2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale review: Australian first drive
Alfa Romeo’s 2023 Tonale is a beautifully styled small SUV, and that alone fights a large part of the battle in the image-conscious Australian new car market. Trent Nikolic drives the mild-hybrid Tonale at its local launch to find out whether it has substance to match the style.
2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale
We’ve all read the copy – everyone wants Alfa Romeo to succeed, and everyone loves Alfa Romeo. It’s a story that gets trotted out regularly.
As someone who’s owned a 1750 Duetto Spyder, believe me I get it. I understand the appeal, the sense of style and the love for a legendary brand. Alfa Romeo is, and probably always will be, an icon. But, and this is a big but, it’s 2023.
If Alfa Romeo wants to make a play as a genuinely global brand, SUVs are the touchpoint with which to succeed. Where once an engaging sports car was the key to success, SUVs unequivocally now make the case for a brand on a broader scale.
And, therein lies the issue. Alfa Romeo honchos have admitted to Drive previously that quality needs to lift and the brand needs to better execute what it is capable of doing to succeed around the world. However, doing that in a viciously competitive segment like small luxury SUV is very different from doing it with a classical sports car or sports sedan.
Further, engineering into the DNA of an SUV the kind of driver engagement Alfa Romeo fans will expect is no easy undertaking. No matter how clever your engineering team might be.
In style and design at least, the Tonale is every bit the Alfa Romeo. It looks the part in any carpark and in any company. That theme continues into the cabin, where the Tonale’s design execution is attractive, as well as practical. Looking through the specification detail, the simple to understand two-model range looks to be cleverly positioned in the market.
At launch, Alfa Romeo Australia representatives told us that the sales split between the two-model range is likely to be 70/30 in favour of the range-topping Ti. We’ll give you our pick of the two models soon, and that split might end up being spot-on once the sales figures and order bank settles.
Our market generally favours the most expensive variant of just about everything – with all the options thrown at it too. Is the Ti the one to pick, though? We’ll find out. On paper, the Veloce certainly looks to be solid value for money.
Having driven the plug-in hybrid overseas, we now get the chance to test the mild hybrid on our local roads.
How much does the Alfa Romeo Tonale cost in Australia?
Our pricing and specification story details the in-depth range and pricing, but to recap here, Alfa Romeo is keeping it simple. Two model grades, both with the same powertrain, and a relatively simple options structure.
The Alfa Romeo Tonale Ti starts from $49,900 before on-road costs, while the Tonale Veloce starts from $56,400 before on-road costs. Our pricing table below details the Veloce we drove at launch.
Our tester has the optional Lusso Pack ($4500), which adds heated front seats, heated steering wheel, heated washer nozzle, PTC heater, perforated leather seat trim, eight-way electric driver and passenger seat with driver memory, ventilated front seats, and a 14-speaker Harmon Kardon audio system.
If you opt for the Veloce – the sportier model according to Alfa Romeo – you can add premium paint, or special paint, sunroof, the Lusso Pack and 20-inch alloy wheels. The Tech Pack is effectively standard on Veloce, and the alluring Montreal Green is exclusive to that model grade too. Ti can be optioned with premium paint, sunroof, the Lusso Pack and the Tech Pack. Including Montreal Green, Tonale is available in six exterior colours.
This is the first time the legendary Italian brand has had a crack in what the industry calls the ‘C SUV’ segment. Options are plentiful and competition is fierce. Alfa Romeo has done everything it can to ensure this vehicle is as competitive as it can be. Partnering with Amazon Alexa and the creation of My Alfa Connect are admissions that the automotive world has changed, as have the requirements of the modern buyer. Driver engagement and steering precision have always been hallmarks of any great Alfa, but that alone won’t attract buyers in 2023.
Standard equipment highlights include Alfa’s DNA driving modes – more on that later – a neat 56:44 front to rear weight distribution, plenty of standard safety kit, an electric LSD, Brembo brakes, dual-stage valve suspension and paddle shifters. There’s a lot to like if you’re rifling through the standard specification list.
| Key details | 2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale Veloce |
| Price | $56,400 plus on-road costs |
| Colour of test car | Misano Blue |
| Options | Lusso Pack – $4500 20-inch alloy wheels – $1500 Metallic paint – $1600 |
| Price as tested | $64,000 plus on-road costs |
| Rivals | Audi Q3 | Volvo XC40 | BMW X1 |
How much space does the Alfa Romeo Tonale have inside?
