Nat Barnes files a final report on our Alfa Romeo Junior electric long-termer.

Alfa Romeo Junior Elettrica

List price (BiK): £35,695 (3%) | Range: 254 miles | Test range: 248 miles | Claimed efficiency: 4.1mpkWh | Test efficiency: 4.0mpkWh

Final Report:

And so my half year with the Alfa Romeo Junior Electtrica has come to a close. Six months and around 5000 miles on, how has it fared and how has my opinion changed of it – if at all – during that period.

Scrolling back to my first report of the car, I must admit to being somewhat cynical of the Junior when it first arrived. A smaller 54kWh battery than I’d been used to, indeed a smaller car altogether, its Stellantis cousins have been somewhat underwhelming on the impact they’ve made on the small EV market.

This Junior didn’t have the easiest of starts either, having begun life as the Milano before a late name change. At least it had looks on its side. The oversized front Alfa grille doesn’t look as imposing in real life as it does in pictures and has won plenty of admirers, especially among my neighbours. I also love the thin light strip across the rear and its squat stance too. Make no mistake, this could only be an Alfa – none of the ‘newcomer’ EV brands would ever produce anything that looked like this. It wouldn’t get past their customer clinics for one.

Then there’s the range. Officially, it was 254 miles with a 4.1ml/kWh efficiency, but a 54kWh battery after the previous 87kWh battery in my last long termer, a Renault Scenic, had me worried about its real world range and efficiency. I didn’t have long to wait to be proved wrong though.

Very quickly the Junior started recording at least 4.0 or 4.1mpkWh and higher on shorter journeys and while it dipped a little below that on motorways and on faster cruising roads, those were relatively little of my overall mileage. In fact, it has only dropped recently because so many of those more recent miles have been on the motorway.

And all that motorway driving meant a lot of public charging too, which bought another Junior surprise. The Alfa’s 100kW maximum rapid charging rate is decent rather than outstanding, but what does raise the eyebrows is just how long it can sustain that rate for. More than once, we saw the Junior reach close to that 100kW rate, but also it only really slowed when it reached 90% of charge, not the usual 80% of almost every other EV I’ve ever driven. In that respect, the Junior is almost unique and it made a real difference, especially when on longer journeys.

On the road too, it was comfortable enough, boasted a good ride (certainly far better than the Veloce version I borrowed temporarily) and handled pretty respectably too. When the mood and road took us, the steering was sharp with a good turn-in and what it lacked in absolute feedback, it made up for in terms of its enthusiasm. It was certainly enough to put a smile on my face more than once.

The Junior’s size wasn’t the hindrance I was expecting either. Yes, the rear seats are hardly palatial and adults wouldn’t want to be there for any length of time, but on the rare occasions I did have three passengers, it coped well enough. The same goes for the 400 litre boot, which only for longer family holidays meant any overspill going onto the rear seats. For my son and I, it was perfectly good.

As stated in my previous reports, it’s also the only test car that I have ever driven where the Apple CarPlay integration has worked faultlessly throughout my time with the car. Either through Bluetooth or when connected via a cable for charging, it has always worked, for which I was never not grateful.

And that, ultimately, kind of sums up my time with the Junior over the past six months. It has been an unexpectedly superb companion and transport throughout my time with it. Easy to live with, efficient, capable and well-engineered with it, it’s no exaggeration to say that I would happily buy one tomorrow. Praise indeed.

Report 7:

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This is a tale of two EV charges in the Alfa Romeo Junior. One car, one service station, two consecutive days and two very different charging experiences.

I’m quite fond of my long-term Junior. Small, efficient, still a relatively rare sight on the road and with a decent 248-mile range, it’s perfect for what I need.

On a recent occasion though, I found myself with a slight dilemma. On two consecutive days I had appointments around Birmingham and I didn’t fancy a night away from home, so it meant two 200-mile days, one after the other.

Not usually a problem, but the overnight inbetween would be spent without a home charger, so while I could charge via a three-pin overnight, that wouldn’t give me enough charge for the next day. I’d need a brief top-up charge on the return journey each day to see me through.

