An often-touted gripe against high-performance electric vehicles is how heavy they might be, lugging around a large battery to power the motors for longer than just a few minutes. Nonetheless, Alpine is flipping the script with the subsequent iteration of its venerable sports automobile. The French manufacturer claims that its next-generation A110 EV will likely be lighter than its internal combustion competitors when it debuts next yr. This is similar automobile Alpine hopes to sell in the US.
Alpine
Alpine revealed the A390, its second-ever EV, on Tuesday. While the A290 is an uprated badge-swapped Renault 5 E-Tech, the brand new tri-motor sport fastback is bespoke to the brand. The five-seater A390 produces 470 horsepower with a 0-to-60-mph time of 4.8 seconds and debuts a brand new energetic torque vectoring system. The fastback’s 89-kWh battery will get 345 miles of range in Europe and is supplied with 190-kW fast charging. Don’t fret if this all-wheel-drive automobile is not agile enough on your taste, Alpine is not abandoning its sporty roots.
The French brand is step by step unveiling a seven-model electric “Dream Garage” lineup over the remainder of this decade to revive the automaker’s image. The A110 EV is believed to be the subsequent automobile within the works, with Alpine developing a brand new electric sports automobile platform that will even underpin a four-seat A310 model. Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo told Autocar, “The subsequent A110 will likely be lighter than a comparable automobile with a combustion engine but with no compromise in performance.” De Meo compared how Porsche doesn’t use the 911 platform for anything, but cars just like the Cayenne and Taycan are shared with other models — like how the A390’s platform is shared with the Renault Scenic.
Alpine is taking a refined version of an idea into production
Alpine becoming a French Porsche is an appealing idea, and the French brand has toyed with an electrical sports automobile before. The A110 E-ternité concept was revealed in 2022 as a harbinger of its all-electric future. It attempted to copy a conventional ICE A110 as closely as possible, but there was still a performance deficit. The E-ternité was 568 kilos heavier and had 80 miles less range, but was 0.3 seconds faster from 0 to 60 mph. One can only imagine the performance gains the A110 EV will profit from when shifting to a very bespoke platform.
The one other query that is still is that if we are going to actually see these latest Alpine electric vehicles in the US. It’s fair to say that President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs have thrown a wrench within the plans of any European manufacturer considering an expansion into the American market. Alpine was in talks with AutoNation to distribute its cars across the country, but that was before “Liberation Day.”
This Article First Appeared At www.jalopnik.com
