Alfa’s electric rebel

If you’ve been following Watts & Wheels, you’ll already know this car has won me over. The Alfa Romeo Junior Elettrica Veloce is, to date, the best EV I have driven – and it’s the first I’ve driven properly in anger.

It demands it of you. It’s like a nagging dog wanting to go for walkies, and then it runs and runs and runs until it’s you who is exhausted.

The Elettrica looks the business. Short overhangs front and rear, perfectly filled wheel arches and rims that are bite-the-back-of-your-hand beautiful, shod with the correct rubber – 225/40 on 20-inchers. From the outside alone, this is a car done properly.

Alfa calls it a compact crossover, but I prefer to think of it as a hot hatch in modern guise. It’s bigger than an original Golf GTI but not much taller than a current one (1 505mm versus 1 471mm). If it reminds you a little of an Opel Mokka, you’re not alone.

In Veloce guise it’s a front-wheel-drive single-motor EV producing 207kW and 345Nm, with a claimed range of around 320km. On paper that doesn’t sound like a lot in today’s EV terms – but that’s exactly the point of this review. Paper stats don’t capture what this car does in the real world.

Heresy

Front-wheel drive in a “driver’s car”? Heresy, I know – but the Alfa comes with a tricked-out mechanical limited-slip differential up front, and that changes everything. There’s zero torque steer, and as the car accelerates under full load you can feel the diff working as the front tyres torture through traction changes on the road surface.

The communication through the steering and chassis is, in a word, sublime. You know exactly what the car is doing at every instant. Even in a straight line there’s a sense of occasion. As you’re drawn into that addictive acceleration, the car shrinks around you.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you don’t get into this car, you put it on.

The Elettrica weighs 1 590kg against a GTI’s 1 463kg. You’ll feel that flicking it through corners or under heavy braking, but only at the limit. What you’ll notice more often is that your braking zones are bigger than you expect, because you’re going faster than you think. Corners arrive at an alarming rate. Happily, the brakes are excellent – regen handles ordinary driving, and when you do need the calipers, they stop the car on a tickey.

On paper, the Elettrica’s 0-100km/h time of 5.9s matches the GTI. In practice it’s a different car. The Elettrica will deliver that acceleration anywhere between 0 and 100, with zero lag, at any speed, at any time. I’d bet body parts nearest and dearest to me that it will outdrag the GTI in any roll-on test you care to name, up to its 200km/h limiter.

The throttle response is ridiculously rapid – even by EV standards. On the highway in the wet, I changed lanes and planted it without thinking. At 120km/h, the traction control kicked in.

So yes, the traction control is there because it’s needed. But Alfa has tuned it to work with you rather than nanny you. In slippery conditions it feeds power back as adhesion improves, and somehow it does so without flustering the LSD. I’m not sure there’s anything with equivalent traction that will get you going faster.

You think it, the car does it

This is what the Alfa does. You don’t think. You just do. You’re imbued with such confidence in the car that nothing else matters – if you want to be in position A, you just go to position A. As you think it, the car executes it.

You dissect driving with this scalpel of an EV. The chassis reacts so fast you forget there’s 1 600kg around you. If it puts a foot wrong, it’s not the car – it’s you.

Push it harder and the Elettrica will eventually break into an all-wheel slide at the limits of adhesion, in predictable fashion, before the traction control pulls everything back into shape. It’s possible to up-end it if you’re really intent on ending up in a bush, but you’d have to work at it.

This handling comes from a chassis and suspension that are pure Alfa. It’s firm without rattling your teeth out, and the balance is such that the resulting handling feels effortless. You can hang the car out on the edge of grip for what feels like a long time before flicking it into opposite lock and watching it follow your lead. If you upset things mid-corner by being a fool, the Alfa will let you know it’s working. That’s the point – you’re never left wondering what’s about to happen.

Contrast that with a properly angry Porsche, which you climb into with respect because you know it just wants to kill you. The Alfa wants to work with you. It wants you both to come home in the same shape you left in. And it’ll still give you the adrenaline rush.

You’re going to get through front tyres. If you bought this car to maximise tyre life, you’re in the wrong car. Get out and give it to someone with a pulse. Like me.

Range and charging

Real-world range is around 330km. On a 100kW DC charger I added 120km in 10 minutes and more than 200km in just over 20. The car says 90 minutes for a full charge, but I never bothered going beyond 260km – plugged in at home this would be a non-issue. Although truthfully, it was more fun to drive to the charger.

There are, of course, a few gripes. At a shade over R1-million, the Elettrica is expensive – and the interior doesn’t quite earn the price tag. The plastics are cheap and nasty in places, and the dash and driver display surrounds don’t inspire long-term no-rattle confidence. Rear legroom is cramped: it’s a kids’ car back there. The boot is small but folds flat for bulkier loads.

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The sound system is good without being remarkable. The infotainment screens are smaller than the current industry trend, but bright and clear, and I read this as a deliberate choice by Alfa not to overwhelm you with data. I like that. It keeps you focused on driving the car the way it’s meant to be driven, instead of worrying about the temperature of the cooling system on the secondary backup circuit of the battery pack.

The verdict

Yes, battery EVs in South Africa are subject to tariffs that shouldn’t be there, given that we don’t build them locally. Yes, R1-million is a lot of money. But if I had the money, the Elettrica would already be in my driveway. I’m struggling to think of a car with this level of performance for less.

It’s not an A-to-B car. It’s a who-cares-where-A-is, B-is-just-somewhere-far-away-over-some-twisty-roads kind of car.

The Elettrica is a car for the Alfisti – the devout, those who have seen the light. The highest praise I can give it is that it will swell those ranks. Anyone who drives one will be converted.

Go and waste Stellantis’s time. Take a test drive. Then send me a note and tell me I was wrong. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media