NEW Alfa Romeo Tonale walkaround details on RADICAL new hybrid SUV What Car
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| Alfa Romeo Tonale |
Alfa Romeo’s first PHEV!
NEW Alfa Romeo Tonale walkaround details on RADICAL new hybrid SUV What Car: this is the alpha Romeo tonale alpha's first-ever electrified car and we're going to tell you everything there is to know about it. so what is the tonality well like the Stelvio it's an Alfa Romeo named after an Italian mountain pass and it's a family SUV that's going to be up against other cars like the Audi q3 and Volvo xc40 in terms of sizing the tonality is smaller than the Alfa Romeo Stelvio but compared to the other kinds of cars that this is up against it's relatively big so in total it's 4.5 meters long it's 1.8 meters wide 1.6 meters tall all of which is fairly similar to the q3?
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| Alfa Romeo |
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| Alfa Romeo |
TheTonale interior tech and NFTs!
now the exterior of the tonality looks quite familiar to the concept car which we first saw in 2019 but the interior has been toned down a bit compared to that concept car that we saw way back then but it still leaves you with quite a nice layout in here, to be honest and the driving the position does seem very good no issues with visibility that you can spot from here and it also feels quite sporty by the standards of the family suv class because you've got this heavily raked windscreen here and what's also really nice is having these metallic paddle shifters here which aren't standard but you can get them on this car as you can with versions of the stelvio and the quadrifoglio and they're just really really nice to have now on the subject of quality that has been one area where recent alfa romeos have been a little bit disappointing so if you look at the julia and if you look at the stelvio while the build quality generally is okay it's let down by really cheap feeling parts of it is particularly around some of the levers and the switch gear and the buttons in the tonality it does feel like alpha has attempted to improve that and it feels like a step forward for the brand now the level of quality here is much more consistent than it is in the stelvio and the julia it's still not perfect there are some cheaper feeling plastics around the centre console and some of the levers and particularly these air con buttons are also a little bit wobbly.
but this is also a pre-production version of this car so we can't draw too many conclusions even still it does feel like a step forward for alfa romeo in terms of interior build quality and that's good to see plus it's also good don't forget that we've got physical buttons still for the air conditioning it's not hidden within the touch screen which brings us to the tech in here now every version of this car gets a 10.2-inch touchscreen infotainment system here and you get apple carplay android auto and wireless phone charging as well and it's reasonably responsive nice graphics like the 12.3-inch digital driver display which is really big really clear very easy to see and that is good that you get all of that as standard as well but perhaps the most eye-catching bit of new tech available with the tonality isn't anything to do with the infotainment system or driver display this is said to be the first car in the world to have a non-fungible token or nft available with it rather than being a weird cyber monkey artwork thing the tonale's nft basically acts as a digital passport for the car it will record things like the mileage and service history and it can't be interfered with if you don't want it to be collecting your data then don't worry because for it to work you need to give permission first alpha reckons it will help the residual value of the car but you won't be able to sell the nft separately from it full details of exactly how it will work and what it will look like are yet to be announced more conventional car tech available as standard in the tonale includes adaptive cruise control with lane centring assistance so all in all up front this does feel like a step forward for alfa romeo certainly nd this is a pretty good interior by ass standards is it up there with the b x1volvoxc40 not quite because they ju got a much higher consistent level of build quality and in terms of the materials that are used as well they eel moplusherut it's still good in here.
Rear seats & Boot space
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| Alfa Romeo seats |
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| Alfa Romeo seats |
the back space seems to be okay really headroom isn't so great i'm just under six feet and sitting up straight back here Ican fit but i've not got much clearance above my head there leg room seems to be a bit better where I have got a bit more room to stretch out in the back and another good thing back here is if you're sat in this middle seat then you have quite a wide seat base it's also not raised really high and the lump in the floor is pretty small and low as well so that is good this might not be the most practical interior in the family suv class but if you do need to sit to all adults in the rear every now and then then they should be able to sit back here in relative comfort now you might know that alfa romeo along with a host of other car brands have all become part of the stalantis motoring group with the idea that all those manufacturers like vauxhall peugeot fiat can share mechanical underpinnings and therefore spread the cost of developing new models but the tonality won't benefit from any of those shiny new platforms instead this is the final alpha to sit on underpinnings produced by its former parent company which was iat chrysler automobiles so that means e new tonale is actually based underneath on the jeep renegade one difference between the renegade and the tanale though is the boot and in the alpha it's a little bit bigger than not just the renegade but actually also the bmw x1 and the volvo xc40 you also get a height adjustable boot floor as standard which in its lowest setting gives you a bit more storage space in the back here as you can see but it does also leave you with a bit of an awkward ledge right at the back of the boot there but still by the standards of the family suv class this appears to be a relatively practical boot plus every tunnel gets an electric tailgate as standard.
Hybrid engines New warranty and pricing
Alfa Romeo 
Alfa Romeo
all tanalas come with an automatic gearbox and in the uk, at launch there's a choice of two engines so you can get a plug-in hybrid or a regular hybrid that hybrid 160 is technically more of a mild hybrid than a regular hybrid it comes with a four-cylinder 1.5-litre petrol engine and a 48-volt electric motor which allows the car to run on electric power on start-up and some low-speed driving for the plug-in hybrid the fully electric range is likely to be around 37 miles which is a bit further than the 30 miles claimed by the audi q3 plug-in hybrid that version of the tonale gets a 15.5-kilowatt hour battery pack which feeds a 121 brake horsepower electric motor driving the rear wheels a 178 brake horsepower 1.3 litre petrol engine is also on hand driving the front wheels giving the plug-in tonali four-wheel drive and a total power the output of 271 brake horsepower not to 62 miles per hour is seen off in a brisk 6.2 seconds and those engine options available now aren't likely to be the end of the choice of power for the tanale lineup, the platform that this car is built on is said to be able to take a fully electric version of the tonale but it hasn't been confirmed that that's exactly in the plans for this car similarly we might see a performance focused quadrifoglio version of the tonality for those now dreaming of a v6 engine tonale that might offer a similarly ballistic performance focused experience that the stelvio quadrifoglio delivers let me bring you back down to earth with some sensible news that alpha has introduced a new improved warranty for all of its cars previously if you bought a new car from them it would be covered for three years but it's now been extended to five years of cover prices are still being finalized but to be competitive with the hybrid and plug-in hybrid variants of its rivals it would need a price around 35 to 40 000 pounds when it goes on sale later this year it'll have to be careful to leave enough of a gap to the biggest stelvia though which starts from 45 000 pounds.
