2024 Alfa Romeo Tonale | Unprecedented Prestige and Swagger

the all-new Alfa Romeo tonale so what do you need to know well this is Alfa Romeo's first ever phev at least here in the U.S market and on top of that it's their newest and cheapest car this vehicle competes in a class of vehicles like the BMW X3 X1 q1 Q3 Q5 gv70 NX the thing about this is It's a plug-in hybrid and this will be the last ever internal combustion Alpha sold here in the US as a new product what do you want to know about the Interior Space well it's on the smaller side I don't fit behind myself it's basically the size of what you're expecting for this classic car with the rear seats up you're looking at about 23 cubic feet of cargo capacity though there's a fairly large opening with the rear seats down you're looking about 50.5 it's a quiet cabin you have good visibility the seating position is actually very good you can sit nice and low or you can raise the seat up you have very good visibility at the back of this thing despite its styling and I think all of the touch points in this car like the steering wheel shifter physical HVAC and infotainment controls all feel nice and as long as you don't touch the hard Dash or the lower trim Plastics it feels pretty nice in here you can kind of forget its eco car Roots the infotainment in this car runs Android automotive it's very fast acting it works great it's paired to a pretty decent optional Harman Kardon audio system the gauge cluster is All Digital and it's easy to get through and it has some fun design motifs like vintage or future or minimal the steering wheel controls themselves are fairly easy to use I will bring up however if you have presidential or smaller hands you may find it difficult to use the stocks Behind These optimistically large paddle shifters the steering wheel out of this car is ripped out of a sports car and it's a bit cheeky to say the least other than that quiet cabin things for the most part feel fairly premium everything's logically laid out and there's good storage with with that let's head into the shop and with that let's head that end with that let's head into the shop in the shop with the lovely Alfa Romeo tonale so what do you need to know well first off this is a mechanical twin called the Dodge Hornet which Dodge will tell you is the first muscle car CUV both the toenail and the Hornet are built on the same platform known as small wide which is stalantis's global small car or small CUV architecture and it is front-wheel drive biased or front-wheel drive based this is Mcpherson strut front and rear and essentially none of the suspension components are aluminum everything's Steel on this thing which is a bit disappointing seeing that as tested this is 55 000 so to buy this thing you are walking over Vehicles like the BMW X3 which is built on car which is a rear-world drive architecture the Acura RDX the Q5 the Mercedes GLA let me tell you there are other options in this segment the other thing to bring up is the suspension tuning itself there are adaptive dampers front and rear and they are tied to the DNA drive mode selector so this thing can go soft or firm based upon your drive modes that also affects the programming of the drivetrains which we'll talk about in a second the other thing to bring up though is they did cover this thing up with as many nvh panels as possible to quiet down this Eco platform the one con of that and this is the only vehicle I've ever lifted that I've seen this on they've added access panels over the lift points so you have to go around to lift this vehicle and remove four plastic push pins on each corner of this car and I will tell you this took more time to lift than a Lamborghini Huracan STL and is more difficult to lift than essentially any exotic car because most premium vehicles that have nvh panels have little access pucks so essentially it's no bother to lift at all for some reason this tonaling decided to go with this and when this thing seizes up and gets covered in dirt and dust and salt I can almost guarantee you every one of these push Clips are going to break and you're service technician or yourself are going to go absolutely nuts powertrain you get a 1.3 liter four-cylinder multi-air direct injected turbocharged engine in the front that makes about 180 horsepower and it puts its power down through a six-speed azen automatic gearbox and you have a electric motor in the rear it's 90 kilowatts and total system output is about 285 horsepower and that's good for 0 to 60 and about 5.5 seconds there is a battery pack it is 15.5 kilowatt hours that means you get an electric range of about 30 miles one thing I will say about this car is despite its roots or eco car routes it does handle reasonably well that electric motor in the back does torque Vector the brakes in this vehicle are four pot brembos in the front and they are brake by wire that's the only way they can get all these electronic systems to work together along with the safety Suite pass that though I think it's time for us to go take this for a quick dry thank you let's launch this right into a corner mark we are in the Alpha Romeo tonale mark this is Alpha's first phev model or at least first one here in the United States and it represents their entry-level small CUV it competes with a lot of different cars BMW X3 BMW X1 Q5 Q3 NX a lot of different vehicles but the advantage that this has is it's a plug-in hybrid and it's from Italia mark so what do you think about this thing Jack it is