Again, not a problem, a cursory brief check saw that Warwick Services had Gridserve chargers, so I could drop in there. On the first day, I did so and as I drove in to the services, saw some prominent Applegreen electric charging signs, not a brand I’ve used before.

However, while driving through the car park, I saw an available Gridserve charger and jumped on that, plugged in and before long I was happily charging. Although I only really needed a top-up, I was also mindful of not wanting to stop again and also leaving the next morning with a full charge, so I was also mentally calculating the slow granny-lead charging speed I would be getting later on.

And because of this, I hadn’t really noticed that while I was charging, it wasn’t quite at the speed I was expecting. The reason is that I hadn’t checked the charger speed, which turned out was just 45kW despite the hefty 85p/kWh price. I left it parked there, rather than move, but it was an abject lesson is how not all CCS chargers are created equally. And nor, clearly, are their pricing structures – though I admit it was a motorway service station, so what did I expect?

Fast-forward 24 hours and, like Groundhog Day, I was back in the same location again in the Junior needing to charge. Except this time I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice because I’d done my research on Zapmap the night before and roundly chastised myself.

This time I sailed past the Gridserve location where I’d been the previous day, found my way to the Applegreen chargers just round the corner and half wished I had swapped over the day before. Here were SIXTEEN (!) 180kW chargers, largely unused and, while I didn’t have the Applegreen app, it was easy just to use contactless and within less than a minute of having parked up, I could see the charger was pumping out 95kW, close to the Alfa’s 100kW maximum. Rather like the Junior’s impressive charging seed above 80% (see previous reports), this is one of the few EVs I’ve ever seen regularly get this close to its maximum charging speed.

The icing on the cake was that this was at 79p/kWh – so faster and cheaper than the Gridserve charger I’d used 24 hours before. But of course there was still that nagging annoyance than I should have been here the day before.

I’ve been driving EVs and using public chargers regularly for longer than I care to remember and would like to think that I’m reasonably experienced at it, but I still messed up through lack of homework. Yes, public charging is getting easier all the time, but this experience shows that you shouldn’t become insouciant about the process even if you have been doing it for years. A little bit of foresight and planning can still save you time and money.

Report 6:

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When you road test cars for a living, you quickly discover something slightly odd about the different cars within a model range.

It’s a natural assumption to think that the best car within a range is the most expensive one, with the most equipment, the most power or performance or the best looks, but that isn’t always necessarily the case. I was reminded of this recently when my Alfa Romeo Junior went in for a service.

Alfa itself chose to take it away to do the work and, instead, left me with another Junior, this time the flagship Veloce, to drive for a week. A great opportunity I thought to drive the sportier, faster model for seven days and compare the two. But it didn’t take long before I knew which one I preferred…

The first problem was the heavily bolstered sports seats. Now either I’m getting older or haven’t been walking past enough cake shops recently, but I found them plain uncomfortable. Yes, the support was great, but they were too firm and too high compared to the standard seats in my Speciale and I simply couldn’t get comfortable.

Yes, the Veloce was definitely sportier with a more growly ‘engine’ note being fed into the cabin and a noticeably more responsive throttle pedal. Even the slightest twitch of my left ankle would have the Junior leaping forward like a dog on its way for a walk straining at the lead.

There was certainly no doubt about its more sporting intentions. And while that’s great – this is an Alfa, after all – it’s not so great when you’re not in the mood or just wanting to pop to the shops or on your morning commute, which let’s face it, is 90% of the time…

At least, that throttle pedal you could drive around and make allowances for. What you couldn’t though was the ride quality. On 20-inch alloy wheels, the ride quality was, quite simply, ruined. The difference was night and day compared to the 18-inch wheels on the Speciale. It was so bad that my 13-year old son even commented on it within two minutes of being in the car.

So, you can imagine, I welcomed the return of my Speciale with especially open arms, though quite what the dealership had actually done for the service was a mystery. Despite having had the car for a week, it hadn’t been cleaned and the infotainment system still needed an update – something that I’d deliberately left to be done for the service. Alfa dealers have been improving of late for their quality of service and when they’ve got a car as good as the Junior that’s likely to attract new buyers to the brand, you would think they’d be keen to go the extra mile.

