We knew that all-electric Alfa Romeos were only a matter of time based on the firm's previous announcements, and now the inevitable has been confirmed: aAlfa says that both electric cars will be ‘Italian gems’, sold worldwide to ‘establish Alfa Romeo as the Stellantis global premium brand’. To achieve that end, the Stelvio will be the first of the STLA Large cars to feature an 800-volt architecture , with the Giulia to follow suit.
Given the STLA Large boasts a chunky 118kWh battery in other installations , the Alfas will likely share that capacity also. Good for range, especially if efficiency is decent, and it should replenish speedily as well - up to 4.5kWh per minute is claimed. Can’t wait to find one of those chargers.
There’s more being pioneered by this pair, too. The Stelvio will be the first Stellantis product to use something called the STLA Brain, which is electrical, electronic and software architecture. Over to Alfa: ‘This service-oriented architecture, fully integrated with the cloud, disconnects hardware and software cycles, allowing developers to quickly create and update features and services via OTA updates, with no need to wait for new hardware to be introduced.
STLA SmartCockpit will also make its debut in the Stelvio, working ‘in symbiosis’ with Brain to make the car into a ‘fully customisable living space’. Let’s hope the extremely straightforward bit extends to the interior as well, because it sounds like a radical overhaul. There’s AI to assist with pretty much everything, of course, from navigation to an e-commerce marketplace, and the promise of an intuitive interface.
It’s a complete rethink of Alfa’s core models then, and speaks to the repositioning of the brand that Stellantis has been banging on about for what seems like years. If nothing else, having the Stelvio as the first STLA Large car in Europe feels like quite a coup. Apparently, both it and the Giulia will demonstrate how Alfa is interpreting ‘the challenge of the transition to electric, while remaining faithful to its DNA’.