Alfa Romeo designers have done a fantastic job with the cabin. Stylish, without being overly stylised, classy, space-efficient and comfortable, Tonale nails the brief. It’s not easy with a small SUV to get all those ducks in a row, but the Tonale is fantastic not just to look at, but also to live with.
The front seats are excellent, with plenty of adjustment, visibility is good, and a long drive won’t leave you needing a chiropractor at the other end. As a former Alfa Romeo owner, and I know this might seem like a minor point, but I love the steering wheel. I’m not even sure what it is specifically, but it looks beautiful and is a noteworthy touchpoint that so many manufacturers overlook.
The second row will be tight for tall adults, if you also have tall adults in the front two seats. However, if you use your small SUV primarily as two-up city transport as so many do, the Tonale will work nicely for you. The cabin works well for the city buyer.
The boot is useful without being cavernous, with 500L on offer if you’re using the second row. Fold the second row down and you expand that storage out to a useful 1550L. There’s a space-saver spare under the boot floor.
| 2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale | |
| Seats | Five |
| Boot volume | 500L seats up 1550L seats folded |
| Length | 4528mm |
| Width | 1835mm |
| Height | 1601mm |
| Wheelbase | 2636mm |
Does the Alfa Romeo Tonale have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto?
Our launch drive afforded only a short test with Apple CarPlay and it worked well. The infotainment screen is snappy enough, clear in any light and easy to work around. We liked the smartphone charging and storage shelf, which keeps your phone from moving around the cockpit. In Veloce guise, you get a 10.25-inch central touchscreen and a 12.3-inch digital cluster for the driver.
We tried Apple CarPlay both wired and wireless, and Android Auto is also wireless. Proprietary satellite navigation is also standard, along with digital radio, integrated voice command, steering wheel controls, USB-A and USB-C inputs and Alfa Romeo’s Connected Services. The latter allows you to control various functionality with an app. We’ll test that more closely post launch.
Is the Alfa Romeo Tonale a safe car?
Tonale gets a full five-star ANCAP rating (tested in late 2022), which applies to all variants. Across the ANCAP testing program, Tonale scored 84 per cent for adult occupant protection, 87 per cent for child occupant protection, 67 per cent for vulnerable road user protection, and 85 per cent for safety assist systems.
| 2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale | |
| ANCAP rating | Five stars (tested 2022) |
| Safety report | Link to ANCAP report |
What safety technology does the Alfa Romeo Tonale have?
With the five-star ANCAP rating comes a comprehensive list of standard safety equipment. Hardware includes dual frontal, side chest-protecting and side head-protecting airbags as standard. A centre airbag to prevent occupant-to-occupant interaction is not available for the Tonale.
Autonomous emergency braking (car-to-car, vulnerable road user and junction assist) as well as a lane support system with lane keep assist, lane departure warning, and emergency lane keeping, and an advanced speed assistance system, are standard equipment. There’s also a 360-degree camera with dynamic lines, front and rear parking sensors, traffic sign recognition, intelligent speed control, driver behaviour warning, active blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, traffic jam assist, adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go, and intelligent adaptive cruise control.
How much does the Alfa Romeo Tonale cost to maintain?
The new Tonale is covered by a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty along with servicing that you’re aware of from the outset. Alfa Romeo offers capped-price servicing for its Tonale, and servicing will cost $1735 over the first three years, or $3675 over the first five years.
Comprehensive insurance for the 2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale Veloce MHEV will cost $1536.02 per annum based on a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male driver living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.
| At a glance | 2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale |
| Warranty | Five years, unlimited km |
| Service intervals | 12 months or 15,000km |
| Servicing costs | $1735 (3 years) $3675 (5 years) |
Is the Alfa Romeo Tonale fuel-efficient?
The official fuel claim on the combined cycle is a thrifty 5.6L/100km. Figures that low are what we’re starting to expect in this segment, of course, and while we pushed the Tonale reasonable enthusiastically on high-speed rural roads, we saw a figure in the high sevens on launch. We’ll test that more accurately when we spend our regular week behind the wheel of the Tonale soon.
Crucially, though, it seems that Alfa Romeo’s mild-hybrid (MHEV) system actually does work to keep the fuel-usage figure as low as possible. Not all hybrids are created equal, of course, as we know, but Alfa’s seems to work well.