Either way though, the experience did show me that, as stated, for me the sweet spot for the Junior range is probably with my Speciale in the line-up. I’m now starting to near the end of my days with the Alfa and I will be genuinely sad to see it go. So, in the meantime, I’ll be revelling in the excellent economy, compact size and the fact that with so few others seen on the road, it still has some novelty factor too.

Report 5:

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Ah, the enjoyment of a Devon holiday with children and those long car journeys stuck in traffic jams. The tears, the crying, the tantrums – and sometimes my son can get pretty bad too… And that was just the joy of trying to negotiate the M5 in the Alfa Junior on a Friday.

Truth be told, as much as I was looking forward to a holiday, I wasn’t looking forward to the lack of EV charging at my rented holiday cottage. The only saving grace was that it was a place I’d been to before and a journey I knew well, so I was reasonably familiar with the charger locations, both on the route down and once there.

First stop: McDonalds. Not for its haute cuisine, but for its tie-up with InstaVolt. I’ve said it before, but whoever at McDonalds thought of the brand partnership with the charging firm is frankly a genius. Recognising that people will be parked for a while as they charge and combining that with an opportunity to buy lunch or even just a cup of coffee is such a smart move. Put simply, it means that you’re more likely to seek McDonalds locations out on your journey. Just as we did.

Unfortunately though, we weren’t alone in that thought and on this occasion, all of the charging bays were taken. Ironically though, a 300kW BP Pulse charger right next door was completely free, so we jumped on that instead. At 87p/kWh, it was a pricey 27kWh that we topped up with, but it was worth it. And at this point, I hadn’t really properly noticed anything unusual about the Junior’s charging that I would do later in the holiday…

Charging-wise, the rest of the week was spent visiting another BP Pulse device close by our holiday cottage to top up at convenient times as and when we needed it, and also at the end of the week before our return journey. And it was only then that I really noticed something unusual about the Alfa and, more specifically, its charging speed.

The Alfa’s maximum charging speed is 100kW, which is rarely seen, even when the charger is capable. However, as so often with EVs, it’s when charging above 80% where things can get painful when using public devices. In short, if you have to maximise your range and charge above 80%, the charging rate can slow to the pace of an asthmatic snail with a sprained ankle.

But that isn’t the case with the Junior – another major factor in the pro column of this car (see previous report below). Unlike every other EV I’ve charged publicly, the Alfa’s charging rate sailed past 80% without showing any signs of letting up and only really slowed once it reached 90%. Now, admittedly, the screen showed that it would take a further hour to get from 91% to fully charged, but I already had 231 miles of range and that was plenty for me. I have never known any EV’s battery be this efficient at a public charger and it made a real difference to squeezing every mile out of a charge.

The reality is that most owners will spend the vast majority of their time charging from home, but this speed of rapid charging was a real boon. Again, no other EV I’ve ever tested or publicly charged has performed as well as this Alfa Junior – it’s been a real eye-opener. It’s enough to make you almost look forward to long journeys with your children. Well, almost.

Report 4:

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Not so long ago, Alfa Romeos were somewhat renowned for their idiosyncrasies. Little oddities either about their styling or interiors; if there was a car that could ever usually boast form over function, it was an Alfa.

While enthusiasts may miss those days with misty eyes, the reality is that today’s Alfas under Stellantis ownership are far better made and more reliable than they probably have been. That doesn’t mean that they’ve entirely lost those little idiosyncrasies, mind you – as I’ve been finding out with the Junior, with three negatives and three surprising positives.

One thing I keep meaning and keep forgetting to mention is the lack of grab handles. I can understand the lack of one for the driver, but there is only one for the front passenger and none for those in the back. Not a huge problem, but it also means that you can’t hang a jacket up. Now, I appreciate that I’m not a photocopier salesman from 1986 but I wouldn’t mind at least a coat hook in there. Without it, I’m left lying a jacket across the back seat where it quickly slides across and crumples.

Second is the boot opener. I’ve been driving the Junior for more than two months and I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve only just found the internal button for the electric boot. It’s on the ceiling, above the rearview mirror and right next to the emergency SOS button. Now I’m no car designer, but would you place a button you’ll probably use regularly, right next to one that hopefully you might never have to use? How does that make possible sense?

