Alpine showcases new era with fully-electric hot hatch
Alpine has revealed the A290, the brands vision of an electric hot hatch designed for everyday driving.
The A290, the future compact B-segment electric sports car in Alpine’s new era, is the first of three models in the future Dream Garage. The three exclusive and pioneering models in the line-up – a compact sports car, a GT crossover and the A110’s replacement – make up Alpine’s Dream Garage. They will all be 100% electric. The A290_β sits in the B-segment sports car designed primarily for cities. Production will begin in 2024 at ElectriCity in Douai. It will be built on the Alliance’s CMF-B EV platform for B-segment electric vehicles.
The decision to call the car A290_β is based on the Alpine brand’s global naming strategy. The names start with the letter A, followed by three numbers. The number 2 stands for the B-segment and the 90 stands for the brand’s future Lifestyle range. The Greek letter beta indicates an intermediate phase working up to the production vehicle’s official launch in 2024. Its electric motor will also be manufactured in France, in the Cléon Megafactory.
“The A290_β is the first stage in Alpine’s new era, the first step towards the all-electric Dream Garage in 2024,” said Laurent Rossi, CEO, Alpine. “This urban show car has rewritten the playbook for electric hot hatches. The A290_β is tapping into its rich legacy and ushering Alpine into the future, with an everyday experience of the motorsport spirit that has inspired the brand since its inception.”
The A290_β has naturally inherited the DNA that Alpine honed in motorsports and competitions including the range of racing car functionalities built into the steering wheel with telemetry, the dynamic shapes and the air inlets streamlined for better cooling, the driving seat on the centreline, the bucket seats providing optimal support and the hydraulic handbrake.
Antony Villain, Design Director at Alpine, commented: “The A290_β combines a racing soul with urban influences. It is designed for a new generation of hot-hatch enthusiasts. Its proportions and technical details instantly sweep you into a reinvented motorsport universe. To be true to Alpine’s driving-experience know-how, we placed the driver at the centre of the cockpit. The A290_β is designed – inside and outside – around this principle. As we go electric, this is one way of showing that we are attached to Alpine’s DNA and the spirit that is guiding us as we develop the Alpines for tomorrow.”