Fuel Consumption – brought to you by bp
| Fuel Useage | Fuel Stats |
| Fuel cons. (claimed) | 5.6L/100km |
| Fuel cons. (on test) | 7.8L/100km |
| Fuel type | 95-octane premium unleaded |
| Fuel tank size | 55L |
What is the Alfa Romeo Tonale like to drive?
The 1.5-litre variable-geometry turbocharged four-cylinder engine makes 118kW at 5750rpm and 240Nm at 1500rpm fed into a seven-speed dual-clutch auto and front-wheel drive. Unlike some other mild-hybrids, Alfa’s MHEV system can drive the wheels up to 40km/h, so most low-speed manoeuvring can be undertaken in EV mode.
Tonale weighs in at 1491kg, so it’s not too portly and as such, if you give it some throttle, it feels punchy enough most of the time. Most interesting to me at launch, on the move, were the DNA drive modes.
Advanced Efficiency, as the name might suggest, is the most efficient way to get from A to B. As such, you’ll ideally want to be in that mode around town to save as much fuel as you can. However, the dual-clutch automatic transmission isn’t at its best in this mode, and can feel snatchy, laggy, and not as precise as we’d like.
To be fair, that’s true of just about any DCT at low speed in traffic, which is another reason I find myself asking manufacturers to reserve them for sports cars only.
However, switch to Dynamic and the Tonale comes alive. It’s as if the whole personality of the Tonale changes, and crucially the gearshifts feel sharper, more precise, and generally snappier. It makes for not just a more engaging driving experience, but also a more enjoyable one. For mine, I’d leave my Tonale in D all the time and live with the slightly higher fuel use.
There’s also a Natural mode in between, the default setting, which dulls down some of Dynamic’s more honed responses.
The other factor that would play into my purchase decision is the ride quality. The range-topper is definitely firm without being harsh, so if you really do want to buy the more expensive Tonale, it will feel taut, sporty and responsive. 20-inch rims and sharp suspension on a bumpy B-road aren’t the best compromise, though. However, the Ti seems to me to be the unsung hero.
On the smaller 18-inch wheels and chunkier tyres, the Tonale Ti rides beautifully over any road surface. That significant lift in bump insulation counteracts any small loss of sportiness you might encounter. I reckon the Ti is the pick of the two-model Tonale range, certainly if ride comfort is a priority.
Wet, twisty, climbing and descending country roads don’t immediately spring out as the ideal environment to be testing a sporty front-wheel-drive SUV. And yet, the Tonale tackles the challenging conditions with ease. Most family buyers aren’t going to be firing their SUV into corners like it’s the Nurburgring anyway, but if you’re alone in the car and want to have some fun, Alfa fans will enjoy the way the Tonale responds.
The steering especially is excellent and worthy of note. There is undoubtedly the kind of driver engagement, feedback and connection that Alfa Romeo engineers repeatedly tell us that buyers want. Tonale’s resistance to understeer, even on wet roads at speed, is impressive. I’m sure you could coax it into some understeer, but if you drive within the limits of the conditions, it’s surefooted and well balanced.
The soundtrack that accompanies the revs as they rise makes it seem like the 1.5-litre doesn’t like to be worked too hard. It can sound thrashy, and it does reach its redline quickly. However, the 240Nm peak, available at 1500rpm, means you don’t need to redline it too often. When you do, though, you’ll hear the diminutive engine working away.
I’m looking forward to driving the MHEV and coming PHEV (plug-in hybrid) versions of the Tonale back-to-back on local roads to work out definitively which one is the better powertrain.
| Key details | 2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale |
| Engine | 1.5-litre four-cylinder turbo petrol |
| Power | 118kW @ 5750rpm petrol 15kW electric motor |
| Torque | 240Nm @ 1500rpm 55Nm electric motor |
| Drive type | Front-wheel drive |
| Transmission | Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic |
| Power-to-weight ratio | 79.1kW/t |
| Weight (tare) | 1491kg |
| Tow rating | 1500kg braked 750kg unbraked |
| Turning circle | 11.5m |
Should I buy an Alfa Romeo Tonale?
There’s little doubt the Tonale is stylish, safe, feature-heavy and sharply priced. In our opinion, the entry-grade Ti is the pick of the two models available despite the obvious appeal of the range-topper. It’s a tough road, though, the stylish little Alfa must traverse in our local market.
Going head-to-head with the established Germans is never an easy task in the luxury segments, and that’s something the Tonale will have to tackle head-on.
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