Alfa Romeo EVs Will Retain The Styling Of Current ICE Models

Since EVs have fewer moving parts than a gas car, some automakers are rethinking the way they style their vehicles. Whether it's Mercedes with its blob-like EQ lineup or BMW with its I series that screams 'EV,' automotive design seems to be taking a turn for the worse in some ways. But the design boss at Alfa Romeo promises that the company will continue to deliver classy vehicles in the electric era, and that its EVs will bear close resemblance to their ICE-powered ancestors.

“Electrification changes the way the car moves, but the character, the style, the values will remain. Looking electric for the sake of it doesn't make sense from my point of view,” Alfa design boss Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos told Top Gear.

“We’re not going to say, ‘OK, it’s an electric car, let’s make it look different because it’s electric’. This is the way it worked for companies like BMW, it was more marketing communication, they wanted to signify in the design of the car that it was electric, to show it was different to everything else out there, to be seen as a tech company," he continued. "But now, everyone is, or will be, electric, so there is no need to say, ‘hey, hello, I’m electric, look at me’. There is no need to signify that you are electric. The only thing that changes is the source of power, but the rest of the values of the car don’t change. To me it’s important that it’s an Alfa Romeo, whether it’s electric or not.”

When asked about how the future models should look, Mesonero-Romanos said that he wants them to turn heads, but in a good way. "If we show a car and there’s not a ‘wow’ effect, it's not the result we want to have. For us, it's very important for Alfa Romeo to have a bold stance, to have a proportion that breathes sportiness. We have to have an assertive expression of the front end. You look at any Alfa Romeo, they have an assertive regard, it's about character."

He then went on to say that the electric Alfas will be inspired by the human body and its 'athletic spirit.'

“Muscles, build line, face, everything has to breathe humanity. An Alfa Romeo cannot be robotic. It has to be related to humans. The surfaces, they have to appeal to the senses, so that whenever you see an Alfa Romeo you want to touch it to confirm with your hands what your eyes are looking at.” Here's to hoping that this philosophy will carry over inside as well, as most of the EVs today seem to be akin to computers on wheels.

But the next generation of Alfa Romeos won't exactly have safe styling. Mesonero-Romanos also told the publication that these EVs will be 'daring.' "I think something that would be horrible for Alfa would be if someone were to say, ‘OK, another car'. We have to take risks," he said.

Even though designers at Alfa Romeo aim to keep electric models similar to gas-powered ones, the structure of an EV still poses some obstacles. "The proportions change, and that changes the architecture of the car. Longer wheelbases, shorter overhangs, big batteries, a lower centre of gravity. It's not about how many litres a car is anymore, now we're talking about range. It's a different style, and that means we have to look at a lot of things that we weren't looking at before."

Nevertheless, it will be refreshing to see at least one automaker retaining the flair of its ICE age models. "We still have to convey emotion, we still have to show the former values, everything that we like in design.”

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Images: Alfa Romeo