Alfa Romeo: 1966 Giulia Spider Duetto on 2040-cars

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Stellantis to offer electric versions of most of its European lineup by 2025

Newly merged automaker conglomerate Stellantis will offer electric versions of almost all of its European lineup by 2025, it said on Thursday, as the auto industry faces regulatory pushes in Europe and China to accelerate the shift to zero-emission cars. Formed in January by the merger of France's PSA and Italian-American group Fiat Chrysler, Stellantis is the world’s fourth largest carmaker with 14 brands including Opel, Jeep, Ram and Maserati, and like its peers faces an investor community keen for a road map to an electric lineup to rival Tesla . Speaking during Stellantis' first annual shareholders meeting, Chief Executive Carlos Tavares said that in 2021 the carmaker expects sales of electrified vehicles — that is, both plug-in hybrids and fully electric models — to more than triple to over 400,000 units in 2021. By 2025, electrified vehicles should make up 38% of European sales, a huge jump from the 14% of sales it expects in 2021. Tavares said by 2030 electric models should make up 70% of European sales and 35% of U.S. sales. He said Stellantis will use four electric platforms for passenger vehicles across its 14-brand empire — small, medium and large sizes for cars, and "frame" for high-margin SUVs and pickup trucks. Sweden's Volvo said this month its lineup would be fully electric by 2030, and Ford Motor Co said in February its lineup in Europe would be too. BMW has said at least 50% of its car sales should be fully-electric models by 2030. Sales of electric and plug-in hybrid cars in the European Union almost trebled to over 1 million vehicles last year, accounting for more than 10% of overall sales. Green Alfa Romeo Fiat Jeep Maserati Citroen Lancia Opel Peugeot Vauxhall Electric Hybrid Stellantis

Alfa Romeo Giulia is going electric

In an interview with Auto Express, Alfa Romeo's CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato revealed a bunch of details about the future of the company and electric vehicles. But the most interesting is that, despite the world's insatiable appetite for SUVs, the Giulia sport sedan will get another generation, and one that's entirely electric. Apparently, the car will be built on the STLA Large platform, one of several EV architectures Stellantis announced back July. Considering that there will be STLA Small and STLA Medium platforms, we're a little surprised that Alfa would go with the big option, since the current Giulia isn't particularly big. It could be that Alfa is aiming for particularly long range from the next Giulia, and maybe even more interior space. We bring up range because the Large platform is said to accept 101-kWh to 118-kWh of battery capacity and up to 500 miles of range. It may also be sharing the platform and development with the future Stelvio, like the current one does with the Giorgio platform. Imparato also talked a bit about the high-performance Quadrifoglio models. The company is definitely still open to them in the electric era, but only if they can make them perform the way they want. That seems unlikely to be an issue for a couple of reasons. One, Imparato told Auto Express that the man who helped develop the Giulia Quadrifoglio GTA is on the team developing STLA Large. The other is that Stellantis has a wild range of motors planned. At the low end will be 94-horsepower motors, but at the other will be 402-horsepower units. There should be a pairing in there that finds a good balance between raw power and finesse, especially when just one makes around 80% of the power of the current Quadrifoglio's twin-turbo V6. Stellantis aims to have its 500-mile STLA Large platform cars, among the others, ready for 2024. Odds seem good that the electric Alfas will start showing up at that time, since the brand is planning to be fully electric in 2027. That will make it the first Stellantis brand to be entirely electric. Related Video: 2021 Jeep Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybrid powertrain feature walkthrough | Autoblog

Junkyard Gem: 1992 Alfa Romeo 164S

Even after Citroen, Fiat, Renault and Peugeot departed the United States (in 1975, 1983, 1988 and 1991, respectively, though Malcolm Bricklin continued to sell Fiat 124 Sport Spiders and X1/9s with Pininfarina and Bertone badges for a few more years), Alfa Romeo managed to hang on all the way through 1995. The final Alfa Romeo models available here (prior to the brand's return to our shores in 2009) were the old-school Spider Veloce sports car and the mean-looking 164 sedan. The 164 sold well enough here that I still see examples on the street now and then, and I find discarded ones in car graveyards as well. Today's Junkyard Gem is the top-of-the-line 164 available in 1992, the mighty S version, found in a Denver self-service yard last month. In 1992, American Alfa shoppers could spend $25,865 on the base 164, $29,456 on the more luxurious 164L, or $32,054 for the factory-hot-rod 164S (that's about $50,885, $57,950, and $63,060, respectively, in inflation-adjusted 2021 dollars). Comparing the numbers of the 164S against those of the BMW 535i for 1992 make the Alfa look like quite a deal. The big-engined 535i boasted 208 horsepower and had a $44,350 sticker price, while the monstrous M5 had 310 horses… but would set you back $58,600). That means the Alfa cost just under 75% as much as its Bavarian rival. Meanwhile, the Alfa 164S had this 3.0-liter V6 making 200 horsepower. That gave the 535i and 164S near-identical power-to-weight ratios (17.2 lb/hp for the BMW, 17.4 for the Alfa). Admittedly, the 164S's power went to the front wheels while the 535i had rear-wheel-drive, but the Alfa's 3.0 looked and sounded much better than the BMW's 3.4 (and it's nearly impossible to make a V6 sound better than a straight-six, as anyone who has endured the ailing-bovine groan of most 1990s Detroit V6s can affirm). You could get a four-speed ZF automatic on the 164 and 164L in 1992, but the 164S had just one transmission available: a five-speed manual. This car isn't rusty and the interior looked very nice for a near-30-year-old car in Colorado, but there are few with the mechanical skills and sheer bravery to take on one of these cars with nearly 200,000 miles on the clock. Its next stop shall be The Crusher. This Euro-market commercial is for the 164 with quad-cam "super" V6, available here only for the 1993 through 1995 model years, but you get the idea. In Europe, Alfa Romeo outsold both Honda and Saab! What better reason to buy a 164?