Going Electric Is ‘The Best Way’ For Next Alpine A110, Says Company

The Alpine A110 in its current form is not long for this world. This much we sadly know. What we also know is that a successor is due in the next couple of years, and it’s going to be electric.

This is understandably causing more than a little consternation – EVs, after all, tend to be heavy, and that sort of goes against everything the A110 stands for. At this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, we sat down with two key figures at Alpine – product performance vice president Sovany Ang and design director Antony Villain – to get into how and why Alpine is tackling this tricky transition.

The ‘why’, according to Ang, is that going full EV is better than any of the alternatives. “When you combine the evolution of the regulations, including ADAS, crash requirements and so on, naturally the car has to grow and get heavier.

“To [then] have the right level of performance in an ICE car, you end up having to put a lot more power in than what we have today, and that adds more weight, and then you have to hybrid it and so on… in the end, you don’t have an A110.

“It’s a constraint we have to deal with. We could decide, ‘okay, the segment is dead, we’re not doing A110 anymore, but we don’t want that! We want the A110 to continue to be the next icon in 70 years, and for that, we have to play with what the technology on hand is today. The best way to achieve this level of performance is electric.”

As for the ‘how’, we already know the A110 EV will sit on a bespoke aluminium platform and feature compact, lightweight in-wheel motors. (Renault hasn’t said as much, but given the upcoming Renault 5 Turbo 3E also sits on a bespoke aluminium platform and uses in-wheel motors, we’re happy to open up speculation that it might be a sneak preview of the A110’s underpinnings.)

Going for a brand new platform, says Ang, was the only way: “How do you make a low sports car, with the right level of performance, and the Alpine DNA? In the end, we decided we need to do that ourselves, because it doesn’t exist [yet].

The platform and motor combination, adds Villain, will help keep the weight low, at least by EV standards. “Of course, it won’t be as lightweight as the [petrol] A110, but it will be much lighter than all the competitors in EV, and in sports car. We’ll keep the benefit of being 200, 300kg less than competitors.”

Then, of course, there are the inherent performance benefits of going EV. “It’s not only instant torque,” says Villain. “It’s the ability to manage, in milliseconds, all the motors. That makes a real difference.” We’ll get to see Alpine’s take on this tech before the A110 EV, because the company says its new electric fastback crossover, the A390, will use it to excellent effect.

Villain also reassures us that, while seemingly everything else in the car world gets bigger and taller, the next A110 will still look like a proper sports car. “It’s a pure sports car in terms of height, width… all the proportions are really outstanding.”

What it won’t be, though, is quite as cute-looking as the current A110. This is something Villain says has hurt sales in some markets. “People appreciate it because it’s cute, but some people don’t buy it because it’s cute. Especially in the UK and Germany [markets], we’re missing a bit of assertiveness, aggressiveness… [there is] a froggy aspect to the A110.”

The plan to up the aggression is something we’ve already seen in one of the few teasers of the new car, showing it under a cover with its headlight signatures faintly visible. The front end still has Alpine’s signature quartet of lights up front, but with a sharper, more angular vibe to them than the outgoing car’s doe-eyed look.

It may already be becoming cliché to bring it up in the context of literally any other performance EV, but the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is living proof that an electric car can be properly brilliant to drive. This hasn’t yet translated to a pure electric sports car, though – the only one that really fits that brief so far, the MG Cyberster, underwhelmed us. It sounds like Alpine is taking the challenge rather more seriously, so we’re eagerly awaiting the result.