Alfa Romeo has announced its first foray into the battery electric vehicle market with the glitzy unveiling of its new Milano model – a sporty, stylish SUV that goes heavy on performance, handling and classic Alfa design cues in order to stand out from a congested crowd.
However, Alfa Romeo is now part of the absolutely massive Stellantis corporation, which includes Fiat, Jeep, Peugeot and Vauxhall, so you'd be correct in thinking that it shares many of its parts with popular electric models from those brands.
In fact, Milano rides on the eCMP platform, which underpins everything from the Peugeot e-2008 to the Fiat 600e. Plus, it borrows the 54kWh battery pack from the Abarth 600e and Jeep Avenger, tuned to offer either 154bhp or 238bhp that’s driven through the front wheels.
It’s not exactly adding up to the smoky-tired, snarling-V6 performance of an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde model, but it should equate to some relatively sprightly real-world acceleration figures, which we are yet to have confirmed.
In order for the Milano to appeal to the true 'Alfaholics' out there, engineers have ensured it has faster and more direct steering than some of those aforementioned siblings, as well as lower, sportier suspension, larger brakes and beefed-up anti-roll bars. Alfa says Milano is a "handbook for an Italian brand devoted to the satisfaction of the sensory faculties," whatever that means.
Despite this, there’s still a huge reliance on practicality, with Alfa claiming Milano has a class-leading 400-liter boot, as well as cable organization in the ‘frunk’.
There’s also a highly digitized interior that includes a 10.25-inch TFT display that takes care of instrumentation and a touchscreen of the same size that features a widget-based, 'drag and drop' interface so the user can set up the home screen to their tastes.
An exercise in Italian flair
Clearly a handsome beast, the compact 4.1m long, 1.5m tall Milano makes the most of the research and development the Stellantis group has already invested into pure electric vehicles, borrowing many of its parts from EVs that are already on the road.
But while it undoubtedly injects a little premium spice and Alfa exoticism to an otherwise fairly homogenous market, some of the range and charging figures touted by the Italian marques aren't exactly headline-grabbing.
An official range of 250-miles has been suggested, but that’s very likely to drop to around 200 miles if you factor in any bouts of 'spirited' driving. Not bad for a car of this size, but still not mind-blowing. Similarly, its Level 2 automated driving functionality is fairly commonplace nowadays and can’t rival what the likes of Tesla offers on most of its models.
Even the voice-activated virtual assistant and ChatGPT integration is old news now, seeing as Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and more announced tie-ups with the natural language processing chatbot at the start of the year.
Still, Alfa is playing it safe by offering Milano in a hybrid option, which will be powered by a 1.2-litre inline-3 engine with a 48-volt lithium-ion battery pack and a 21-kW electric motor. This version could be the most practical of the two and still sports the same eye-catching design language.
There is currently no word on pricing, but TopGear suggests that the entry-level car will undercut the Jeep Avenger’s £34,000 (around $42,600 / AU$65,300) starting cost. However, this looks likely to be a car for Europe, rather than a global option.
