Speaking of Alfa Romeo, the first keyword that comes to mind of Che Yunmu is "romantic", because it comes from Italy, because it has a European style name, and its beautiful and elegant body design. Once upon a time, the European continent also had the grand scene of Alfa Romeo everywhere, but unfortunately, time has changed, and with the development of the automobile market, this once hot brand has become more and more niche. Especially after trying to enter the Chinese market a few years ago but not making too much noise, it seems that the sense of existence is getting weaker and weaker.
Although Alfa Romeo is a niche brand, it can be said that with the outstanding design of italians and the innate love of motorsport, homogenization is becoming more and more serious, it can be said that it is like a clear stream. If you want to buy a very niche and very personal car, Alfa Romeo is one of the very good options.
On February 8, Alfa Romeo's new model - Tonale officially debuted, as The second SUV product of Alfa Romeo, the new car is positioned in a compact SUV, lower than the Stelvio currently on sale, and benchmarked Audi Q3, BMW X1 and other models. It is understood that the car will be officially delivered in overseas markets in June. This article Che Yun fungus will take you to appreciate this Alpha Romeo Tonale that is expected to enter the domestic market.
The design is still sporty, controversial and bright
Alfa Romeo Tonale features an iconic family-style design with a unique inverted triangle grille that creates a nice sense of sportiness with a heat dissipation opening at the bottom. The new headlights use a personalized daytime running light shape, the new wavy light group shape on both sides is very creative, after lighting up, it has a high degree of recognition, with the iconic grille, it looks quite sporty; the design of the front surround and air intake is also very sharp.
From the side of the body, the new car's blackened exterior mirrors have Italian flag elements, the roof line is more fluid, the front and rear fenders are more prominent, the wheel rim adopts a classic five-hole design and another new "Y" type five-spoke style, the overall feeling is more dynamic, with the red brake calipers appear more combative.
In the rear part, the taillights of the new car are similar to the design style of the headlights, and the tail through-wave taillight group echoes the front of the car. At the same time, it is equipped with a small roof spoiler tail wing common to hatchbacks to improve the recognition of new cars, and the exhaust part is slightly regrettable, failing to implement the sporty style, and adopting a hidden exhaust layout.
Che Yunmei believes that the appearance of the Alfa Romeo Tonale on the whole has a lot of remarkable changes compared to the family design of the old model. The design of the front of the car is the most controversial place, some people think it is very good-looking, very radical and sporty, but some people also feel that the design is too avant-garde, and the "squinting" headlight group design combined with the inverted trapezoidal front face always feels a bit like the style of the supercar Bugatti. In addition, as a brand that pursues the expression of sports style, it is also a bit incomprehensible that it will use hidden exhaust. After all, the warm and romantic Italian brand has always been good at showing off the exhaust sound.
The interior design is slightly conservative, but the configuration is high enough
In terms of interior, the new car continues the design of the Alfa Romeo family, and is relatively decent overall, equipped with a double barrel full LCD instrument and a suspended central control screen, placing a one-button start button on the steering wheel, and providing a very exaggerated size of paddle shifters, with the logo print on the headrest to create a full combat style. The design of the gear handle is more traditional, and the overall collocation does not look very prominent.
In terms of configuration, the new car offers popular features such as 360-degree panoramic images and L2-level driver assistance systems. The new 10.25-inch touch screen has also been upgraded on the human-computer interaction system, and the menu layout is more like a smartphone, supporting voice control, 4G network, OTA updates, etc., which is to keep up with the trend.
In addition, as a new car in 2022, Tonale is equipped with a variety of mobile phone interconnection systems such as Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and MirrorLink, and the "mobile phone controller" should be satisfied. The front row also provides wireless charging for mobile phones, and the high-end models are equipped with seat ventilation, heating and 14-speaker Harman Kardon audio, which is also worthy of its own luxury brand positioning in terms of configuration.
Although it looks quite beautiful, in fact, the interior part is the part that Che Yun fungus is relatively dissatisfied with, mainly because this interior design has been used for too long in the Alfa Romeo family car series. I don't know if it is because of the relatively small sales volume, Alfa Romeo does not seem to have any intention of "large-scale" innovation of the interior. This has led to the interior design style of the new car to feel that it is still stuck in the previous generation of models, although Alfa Romeo has caught up with the times by equipping it with a large number of relatively "trendy" intelligent configurations, but as a Yan control party, it still hopes to see a more avant-garde interior appearance.
The power part is the most controversial, is it really good to force into the new energy threshold?
In terms of power, the new car offers a wide range of power options such as gasoline, diesel, oil-electric light hybrid, and PHEV plug-in. The main 48V petro-electric front-drive version offers two output specifications, one of which is a 1.5-liter gasoline engine with a 21-horsepower generator, matched with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, which can output up to 130 horsepower. The Premium version also features a 1.5-litre engine, but with the help of the VGT variable geometry turbocharger, the power comes to 160 horsepower. The main feature of the light hybrid model is that it can drive the vehicle in pure electric mode at high speed cruising and low speed creeping, and according to manufacturers, its fuel economy is comparable to that of the diesel-powered version.
The Q4 model representing the performance version of the Alpha Romeo family uses PHEV plug-in hybrid, in addition to the four-wheel drive setting, the internal combustion engine is also a 1.5-liter gasoline engine, with an electric motor on the rear axle, which can output a total of 275 horsepower, and it is reported that the Q4 version can achieve 6.2 seconds to break the acceleration strength of 100. In terms of pure electric mileage, combined with a 15.5kWh lithium battery pack can bring about 80km of endurance.
In addition, in specific markets such as North America, a 2.0-liter four-cylinder gasoline turbo-powered model is also available, which can output a maximum power of 260 horsepower, with a nine-speed transmission and a four-wheel drive system, which basically continues the current 2.0T power system of the Alfa Romeo family. Some European markets, such as Italy, also offer 1.6-liter four-cylinder diesel turbo power (130 hp) for consumers to choose from.
The reason why the power part of the controversy is relatively large, the main problem comes from this small displacement three-cylinder engine, as a model that flaunts performance and sports, its strongest Q4 model does not use 2.0T power, but uses a three-cylinder engine as a fuel engine, although the total power after matching the motor is not low, but after all, there will definitely be a large loss from the aspects of sound and the sustainability of power output.
Alfa Romeo seems determined to use this compact SUV to force the new energy process, although it is the trend of the times, but for this niche model, it is not necessarily a good thing. From the perspective of the Chinese market, affected by policy factors and other factors, the probability of entering the Chinese market in the future is also a hybrid model. For discerning Chinese consumers, examples of a large number of folded three-cylinder cars are in front of them, and the prospects of The Alpha Romeo Tonale are really worrying.
Che Yun summary
From the actual situation of the current Chinese market, Alpha Romeo still belongs to an unpopular brand, and it still needs a certain amount of courage to buy it, and the retention rate and later maintenance are things that need to be considered. And this time, the three-cylinder engine, no matter how good the book data is, I am afraid that it will become one of the obstacles to its future sales. Alfa Romeo, which has previously stressed that it has not given up the Chinese market, will really introduce hybrid models remains to be examined. Of course, for the ambitious Alfa Romeo, he also hopes to regain the morale of the brand with this entry-level SUV, and bid farewell to the sluggish market sales performance in recent years.