Add Alfa Romeo to the list of automakers jumping into the autonomous driving bandwagon. Alfa and Maserati boss Harald Wester said as much in a recent conversation with Autocar. According to Wester, an Autopilot system in the vein of what Tesla is using on the Model S is currently being developed for the Alfa Romeo Giulia.
It figures that the Italian automaker would use the Giulia as the first model to get dibs on autonomous driving. Alfa has made it known that the Giulia is the measuring stick that will determine whether the Italian automaker returns to its once prominent status. Installing an autopilot system on the compact car should go a long way in adding some much-needed appeal to the model.
Wester didn’t pin down a specific timetable on when the Giulia would get the autopilot feature, but he did mention that there was an emphasis to establish the compact car with the technology despite the lengthier timetable of 2024 that parent company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has set to get its entire company up to speed with full autonomous technology.
That’s how important the Giulia is to Alfa Romeo and, by extension, FCA. The current trend of the industry also lends further credence to the significance of autonomous driving, especially for an urban car like the Giulia. Wester himself admitted that despite public reservations on how a tech like autonomous driving would ruin the driver-oriented image of Alfa, it’s something that the company can ill afford to get left behind in. “We all know the situation, whether you live in London or Milan,” the Alfa boss told Autocar. “You go to work in the morning and very quickly you find yourself in a sequence of stopping and starting, and it is a real waste of time and energy. In the future we will start to give you that time back so you can spend it better."
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