Alexandre
The Alfa Romeo Junior, the latest addition to the Italian manufacturer's range, has been the subject of much speculation since its launch. This B-SUV, presented as strategic for the future ofAlfa Romeohe managed to convince the Italians, or are its initial results mixed? Let's take a look at the figures.
A promising start
Since its commercial launch, Alfa Romeo Junior registered around 1,800 units in Italy, the overwhelming majority of which (87 %) were hybrid versions. In November 2024, Junior scored points by becoming best-selling Alfa Romeo of the month with 1,104 registrations. This figure exceeds the performance of the Tonale (877 units), Stelvio (537 units) and Giulia (99 units) over the same period. This is a first victory for the new compact SUV.
However, compared with the Tonale, results are less impressive. As a reminder, the Tonale recorded 4,620 registrations in its launch year in Italy in 2022, and 18,788 in 2023. For Junior to be considered a real success, it would need to achieve an average of at least 1,000 registrations per month over the year as a whole. As things stand, Junior needs to keep up with November.
In November, the Junior ranked 29th on the list of the 50 best-selling models in Italy, surpassing Tonale (39th). However, this performance should not mask the difficulties ahead. Alfa Romeo's overall sales show a worrying trend: the Giulia is becoming a niche model, while the Tonale is seeing its figures run out of steam. The Stelvio, meanwhile, still achieves a respectable score for a model launched in 2016.
The economic context
Junior's modest performance is part of an ongoing difficult environment for Alfa Romeo in Italy. Between January and November 2024, the brand's registrations fell by 14 %. A step backwards, begun in March 2024 (an article on this subject is forthcoming).
Yet, Junior benefits from an attractive price positioning. Priced from €29,500 for its 136 hp mild hybrid (mHEV) version, it is more affordable than the Tonale, whose entry price in 2022 was €35,400 for a similar powertrain. Despite this advantage, the results show that price alone is not enough to win over buyers on a massive scale, especially in a market saturated with compact SUVs.
A key role in Alfa Romeo's relaunch
Taking this promising start into account, the Junior remains a cornerstone of Alfa Romeo's relaunch. With a target of 80,000 total sales by 2024the brand is counting on this model to finance its future projects, notably the launch of a new Stelvio in 2025a Giulia sedan in 2026, and a revised Tonale in 2027. If Junior fails to attract more customers, this could have an impact on Alfa Romeo's long-term strategy.
Flop or success?
According to the first figures, and especially those for November 2024, the Alfa Romeo Junior could be as successful as the Tonale. With sales progressing slowly but surely, the model is showing that it has its place in the market. However, to become a true pillar of the Alfa Romeo range, it will have to maintain a more sustained pace of sales and appeal to a wider audience, in Italy as elsewhere. To be continued!
With 87% of hybrid sales, and a single engine that's questionable to say the least, there's no need to look any further for the reasons behind disappointing sales.
Only 13% of electric sales, which underlines the disincentives to buying electric cars.
There's still no successor to the Giulietta, and that's the main reason for the predicted failure of a vehicle that's nevertheless interesting in a... hybrid version.
I'm an aficionado and yet I don't for a second plan to buy a Milanior. I haven't even been to see it in a dealership (the nearest one has changed).
Today, it's hard to sell a car with a puretech engine! No need to look for obstacles to success
This is exactly what the brand wanted, to renew its product range and avoid sinking and disappearing into the clichés cited here in all the comments, the same people who anyway always fantasize about the same thing but can no longer or not fiscally buy..so cqfd
The junior captures new customers and prepares a new future for the brand...it's difficult, it can't be done overnight or with a snap of the fingers, that's for sure!
Will there ever be a way to get a 163 hp DIESEL???? It's extraordinary to always go against the grain of potential customers !!!
Ouf tavares is no more so it' s already positive .....
And I forgot: 4 cylinders please! Let's stop these 1200 cc coffee grinders !!!
An engine that is not a good Italian engine. So it's not a real Alfa anymore.
A questionable hybrid engine, as Stanislas commented. The Alfa Romeo Junior is indeed equipped with the (hybridized) 1.2 Puretech engine from Stellantis. A motor which had/has - the least one can say - its flaws. Why did Alfa Romeo not opt for the 1.6 Puretech? This engine has a far better reputation.
This car is an industrial betrayal in both form and content. I just can't get used to it. It's all wrong! I'm sorry, and I'm so afraid of what's coming next!
It's bad enough that this car isn't an Alfa Romeo, but on top of that, not offering it in diesel and 100% thermal versions, and betting almost everything on an electric version accompanied by a poor hybrid derived from Peugeot, shows the incompetence of the decision-makers, or else they want to kill off what's left of Alfa Romeo. Please sell Alfa while there's still time, and Maserati too, before they end up like Rover for Alfa and De Tomaso for Maserati.
The front looks like a 2008 and the rear like a Citroën
Change your glasses
No wonder, it's going to be a flop, too expensive, and Peugeot's image.
I've seen it, it's a Peugeot .... Put the 4c's engine in already and that's it, it'll be a niche car, and then it's Alfa's future and that's that.
This is not to defend Junior, but the work of Alfa Romeo's engineers has totally differentiated it from the 2008. The design is very specific, and has absolutely nothing to do with a Peugeot. The Veloce version is very, very good. See Alexandre's and other YouTubers' test drives to convince yourself that this is a real Alfa Romeo. The PureTech hybrid version and the 156hp electric version are less convincing.
With a thermal hybrid version that isn't PureTech, Junior would immediately be more appealing to many.
Junior is off to a slow start, and we'll have to wait for a full year of sales in Europe to get a clearer idea of the new model's potential.
