► A110 to be replaced with new EV
► Alpine business to be streamlined, too
► F1 team, Renault Sport under same roof
Alpine is working on a replacement to the A110, only it won’t be powered by a plucky hot-hatch motor nor a hybrid powertrain – instead it’ll be pure BEV. This week we also learnt it won’t use Lotus technology; both Alpine and Lotus have revealed they’ll no longer be working on a sports EV project together.
Speaking to CAR magazine over the weekend of the 2022 British Grand Prix, Alpine boss Laurent Rossi revealed more about the upcoming flagship.
An electric sports car? Sounds tricky…
As Porsche will quietly attest as it wrestles with electrifying the 718, blending a light and compact sports car with an inevitably heavy EV powertrain is tricky. Renault has more electric know-how than most, learnt from generations of Zoes and the Nissan Leaf, and now the versatile CMF-EV platform, as seen on the Megane eVision concept.
A target of the same feel and character of the current A110 is crucial to Alpine engineers as well as the CEO, because he maintains Alpine is still a sports car company. If platform sharing is a possibility – as it always seems to be with EVs – an electric A110 will show little compromise.
‘We do hope to preserve the A110 DNA actually, and it might be quite different from the rest of the cars despite the platform sharing,’ Alpine CEO, Laurent Rossi, told CAR magazine. ‘You will still retain advantages in terms of chassis dynamics, agility. If you use aluminium versus steel.’
‘So our ambition is to keep the characteristics and the DNA of the A110, intact and differentiate versus other [cars] as a competitive advantage, he added.
What will happen to the current A110?
New group boss Luca de Meo said in a press conference back in October 2020 that the combustion-engined A110 could follow the example of the Porsche 911 – constantly evolving, upgrading and diversifying, while always staying true to the fundamental look and feel with regular lifecycle upgrades.
‘We have to stop with the nostalgia,’ said de Meo in October 2020. ‘In my mind, Alpine has a future, and there is a way to get there.’