Marko Hanželic
If you are going to modern Škoda and linger by it for quite some time, you will find it hard to believe that the spacious, sophisticated and solidly built car in front of you has the same label that it once had synonymous with socialist backwardness. At the end of the 1980s, the idea of Škoda being desirable seemed as far-fetched as Alfa Romeo produced something reliable and orust resistant, but maybe it's time for that myth to fall too.
It was this summer Alfa the highest rated premium brand in the study JD Power's Initial Quality Study (and third overall, only surpassed by Stellantis' colleagues Ram and Dodge), but now he is the director of Alfa Jean Philippe Imparato revealed that his drive for quality was so successful that it cut the company's warranty costs in half.
This interesting fact comes from an interview he did Learned gave for Auto News and in which he explained some of the problems he faced when he left the top job at Peugeot and at the instigation of Stellantis' boss Carlos Tavares started saving Alfa. Initiatives included drastically reducing the number of options from 4.000 to 1.500 to streamline the manufacturing process, increasing prices and dropping the existing Alpha's plan to introduce the model Tonal with a diesel engine and manual transmission and instead introducing a PHEV model with an automatic gearbox with paddle shifters.
"I also realized that the quality was not what it should have been, so I delayed the start of sales for six months to correct the quality before starting production," he told reporters Learned.
The result of these changes is that they are Alfa's business results healthier than in recent years. The company expects to generate an operating profit of several hundred million euros this year, and this is only expected to increase with the introduction of three new cars by 2026. First, it will be the model's younger brother's turn Tonale, Milan, which will only be followed by electrical replacement for Giulio and the second generation of the Stelvio model. Then Alfa will present its flagship electric car in 2027.
"We have been working on its design for more than two years and we have almost reached the goal, you will be impressed, believe me," Imparato cheered the team from Auto News. The French CEO also stated that he is not interested in chasing quantity, as he claims that profit and quality are more important to Alfa than production numbers themselves.