Sales targets in Europe are to reach at least 50,000 units a year, and if possible around 75,000 at cruising speed.
It remains to be seen whether the calamitous management of the brand by the Marchionne/Elkann duo has permanently ruined Alfa's commercial potential in Italy and Europe.
The question is, what will be the future of Alfa in the current context, with Carlos Tavares gone and a fervent "supporter" of sports cars, what will become of all the brands in the Stelantis group?
Some of them will surely disappear on the group's economy hotel.
I've owned 4 Alfa Romeos. But I think we're heading straight for bankruptcy with products like these. After that, we can try to reassure ourselves: Alfa is the Phoenix of the automobile, with many ups and downs. Several times it almost died, and each time it started up again. But how many more times can you go wrong? The other day, someone walked past my car, a lady of about 30, not a kid, who asked her sweetheart: "What's this Alfa Romeo brand? .... It hurts...
If they want success, it's time to review their sales conditions! I've got a 208 GT LINE that's coming to the end of its financing term! I went to see Alfa about a Junior Hybrid! Then, there were no conditions, and what I found astonishing was that without telling me (I saw it when I analyzed the offer when I got home) I was charged €450 for factory delivery! I'm going to keep my 208... the belt and strainer have been changed. When I called the salesman, he told me that it was the delivery and cleaning costs. I told him that firstly, I was paying for my car, so it was normal to receive the documents, and secondly, I was buying a new car, so it was normal to have it delivered clean! I declined the offer......either I keep my car or I go for another brand! And to think that afterwards they say that Stellantis is doing badly!
Well... I'm waiting to see what kind of commercial career this Junior will have... but personally, I'm rather skeptical at the moment.
And yet, I tried it, and I even... loved it! In its 156 hp Elettrica version, it's very pleasant to drive, agile and lively. It may lack a bit of pep for an Alfa, but for an everyday car, it's doing just fine. And the icing on the cake is its rather raucous sound, very manly for an electric car: a far cry from the flying saucer sound of Renault e-Tech engines, for example. Alfa has done a good job here, and I came away from my test drive rather pleasantly surprised.
Now, if I'm skeptical, it's simply because I'm... an alfist. Not that, as such, I'm going to cry foul about the disguised Peugeot that doesn't have a V6 Busso, far from it! We have to move with the times, and if Alfa has to go through the PSA electric organ bank to survive, so be it.
No, what bothers me is that I expect an Alfa to be stylistically unique and mechanically avant-garde. And on both counts, we're in the realm of "yes, but...".
I hate SUVs, but I like the lines of this Junior: it looks more like a large compact than a small SUV, and I like that. But some details remind me that this is an SUV, and above all, a 2008: the high hood, for example, doesn't inspire finesse, and when you look at it from 3/4 front, you recognize the silhouette of the Peugeot from which it derives. Blame the windshield and side windows, which the Sochalienne seems to share with our Milanese... and in part with the Mokka.
So I like it, yes, but these details prevent me from falling in love with it. I recognize, however, that Alfa's designers did a good job of differentiating the car within the constraints they had. But when you're talking about an Alfa, it's still hard to swallow.
On the mechanical side, the electric motor doesn't bother me, on the contrary: you have to accept that even Alfa has to go down this road, and I have to admit that this Junior is the very first electric vehicle I've driven... which totally convinced me, who used to swear by Twin Sparks, Busso, Bialbero and other boxers. But the basic e-CMP...
Let's be clear: I've got nothing against the e-CMP base - it's a very good platform. But how can we convince Alfa customers that this new model is based on the underpinnings of a Peugeot that came out a few years ago, even though the STLA Small is on the way? Especially at such a high price.
36k€, they say, is the normal price for an electric B-SUV... but still! Paying well over €30,000 for a car with the same base as a 208 is a bit steep. Even if it is an Alfa, and perhaps the best Stellantis version of the 2008.
A Giuilietta QV, the pinnacle of the range, retailed for €33,000 (or not far from €38k if you count inflation to date)... Okay, not the same era, not the same type of engine... but even so, as an average customer, I have a bit of trouble swallowing the pill of having to admit that for the price of a top-of-the-range compact, I barely get the electric entry-level of a lower-segment SUV.
Then there's the hybrid version.... but, well, 1.2 PureTech? 3 cylinders? In an Alfa? I'm not sure...
As a result, I find it hard to understand Alfa's strategy: it's clear that the Junior is going to alienate the most demanding Alfisti, because it's too Peugeot, not mechanically innovative enough (despite the Veloce version, which doesn't break any new ground and takes over what makes up the Abarth 600), and above all, expensive in absolute terms (and I can't understand why the testers don't mention this more than the others).
So it's going to appeal to a new audience? Yes, but which one? Those who do their homework will know that it's a 2008 Milanese-style. After all, it might work, just as the Corsa succeeded in attracting an audience by being a German-style 208. But above all, they'll know that the entry-level internal combustion engine is the PureTech, which has a sulphurous reputation, despite the efforts made to make it more reliable: at this level, it seems to me that only Peugeotists would be prepared to adopt this powertrain, but in that case, they'd opt for the 2008 instead.
In short, in my opinion, the Junior will have to find its audience by trying to convince people, while building on the Alfa fan-base: quite a challenge!
And personally, I really find this strategy strange: the past has amply demonstrated that, however strong and emblematic the Alfa Romeo brand may be, its customers are particularly demanding and will only respond if they are offered tailor-made arguments.
Just ask yourself why the Arna, a rebadged old Nissan, didn't work, why Fiat's first Alfa cars were shunned, and why the 156 was such a hit even though it was also a redesigned Fiat...