And the last negative is the ventilation system, which has two parts to it. First is the fact that you can’t have air blowing in your face and the windscreen at the same time, which seems like a hangover from cars of yesteryear. The second is that the Junior will frequently automatically turn on the air conditioning when I start up, when I don’t want it wasting valuable range. What’s infuriating is that it doesn’t do it every time, only on occasion, so I often don’t realise for a while.

So those are the negatives, what about the positives? Well, I make no apology for repeating myself from past reports, but I never cease to be amazed by the Junior’s efficiency. Generally, most modern EVs are hard-pressed to match their claimed efficiency ratings, but the Alfa is matching its official 4.1mpkWh and regularly beating it. I realise we’re now in summer, but on shorter journeys I now regularly see more than 5mpkWh – and bar very long motorway trips, it makes little difference what I do to change that.

And talking of motorway trips, I unwittingly discovered something else about the Junior. Over three days recently, I had to drive around the concrete south-east section of the M25 no less than five times (I know, I know, don’t ask).

For anyone not familiar with that section, in almost any car, it’s usually on a par for road noise with having Keith Moon in the back seat with his full drum kit. Not in the Junior, however. At first, I honestly hadn’t noticed that the Alfa was noticeably quieter than other cars. Then, I wondered whether they done something different with the road – they hadn’t. But I can honestly say that the Alfa is one of the quietest cars I’ve driven across that section of motorway – and I’ve driven plenty, believe me.

And lastly is Apple CarPlay. Now I don’t want to jinx things, but I can’t remember ever having driven a car where CarPlay is as reliable as this – including other Stellantis products, funnily enough.

Next stop is a big road trip to Devon, so I’ll see how the Junior copes with long motorway trips and relying solely on public chargers. Wish me luck…

Report 3:

As mentioned in my last report, this month saw my first proper road trip with the Alfa Junior. A few days in the Peak District meant a chance to get my hiking legs back into working order, but that also meant the possibility of an aching wallet as well as aching muscles.

The reason was simply down to the need to charge the Junior while up there. In reality, I was planning to spend much more time on two feet than four wheels, but I would certainly need a charge on arrival to get me around while up there and a full charge for my return journey.

However, trying to find an Airbnb location with EV charging onsite is about as easy as finding Editor Challen in the pub when it’s his round. But, despite the very small selection and a lot of searching, I finally managed it (the Airbnb that is, not the Editor buying a round, don’t be ridiculous). And therein lies the problem for EV drivers. It’s so much easier to charge at your location that it’s almost worth compromising on what you might ideally want from a property.

My eventual location in a small village between Bakewell and Buxton offered off-street parking and home charging at 30p/kWh. For a full 0-100% charge of the Junior’s 54kWh battery that would be the equivalent of £16.20, but the alternative was at an ultra-rapid CCS charger at 75p/kWh that could cost more than £40, so I was making a considerable saving. Also, I’m more than happy for the owner to make a profit from providing charging facilities if it means that I’m saving money too.

As it happened, I needn’t have worried. My host was very friendly and we got chatting about all things home charging and also on EVs as he was curious about the Junior. During the course of our conversation, he said he was on the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff, reducing that equivalent 100% charge to just £3.78. He further explained that, despite the wording on his Airbnb account, if his guests were happy to only charge overnight at that cheap rate then he didn’t bother actually charging anyone, which was obviously fine with me.

While the faster motorway driving and the need for air con during the recent high temperatures saw the Junior’s average drop, the more sedate speeds driving around the Peak District meant that was soon almost restored back to my normal average of 4mpkWh by the end of the few days, which also helped to reduce the amount of charge for the return journey.

The answer when running an EV therefore is to be as smart as possible when it comes to your charging, because not all electricity and not all opportunities to charge are equal. Or, to be more precise, charging costs are certainly not equal, especially when out on the road.

Report 2:

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One month down with the Alfa Romeo Junior Elettrica and I’d like to expand on something that I touched on at the end of the previous report – rightsized EVs.

