Alfa Romeo announced this Monday that it has decided to change the name of its first 100% electric model, the new SUV, Milano, which will now be called Junior, after the controversy raised by the Italian government.
“We decided to change the name, even though we are not obligated to do so, because we want to preserve the positive emotion that our products have always generated and avoid any kind of controversy,”, emphasized in a statement, Jean-Philippe Imparato, CEO of Alfa Romeo.
It should be noted that the Italian government’s industry minister, Adolfo Urso, criticized Stellantis for producing the Milano, Alfa Romeo’s first fully electric vehicle, in Poland, stating that the decision violates Italian law.
The Italian brand also clarifies that it believes the name complied with all legal requirements and that there are much more important issues than the name of a new car, Alfa Romeo decided to change it from “Milano” to “Alfa Romeo Junior” in the spirit of promoting mutual understanding.
“The attention we have received in recent days for our new compact sports model is quite exciting, as we had an unprecedented number of visits to the online configurator, which caused the website to be blocked for a few hours.”, concluded Jean-Philippe Imparato,