In 2021, Stellantis said that Alfa Romeo would become an electric-only brand in the Enlarged Europe, North America, and China regions by 2027. Well, that’s not happening anymore. Alfa Romeo’s new CEO has confirmed that the Italian brand will keep combustion engines for the long haul. The next-generation Stelvio and Giulia will be available with gas engines as part of a hybrid powertrain. The duo is also getting purely electric derivatives.
Alfa Romeo and Maserati CEO Santo Ficili announced on LinkedIn that Stelvio will lead the way. The all-new SUV will break cover later this year, but sales won’t start until 2026. A timeline for the Giulia hasn’t been provided, but the head honcho says it’ll come after the Stelvio. Both cars will be assembled in Italy and will be underpinned by the STLA Large platform, meaning they’ll be mechanically related to the new Dodge Charger to some extent.
Photo by: Jeff Perez / Motor1
Consequently, expect the Giulia and Stelvio to get the twin-turbo, 3.0-liter “Hurricane” engine offered by Dodge. The inline-six is available in the Charger Sixpack with either 420 or 550 horsepower, routed to an all-wheel-drive system. Torque hasn’t been announced yet, but the six-cylinder engine makes 469 and 521 pound-feet in the 2025 Ram 1500. That’s 636 and 706 Newton meters, respectively.
The decision to stick with combustion engines doesn’t come as a surprise. Former Alfa Romeo head honcho Jean-Philippe Imparato hinted last October that his replacement has the freedom to adopt a multi-energy architecture for the Stelvio and Giulia replacements. Limiting the lineup to just EVs would’ve been a huge gamble, given how the world is far from ready to embrace electric cars fully. The company’s current sales aren’t exactly great either, so cutting the ICE versions would’ve hampered demand even more.
Ficili didn’t go into other details about the new models. However, the top brass recently revealed the new Giulia won’t be a conventional sedan. Instead, the car will adopt “a new design and a new type of bodywork,” alluding it would be more SUV-like: “Its platform will be the same as that of the Stelvio. So you can imagine what kind of vehicle we will offer.”
His statement has fueled rumors about the Giulia becoming a high-riding, five-door liftback in the same vein as the Citroën C5 X, Peugeot 4008, and the DS N°8. It won’t have the ground clearance of the Stelvio but it won’t sit as low as the outgoing Giulia either.
About a year ago, Alfa Romeo’s former boss, Imparato, hyped up the car’s styling: “What we designed is a bomb; we couldn’t finalize the style of this car without being absolutely in love with it. And now we are!”
Source:
Santo Ficili / LinkedIn
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