- Alpine’s first fully-electric vehicle, the Alpine A290, is set to be fully unveiled this Thursday.
- The performance-focussed model is rather suitably being uncovered at the race week of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the French endurance race which has run since 1923.
- Here’s everything we know so far about the Alpine A290, ahead of its imminent unveiling.
The Alpine A290: A new challenger on the electric hot hatchback stage?
As Alpine is now a sporty subsidiary of Renault, the A290 will be based on the same underpinnings as the new Renault 5 EV, which was already unveiled in full earlier this year. Of course, the 150hp motor on tap in the top-of-the-range Renault 5 will be upped in the A290, and thanks to Alpine’s relationship with Renault, the A290 will likely to adopt an existing electric motor from the Megane E-Tech – packing 215hp, a sizable 43% increase over its Renault 5 sibling.
Alpine previously teased some of the A290’s interior, including a sporty looking steering wheel, with specific controls for adjustable regenerative braking, different driving modes, and a red button labelled ‘overtake’. That last button is a mechanism traditionally seen on racing cars, allowing brief boosts in power, but has seen its way into other performance EVs recently such as the Hyundai IONIQ 5 N.
There’s no word on pricing, but we should expect this in Thursday’s announcement, which will give us a clear idea of where the A290 will compete. With the Renault 5 starting at around €25,000, we can expect a minimum of €30,000 commanded for the Alpine. This would put it squarely against electric rivals such as the Abarth 500e, but cheaper than performance EVs from higher segments such as the ID.3 GTX.