Coming from ICE vehicles, there’s a natural tendency with EVs to want the biggest battery and the longest range possible to cover all eventualities. That’s understandable with larger cars, but with smaller cars such as the Junior, efficiency is far more important.

This Junior might only have a 54kWh battery, shared with other models in the Stellantis range, but that’s enough for a 248-mile real-world range and, perhaps more importantly, efficiency levels that are regularly above 4mpkWh, especially on shorter journeys.

Now, admittedly we’re into the summer months, and warmer temperatures and air conditioning don’t deplete an EV’s range as much as the heater in winter, but anything above 4mpkWh is pretty good in my book. It would be easy to criticise the Junior and say this is only on shorter journeys, but in reality this is what the majority of us are doing for the majority of the time.

A really good upcoming example is the few days I plan to spend walking in the Peak District next month. That will see me cover at least 400 miles in five days, but that’s a rare trip. The rest of the time, I’m doing short hops on my commute to the station, for the school drop-off or pick-up, all usually less than 20 miles. And on those shorter, slower journeys, I can regularly not just hit that magic 4mpkWh figure, but improve on it; anything up to 4.5mpkWh.

Again, those critics might say that’s a great efficiency figure, but it’s only achievable on those shorter journeys. But the thing is, all of those shorter journeys add up to a long distance when they’re combined. The length of the journey is irrelevant, because it’s the overall that really matters. And, of course, in turn that also dilutes the lesser efficiency of those longer trips for your overall average.

It’s what makes the Alfa such a great little EV. It may not boast a 300-mile-plus range, but it doesn’t need to. The times when I need it to do that distance will be few and far between and then I can use the public charging network, which is improving all the time (despite what you might read in some areas of the media). For the other 95% of the time however, I’ll be revelling in the Junior’s great efficiency and the perfect-sized battery for the perfect-sized car. Not too big, not too small, it’s the EV answer to Goldilocks.

First report:

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So here’s a tough circle to square for Alfa Romeo. Just how, with a brand known for its passion, emotion and focus on driver enjoyment, do you match that to the efficiency and more practical needs of a modern EV? I’ll be looking to find that out over my next six months with the new Alfa Romeo Junior Elettrica.

This Junior is the mid-range Speciale model with a 54kWh battery and 156hp, down on the flagship 240hp of the Veloce but also maximising its 254-mile claimed range. As a family car and with summer holidays and some upcoming hiking trips, I’ll be stretching that range to its maximum at times – especially so after having enjoyed the range of the outgoing Renault Scenic with its 87kWh battery.

That said, perhaps that won’t be the issue I first imagined judging from my first few days with the car. When I saw the claimed 4.1mpkWh official average efficiency, I must admit that I inwardly scoffed as to whether that could be matched in the real world. However, even with some long motorway journeys, I’ve already been recording 4.0mpkWh without any effort whatsoever. If first impressions count, then the Alfa is doing itself no harm at all.

The same goes for its looks too. I have yet to see another Junior on the roads, but the Brera Red of our test car combined with the black roof (a £1,200 optional extra) is really striking – even my neighbour who isn’t remotely interested in cars, remarked on its looks and styling. The other option, the £1,350 Technology pack, adds LED matrix headlights, an electric tailgate (nice to have, but probably a bit OTT on such a small car), wireless charging and front, rear and side parking sensors.

In fact, the only downside of the Junior’s styling is, ironically, one of my favourite elements. The dominant front grille with its Alfa serpent cut out is a lovely detail, but being all matt black perhaps doesn’t stand out in real life (or pictures) as much as you might imagine. For me that’s a shame as it matches the rest of the eye-catching exterior – but then if it were gloss black maybe it would stand out too much?

The Junior’s size is also winning me over. I loved my previous Scenic, but even though it wasn’t a huge SUV, it still sometimes felt big when slotting into some tighter car parking spaces. That’s not a problem with the Alfa though, its smaller dimensions meaning that it can easily slot into the most awkward of spaces. Along with that smaller battery and range but great efficiency, it’s also a great example of ‘rightsized EVs’ for car manufacturers going forward.

I’ve always been a firm believer in smaller and more efficient EVs having a crucial part to play in the e-mobility transition, so the next six months spent with the Junior will be a good test of that.