2024 Alfa Romeo Tonale Reviews, Pricing & Specs

The 2024 Alfa Romeo Tonale is presented in three trims: Sprint, Ti, and Veloce. Each is treated almost as a sub-brand, complete with its own font. The sporty-leaning Sprint trim has a dark grille, while the more luxurious Tonale Ti gets a silver grille surround, and then it’s back to black (or rather, “Gloss Black”) for Veloce.

Regardless of trim level, this is a truly beautiful little SUV. Its design does credit to the iconic “Trilobo” triple-intake grille it wears, and the whole vehicle looks stunningly like the concept car we first saw in 2019. Each adaptive LED headlamp comprises a trio of angular, aggressive LED "U" shapes in a line angling toward the center, and the LED taillights mirror this distinctive lightning signature at the rear of the vehicle.

If we had to choose a nit to pick, we'd point to the wheels. We loved the design—each wheel option flaunts the classic Alfa five-hole rotary dial pattern—but the smaller variants sit a little awkwardly in the wheel wells. 18-inch wheels are standard, in silver for the Sprint trim or black for Ti. Ti buyers may upgrade to the Veloce’s 19-inch wheels and Veloce buyers can upgrade to 20-inchers (the latter option resolves our sole and admittedly mild complaint about the exterior).

The Tonale is available in five colors. There are the obligatory white, black, and gray, of course, but shoppers can also consider a punchy red that rivals Mazda’s and a hypnotic green, called “Verde Fangio Metallic,” which both alludes to Alfa Romeo’s heritage and lures the eye like a cartoon cobra. (Only white is offered at no extra charge.)

Inside, the Tonale looks sharp and feels comfortable. The interior decor is predominantly dark, black with silver highlights, though the Veloce's standard Alcantara seats brighten things up with the red backing that peeks through the perforation.

All 2024 Tonales in the US come with standard all-wheel drive (AWD) and the same plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrain: a 1.3-liter turbocharged four-cylinder paired with a 15.5-kWh battery pack and a 90-kW motor in the rear. The whole ensemble makes a total of 285 hp and 347 lb-ft of torque, which Alfa Romeo characterizes as best in class. A six-speed automatic transmission is standard, and all trims offer a manual mode which can be managed through the shift lever. Only the Veloce trim comes standard with steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters as well. These aluminum paddles, which are also available as an option on the Ti trim, are huge, so whether you like to sit your hands at 10 and 2, 9 and 3, or 8 and 4 (one of these is objectively right, but no judgement), you’ll have no trouble reaching them.

Alfa Romeo says the Tonale can do zero to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds and has a top speed of 125 mph. We got to ride along for hot laps with a professional driver on Alfa Romeo’s speed track at the Balocco Proving Grouds, and what we can tell you for sure is that the vehicle certainly outpaced the speed of our mental km-to-mph conversions.

A “DNA” switch mounted just below the climate controls, in easy reach of the driver’s right hand, lets you change drive mode to adjust steering, braking, and suspension responses. “D” is for “Dual Power” or, alternatively, “Dynamic,” and it pushes both the gas-powered engine and the electric motor to perform to the best of their ability. “N” is for “Natural” and refers to a power management drive mode which balances the engine and the electric motor in a way designed to optimize the combination comfort and performance. Finally, “A” is for “Advanced Efficiency;” selecting this mode puts the vehicle into pure-electric power.

We found the Tonale to be a comfortable ride which can get plenty sporty for most drivers when asked. You won’t mistake it for a sports car, but then again, it’s not meant to be. It’s a CUV, and one that offers confident handling, intuitive, speed-adaptive steering, and reasonable acceleration at all speeds.

Alfa has not announced fuel economy as of this writing, but the automaker does state that Tonale buyers can expect more than 30 miles of pure electric range.

Note: As a European-spec vehicle, the Tonale we drove in Italy did differ somewhat from those that will make their way to the US. Alfa told us that the components are about 90% shared; the difference will be in tuning for American roads and American drivers’ expectations.

Sport cloth seating surfaces are standard in the Alfa Romeo Tonale, as are heated front seats and a heated, leather-covered steering wheel. Buyers who require ventilated front seats can consider adding the Premium Interior or the Premium Interior and Sound package to one of the two upper trims. Leather seats are available on both Ti and Veloce trims, but the latter comes with the aforementioned black-and-red Alcantara by default. In every Tonale, both the driver’s and front passenger’s seats are eight-way power-adjustable with four-way lumbar adjustment. Rear-seat passengers enjoy the dual-zone climate control through dedicated vents, but they do not get their own USB ports in the base Sprint trim.

