A few years ago, Alfa Romeo was making some really ambitious plans for its future. The company was planning on the Tonale being its last combustion-powered vehicle introduced in the U.S., with everything else following adopting electric powertrains. The company has since reversed course, like a number of others, and now has delayed some of its key upcoming models in order to adapt combustion powertrains for them. Besides its EV plans, Alfa was aiming to launch larger, more prestigious cars to continue attracting luxury buyers. As Automotive News reports, that plan also seems to be out the door.
An action shot of the 2025 Alfa Romeo Giulia on a dirt roadStellantis
The Stelvio And Giulia Are As Big As Alfas Will Get
Alfa genuinely had solid plans for something big, literally. The brand’s former CEO, Jean-Philippe Imparato, had talked about what would have been an SUV positioned above the Stelvio in size and price. It would have been built on the STLA Large platform, just like the Charger Daytona, Wagoneer S, and the Stelvio’s own successor. He described it as having traditional rear-drive proportions and being a rather low and sporty SUV. According to Automotive News, current CEO Santo Ficili has put an end to that definitively. The outlet reported that he said that “large cars are not the brand’s territory.” Alfa actually has a long history of building large commercial vehicles, such as vans and trucks, and it has had a few sizable sedans such as 164. However, we must admit that if you bring up Alfa Romeo, you’re more likely to think of the company’s many small and nimble machines such as the Spider roadster, classic Giulia sedan, Giulia Sprint GT, and other little machines, so we think Ficili has a point.
Alfa Romeo Junior three-quarter front view.Alfa Romeo
That clearly also means that the biggest Alfas we’ll see are the Stelvio and Giulia replacements that are coming in the next couple of years. Everything else will be smaller. The brand has fleshed out its smaller line-up, at least for Europe. Besides the Tonale, which we get in the U.S., the company launched the Junior, which is even smaller. Both models have a variety of powertrains. The Tonale is available with just a conventional combustion engine or as a plug-in hybrid, and the Junior is offered with a hybrid or as a full EV. Finding additional slots between these models and the Giulia and Stelvio may be tricky, especially as the Giulia is reportedly going to become a crossover of some sort.
Alfa Romeo Really Needs Fresh Models
While the Tonale has only been out for a couple of years, and the Junior is quite new in Europe, the other half of its line-up is ancient. Or in the case of the U.S., the other two thirds of the line-up are ancient. The Stelvio and Giulia have been on the market for roughly a decade now with few changes other than discontinuing the high-performance Quadrifoglio models. We were expecting at least one of the successors to appear next year as an EV, but with the company changing course, those models have been moved all the way to 2027 in order to launch with combustion engines. It means that Alfa dealers and potential customers are in a tight spot, since there isn’t much interest in the U.S. anyway for the current line-up. The brand has sold fewer than 5,000 cars in total this year, even less than either the Charger Daytona or Wagoneer S individually, both of which have been selling well below expectations.
Source: Automotive News, H/T Motor1
