Possibly, but for the moment, that’s just speculation.
More concrete in the near-term is the Tonale SUV, of course, and Alfa Romeo is bullish on the model and its sale potential. For sure, the premium compact SUV segment is a popular and lucrative one, though for those same reasons, it’s also a highly contested one. Jean-Philippe Imparato said the company expects to sell up to 80,000 Tonales globally per year once it’s on the European market (this June) and the U.S. market (by the end of 2022).