Despite its compact size, the Tonale manages to provide good space inside, with 41.7 inches of leg room for front-seat occupants and 38 inches for those in the rear. Head room sits at 38.8 inches in the first row and 38.2 in the back seat—disappointingly, a moonroof is not standard on any trim, and our Veloce tester did not have that option.

The lift gate, which is powered and can be operated hands-free on Ti and Veloce models, opens on a trunk area offering 22.9 cubic feet of cargo volume, more than a Lexus UX or a Volvo XC40. That expands to 50.5 cubic feet when the rear seats folded down.

Aside from the number of USB ports, there’s very little to distinguish the base trim from the top trim when it comes to the 2024 Tonale’s tech offerings. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, de rigeur these days, are standard. Wireless charging, which is still less of a given even in luxury segments, is also standard.

We found the 12.3-inch driver information display easy and fun to configurate, and we liked that its three modules paid homage to iconic cars in the brand’s history. The standard 10.25-inch touchscreen infotainment display runs the excellent Uconnect 5 system also found in Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, and Ram products (from Alfa Romeo’s parent company, Stellantis). We used the standard native nav system on a two-hour route in entirely unfamiliar country with nary a missed turn and, though it’s not relevant in the States, we appreciated the accuracy of its speed camera alerts.

Tonale owners can store up to five infotainment user profiles and use that to quickly adjust the vehicle according to each drivers’ preferences for settings, climate, mirror and seating positions, and music. A six-speaker sound system is standard across the lineup, but a 12-speaker Harman Kardon premium audio system can be added to Ti and Veloce trims as part of the Premium Interior and Sound package. This also introduces ventilated leather seats and driver’s seat memory.

The 2024 Tonale has Alexa on board, and the in-vehicle assistant also offers home-to-car and car-to-home functionality. Additionally, Alfa Connect is standard, and each new Tonale comes with three years of service included. Owners can use the Alfa Connect mobile app to lock and unlock their vehicle, start it remotely, and track it for purposes including recovering a stolen vehicle or monitoring drivers who might be operating under curfew or boundary limits. The app also allows you to share vehicle access permissions, meaning you can do things like let a friend into your Tonale—or use it as a destination for delivery orders while on the go.

Safety features, like tech, are nearly all standard on the 2024 Alfa Romeo Tonale. This includes remote start and an auto-dimming rearview mirror, plus a host of driver-assistance features. Among them are active blind-spot assist, adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, brake assist, Drowsy Driver Detection, Full Speed Forward Collision Warning Plus, lane-keep assist, front and rear park-assist sensors, rear cross-path detection, and traffic-sign recognition. We did not enjoy the lane-keep assist, which at times threatened to resist our intentional overrides, but we were impressed with the functionality of the traffic-sign recognition, even on roads with frequently varying speed limits.

Shoppers looking for more in the way of driver-assistance can opt to add the Active Assist Plus package for Level 2 advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). Available on all three trims, the package also comes with intelligent speed control, front ParkSense, Park Assist, and 360-degree camera view.

Neither the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has yet evaluated the Tonale, which should not be cause for alarm in a brand new model.

The 2024 Alfa Romeo Tonale starts at $42,995 in its base Sprint trim. The Tonale Ti starts at $45,655, and the top-of-the-line Veloce starts at $49,695.

Competitors in the compact luxury SUV segment include the Audi Q3, the BMW X1, the Lexus UX, the Mercedes-Benz GLA-class, and the Volvo XC40. Even assuming AWD as a requirement for comparison, since it’s standard on the Tonale, the Q3 and the UX start below $38,000. The X1 and XC40 get perilously near $40,000, and the GLA crosses the mark.

Of these, only the Lexus is offered with a hybrid powertrain option (the XC40 Recharge is fully electric, and the GLA has a mild-hybrid system only). Only the Audi Q3 comes with standard leather seating; the XC40 has Volvo’s high-end cloth interior as a base offering, and the others start with synthetic leather.

That the Tonale is a stylish CUV is hard to argue and, further, is an inherent trait, independent of context. Adding context in, however, adds an element of the exotic, largely because Alfa is a relatively small automaker and not—or not yet—well-represented in the US.

Alfa Romeo currently has 130 dealers in the United States and intends to reduce rather than boost that number. Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz each have more than double that number nationwide, and Lexus and Volvo both exceed it by more than 100. Whether this raises concerns about dealership support will likely depend on your location.

Ultimately, the Tonale represents an opportunity to own a piece of a legendary brand with uniquely Italian sex appeal at a surprisingly affordable price. And though they may have heritage of their own, no competitor can say that.