• Pros

• Meet the Tonale. The Alfa Tonale is a microcosm of the modern car business. Alfa, a sporty, premium Italian brand, needs to sell more cars. Alfa's impressive Giulia sedan and Stelvio mid size SUV are not selling in large enough numbers to pay the bills. So Alfa decides to fish where the fish are — the compact SUV market. But without the money or market share to develop its own compact Alfa SUV from scratch, it has to take an existing platform from its corporate overlord, Stellantis, and try to turn it into an Alfa.
• Alfa-esque. In some ways, Alfa succeeded. The Tonale absolutely looks like an Alfa. The magicians in Alfa’s styling department made a very good looking SUV. It's Italian looking — stylish, sculptural, but not loud or garish. They’ve incorporated the cool, triple-light motif front and rear. If you need any further proof that the Alfa stylists are geniuses, just look at the Tonale’s corporate sibling, the Dodge Hornet for comparison.
• Inside, too. Granted, we drove the most upscale version of the Tonale, the Veloce. But the inside feels like an Alfa. It’s sporty, and den-like. The first thing you see is the small, sporty Alfa steering wheel. Then you notice aluminum trim, leather and suede. We give Alfa an A+ for style. Ergonomically, they’ve modeled the Tonale after the Stelvio, too, with a bank of useful, commonly used switches right in the center of the console, where they’re easy to reach. The wireless charging bin is perfectly placed and angled. And here's one big benefit of gigantic car corporations; Stellantis’ infotainment software is very good, and Alfa buyers get it in the Tonale.
• Handling. Alfa engineers clearly did some work on the handling of the Tonale. You can push it through corners with confidence. It’s all wheel drive system and independent suspension keep it well-planted to the road. The steering is very quick, making it easy to drive on curvy roads. Even in the middle suspension setting (“normale”), the Tonale was sporty to drive. By the way, the suspension settings are listed as “d” “n” and “a.” Without our Alfa to English dictionary, we still quickly figured out that “n” is for “normale” or normal. But then, which is the sport setting? We guessed “a” for “aggressivo!” Nope. “a” turns out to be for “advanced efficiency.” “d” is for “dinamico” (and not, as we suspected, "damn, that’s a hard ride").
• Plug in. The only powertrain you can get on the Tonale is a 285-hp plug-in hybrid set up. It uses a 15.5 kWh battery pack to provide about 31 miles of all electric driving. When you run out of electrons, or when you step down hard on the accelerator, you call for the 1.3 liter gasoline engine. Overall mileage lands in the high 20s.

• Cons

• Not the smoothest powertrain. One of the real pleasures of the Stelvio is the engine. That’s not the case with the Tonale. While the electric power is great around town, harder acceleration wakes up the 1.3 liter four cylinder engine, which is small and buzzy. The interplay between the electric motor and internal combustion engine doesn’t feel like a work of art. The back and forth is a bit jarring to the senses when you drive it hard. You go from silent battery operation to full Singer sewing machine. I can’t imagine the Alfa powertrain engineers are entirely thrilled with where this landed.
• Somewhat harsh ride. The handling is very good. But the ride feels a bit hard at times. This is particularly true in the sportiest suspension setting (“d”), which we would skip.
• Price. The entry level Tonale starts at around $44K. The Veloce we tested starts at $47.500. When you add the gorgeous Verde Fangio green paint job ($2,200), a interior upgrade featuring leather, heated seats, and a premium sound system ($2,500), active driving and parking assistance features ($2,000), a power moonroof ($1,200), 20 inch wheels ($2,000), and a destination charge, you get a Tonale that rings the bell at nearly $59,000. At that point, you might as well start looking at Stelvios.

Get the Car Talk Newsletter