Alfa Officially States Mileage for Tonale PHEV

Matthew Guy
by Matthew Guy

Say what you will – and many have – about the name Alfa Romeo selected for its new compact crossover, there’s no denying the thing fits well into the brand’s current design language. Alfa intends for it to fit well into a customer’s monthly balance sheet as well, announcing today it expects the Tonale to run 33 miles solely on electricity and return a rating of 77 MPGe.

I’m sure there are content wonks deep within the bowels of Verticalscope in Toronto who’d much prefer we’d make you click on the article to reveal that information, but that approach irritates me and insults the reader. With that minor rant out of the way, we’ll remind you that the Tonale is powered by a 1.3L engine which tag teams an electric motor and 15.5-kWh battery to belt out 285 horsepower and a system total 347 lb.-ft of torque.


Combined fuel economy is an official 29 miles per gallon, which isn’t exactly Prius territory but neither is the power output of the Tonale. Italian style doesn’t show up for nothing, right? Still, the presence of better than 30 miles of gasoline-free driving will be more than enough to cover the daily commutes of many customers, permitting them to save a few liras at the pumps.

It is worth noting we’ve found through our own personal testing that some Stellantis PHEVs demand lighting the internal combustion fires in certain weather conditions even if the battery has ample charge, a trait worth keeping in mind if one lives in the snow belt. We'll have to wait until testing a Tonale PHEV in similar conditions to see if it exhibits the same trait. Total range on a fully charged battery and a full tank of fuel is an estimated 360 miles. 


The machine will be available in three trims, all of which will be familiar to Alfaisti. Sprint models start at $42,995 and Ti variants will cost 2 grand more. The top-spec Veloce has a starting price tag of $47,495 plus $1,595 destination. It is expected the Tonale PHEV will begin arriving in dealers next month.


[Images: Alfa Romeo]


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Matthew Guy
Matthew Guy

Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.

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  • Ras815 Ras815 on Jun 01, 2023

    Minor editorial note, but the plural of lira is lire.

  • Chris P Bacon Chris P Bacon on Jun 01, 2023

    "It is worth noting we’ve found through our own personal testing that some Stellantis PHEVs demand lighting the internal combustion fires in certain weather conditions even if the battery has ample charge, a trait worth keeping in mind if one lives in the snow belt."


    It's also worth noting that my Jeep dealer applied a software update to my Wrangler 4xe that took care of this issue.

    • Jalop1991 Jalop1991 on Jun 01, 2023

      It's also worth noting that Pacifica PHEV has certain ICE behaviors at 40F and below, and different ones again at 32F and below--and I fully expect the Tonail/Hornet twins will behave the same way.