best in class that's good Mark it's good that you're not talking about this car because I don't want our reps to come after us and break your kneecaps Joe Pesci style look in the shop segment I was pretty down on the architecture that this is on and versus its other premium competitors this is definitely saddled by being McPherson struck front and rear being shared on an Eco architecture or at least with the BMW and the Audi you can definitely make the case that at least the Q5 and the Q and the X3 have much more premium routes what I will say is this thing at least in Suburbia when you're trying to hook this thing around corners and you drive it within its sort of basic limits does a really good job at not feeling ponderous it has reasonable body control when you take it out of dynamic it's nice and soft but when you're in corners or when it's wet out I drove this in a bad rainstorm despite making 285 horsepower it does not just wash out the front end the electric motors of the back kick in and get this thing to not totally understeer off the road there is a lot of torque steer though out of this one not torquester sorry turbo lag out of this 1.3 liter four-cylinder basically nobody's home for the first thousand or two RPM and then the electric motor is in the Boost kick in man past that I know you're not saying a whole lot other than Towing the company line here but this isn't anywhere as bad as I thought it would be and it does represent at least an option in the segment if you can get past its underpinnings and you just take it at face value and you're assuming it's going to be reliable it's a fairly refined different vehicle in this segment and the best part about it Mark is you can drive it to your favorite restaurant as I'm about to and you know show that you are a cultured individual so do you have anything to add the Alfa Romeo tonale offers a distinctive sensual and forward-looking Design perfect Mark we're we're almost at our destination long last oh I should bring up something else the fuel economy and of course the electric driving characteristic of this car you have about 30 miles to work with in pure EV and it does a good job man you really it's just like everything else in this class it's fairly refined you know it's somewhat limiting but if you're driving right in Suburbia which most people are it's perfect and the fuel economy with our driving Styles put this in the mid to high 20s almost 30 miles the gallon but the last Mark where would we need to be finally finally I can be myself again take me around the front I don't want to walk it's hard you know being in this country where you don't feel like you're family finally I feel like I'm home again just stop right here [Music] good Ness final thoughts on the Alfa Romeo tonales what do I think well first off as we beat it to death in this video this is a competitive class with a lot of different options and the thing that hurts the alpha is that it's built on a non-premium architecture it's hard to compete in a class where the dedicated luxury cars have better underpinnings to begin with that said let's talk about the pros it handles great you would be shocked to learn what its mechanical Brethren are when you take this thing around corners the rear diff does a good job getting in and out of Corners the front end works well it handles really well and that's a big surprise for this class of vehicle I thought it would not do that and it does the exterior styling is uniquely Alpha if you appreciate that and the interior they've done a really good job again dressing up a not premium platform it looks good there's good touch points the steering wheel is nice the seats are great and it doesn't feel like a car they put zero effort into the interior space and in some ways it's nicer than its competitors and the interior technology specifically Android automotive does work very well cons it's an unproven phev from Alfa Romeo with a bad history of reliability at least as a brand the Reps will tell you that they are doing their best to improve their JD Power scores and their dealership experience and I do believe them but as a customer moving into an unproven product from a risky brand at least historically makes it difficult to justify so if you're one of those people who's willing to take the risk I don't think this is inherently a bad product I do think it's worth at least the test drive the phev side of the product works well it handles well it looks interesting and it's not like everything else on the road it is expensive however at fifty five thousand dollars which means if you were going to buy one of these I'd probably find a cheaper trim or less options on the vehicle to make it a little bit more compelling from a value proposition pass out though thanks for watching I hope to see you soon oh [Music]

Channel: savagegeese

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Keywords: review, cars, cargurus, trucks, 2024, 2023, new, Alfa Romeo Tonale, Lexus NX, BMW X1, X3, Audi Q3, Mazda CX-90, Honda CRV, Toyota RAV4, subaru crosstrek, toyota corolla cross, Honda Civic hatch, manual, mazda cx30, CX50, CX5, honda hrv, honda, typer, family car, safe family car, mazda3, toyota corolla, Problems, truth, hot hatch, cheap cars cars, tech, manual transmission, pros, cons, VW Tiguan, GTI, Si, ST, track, funny, comparison, best, worst, mods, affordable, mark up, cooling, Pixel 7, Tech

Id: VjiPGm2q4dA

Length: 11min 56sec (716 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2023