Alfa Romeo Chasing Reliability, High quality and New Markets

Italian automaker Alfa Romeo is on a roll. Based greater than a century in the past in Milan, Alfa Romeo established itself as a racing champion and leveraged the momentum to push its manufacturing automobiles. Put up-WWII, the model launched the beautiful Giulietta after which the Giulia, organising what Alfa Romeo exec Larry Dominique calls “sticky” and dependable followers. Alfa Romeo now has 58 proprietor golf equipment within the U.S.; that’s notable for a model that sells 20,000 automobiles a yr.

Nonetheless, this specialty automaker has been falling underneath the radar in previous years.

“Alfa Romeo has a heritage legacy that we’re costly, we’re costly to repair, and now we have plenty of defects, and that’s not true,” mentioned Dominique, senior vp of the model for North America. “The service high quality popping out of Cassino [Alfa Romeo’s assembly plant in Italy] now is identical because the German Three, however the notion isn’t there so we have to get the message out.”

Beneath CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato, the automaker is laser-focused on righting the ship. Imparato took on the mantle of Alfa Romeo CEO in 2021, and he has shoehorned month-to-month visits to the manufacturing line into his packed schedule.

“Jean-Philippe spends a mean of two to a few days of his month within the vegetation,” Dominique advised Edmunds. “He brings the top of world high quality and takes the plant managers to job to satisfy the targets. There have been dramatic enhancements and decrease defect charges within the final yr and a half.”

Because it pertains to high quality, the European market has totally different challenges than North America does. As an example, automobiles delivered to North America are transported on boats, that are splashed with saltwater, which in flip causes rust. Each day, Dominique says he critiques the corporate’s automobile off street report. To not be confused with off-roading autos, the off street report is a listing of autos that must be mounted (and are consequently not on the street).

“The primary factor we’re placing on the heart is high quality,” the top of Alfa Romeo’s F1 group, Cristiano Fiorio, advised Edmunds. “We’ve been fairly silent up to now. However with our metamorphosis, our CEO desires solely to be primary. Now we’re proving our new automobiles are high-quality, and to be sincere, this was not the case just a few years in the past. We wished to make certain the standard is on the proper tempo as a result of it was an issue up to now and we needed to repair it.”

F1 evokes Alfa Romeo enchancment

It is uncommon – and really, refreshing – for an automaker to come clean with previous errors and put its enchancment plan on show. Alfa Romeo goes ahead boldly, together with a renewed convergence between its high-tech F1 workforce and client autos. Working collectively carefully, the workforce constructed the brand new Tonale plug-in hybrid crossover from scratch, prepared for launch within the US subsequent yr.

It could appear that an F1 race automotive and a household crossover don’t have anything in frequent, however Alfa is discovering methods to weave the 2 collectively primarily based on experiments within the subject.

“Method One is a laboratory for know-how for the model,” mentioned Fiorio.

So whereas its autos nonetheless show the Italian flag colours and signature “phone” wheels, Alfa Romeo is paddling furiously underneath the floor. Not content material to journey on its greater than a century of historical past, the model isn’t leaving itself a lot runway to veer off. Executives have promised to launch 5 new autos within the subsequent six years and ambitiously plan to be the primary model underneath the Stellantis umbrella to realize full electrification.

Presently, Alfa Romeo purchaser demographics present that males make up 70% of the pie. With out alienating its base, Dominique says its technique is to get extra folks behind the wheel to succeed in extra girls and youthful prospects.

“ our market immediately, we’re very coastal,” he mentioned. “Our largest markets are New York, New Jersey and Southern California. It’s in markets like Austin, Atlanta, Dallas the place we’re under-indexed and planning extra experiential drives.”

That’s excellent news for tire kickers who could also be shocked to search out Alfa Romeo on their record after getting behind the wheel. A minimum of, that’s what Dominique is hoping.

In Paris just lately, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares mentioned he’s happy with the progress of Alfa Romeo. The corporate is worthwhile for the primary time in “I don’t understand how lengthy,” Dominique mentioned, permitting the model to spend money on its future.