  • NJRide A question and a point:1) What were hybrids at compared to last year? And plug in bs a regular hybrid?2) How can state governments like mine possibly think 40 percent of sales will be electric in 3 years?
  • Steve S. Steve was a car guy. In his younger years he owned a couple of European cars that drained his bank account but looked great and were fun to drive while doing it. This was not a problem when he was working at a good paying job at an aerospace company that supplied the likes of Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, but after he was laid off he had to work a number of crummy temp jobs in order to keep paying the rent, and after his high-mileage BMW was totaled in an accident, he took the insurance payout and decided to get something a little less high maintenance. But what to get? A Volkswagen? Maybe a Volvo? No, he knew that the parts for those were just as expensive and they had the same reputation for spending a lot of time in the shop as any other European make. Steve was sick and tired of driving down that road."Just give me four wheels and a seat," said Steve to himself. "I'll buy something cooler later when my work situation improves".His insurance company was about to stop paying for the rental car he was driving, so he had to make a decision in a hurry. He was not really a fan of domestics but he knew that they were generally reliable and were cheap to fix when they did break, so he decided to go to the nearest dealership and throw a dart at something.On the lot was a two year old Pontiac Sunfire. It had 38,000 miles on it and was clean inside and out. It looked reasonably sporty, and Steve knew that GM had been producing the J-car for so long that they pretty much worked the bugs out of it. After taking a test drive and deciding that the Ecotec engine made adequate power he made a deal. The insurance check paid for about half of it, and he financed the rest at a decent rate which he paid off within a year.Steve's luck took a turn for the better when he was offered a job working for the federal government. It had been months since he went on the government jobs website and threw darts at job listings, so he was surprised at the offer. It was far from his dream job, and it didn't pay a lot, but it was stable and had good benefits. It was the "four wheels and a seat" of jobs. "I can do this temporarily while I find a better job", he told himself.But the year 2007 saw the worst economic crash since the Great Depression. Millions of people were losing their jobs, the housing market was in a free fall, people were declaring bankruptcy left and right, and the temporary job began to look more and more permanent. Steve didn't like his job, and he hated his supervisors, but he considered himself lucky that he was working when so many people were not. And the federal government didn't lay people off.So he settled in for the long haul. That meant keeping the Sunfire. He didn't enjoy it, but he didn't hate it either, and it did everything he asked of it without complaint.Eventually he found a way to tolerate his job too, and he built seniority while paying off his debts. There was a certain feeling of comfort and satisfaction of being debt-free, and he even began to build some savings, which was increasingly important for someone now in their forties.Another bit of luck came a few years later when Steve's landlord decided to sell the house Steve was renting, at the bottom of the housing market, and offered it to Steve for what he had in it. Steve's house was small and cramped, and he didn't really like it, but thanks to his savings and good credit he became a homeowner in an up and coming neighborhood.Fourteen years later Steve was still working that temporary job, still living in that cramped little house that he now hated, and still drove the Sunfire because it wouldn't die. For years now he dreamed of making a change, but then the pandemic happened and threw the economy and life in general into chaos. Steve weathered the pandemic, kept his job when millions of people were losing theirs, and sheltered in place in that crummy little house, with Netflix, HBO, and a dozen other streaming services keeping him company, and drove to and from work in the Sunfire because it was four wheels and a seat and that's all he needed for now.Steve's life was secure, but a kind of dullness had set in. He existed, but the fire went out; even when the pandemic ended and life returned to normal Steve's life went on as it had for years; an endless Groundhog Day of work, home, work, home. He never got his real-estate license or finished college and got his bachelor's, never got a better job, never used his passport to do some traveling in Europe. He lost interest in cars. "To think how much money I wasted on hot cars when I was younger", he said to himself. He never married and lost interest in dating. "No woman would want me anyway. I've gotten so dull and uninteresting that I even bore myself".Eventually the Sunfire began to give trouble. With 200,000 miles on the clock it was leaking oil, developing electrical gremlins, and wallow around on blown-out shocks. Steve wasn't hurting for money and thought about treating himself to a new car. "A BMW 3-series, maybe. Or maybe an Alfa Romeo Giulia!" He began to peruse the listings on Autotrader. "Maybe this is just what I need to pull out of this funk. Put a little fun back in my life. Yeah, and maybe go back to the gym, and who knows, start dating again and do some traveling while I'm still young enough to enjoy it!"Then his father passed away and left him a low-mileage Ford. Steve didn't like it or hate it, but it was four wheels and a seat, and that's all he needed right now."Is it too late to have a mid-life crisis?" Steve thought to himself. For what he needed more than that stable job, that house with an enviably small mortgage payment, and that reliable car was a good kick in the hindquarters. "What the hell am I afraid of? I should be afraid that things will never change!"But the depression was like a drug, a numbness that they call "dysthymia"; where you're neither here or there, alive or dead, happy or sad. It was a persistent overcast, a low ceiling that kept him grounded. The Sunfire sat in his driveway getting buried by the needles from his neighbor's overhanging pine trees which were planted right on the property line. "Those f---ing pine trees! That's another thing I hate about this damn house!" Eventually the Sunfire wouldn't start. "I don't blame you", he said to the car as he trudged past it to drive the Ford to another Groundhog Day at that miserable job.
  • Yuda Cool. Cept we need oil and such products. Not just for fuel but other stuff as well. The world isn't exactly ready to move to wind and solar and whatever other bs, the technology simply isn't here yetNot to mention it's too friggin expensive, the equipment is still too niche and expensive as it stands
  • Rna65689660 Picked up my wife’s 2024 Bronco Sport Bad Lands!
  • Inside Looking Out Android too.
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