BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Current line-up: one sports car. By 2030: seven EVs. How will that happen, and why?
Alpine is so small, and its sole model such an infrequent sight on our roads, that you could be forgiven for forgetting that it’s a real car maker. But not for long. Encouraged by parent company Renault, Alpine is about to add the A290 electric hot hatch, and a ‘crossover GT’ in 2025, on its way to a line-up of seven EVs by the end of the decade. And while it’s delivering this ambitious plan for road cars, it will be expanding its motorsport commitment beyond F1 and LMP2 to include the top class of the World Endurance Championship, its A424 currently testing ahead of its race debut in Qatar in March.
That’s a lot for a boutique European sports car maker to take on. Why is it happening, and how? It starts with Renault Group chief executive Luca de Meo. In 2020 he declared that Alpine should go all-electric. (Renault and Dacia, with their bigger sales and global reach, will keep one foot in the combustion camp for longer.) One of those EVs will be an electric replacement for the A110; the others will be less niche.
Anne-Catherine Basset runs the Dieppe plant currently making 22 A110s a day, and which next year will start producing pre-production versions of the crossover GT, codename DZ110, which will go into series production the following year. But the car currently causing the biggest buzz around Alpine, its hot version of the Renault 5 EV, will actually be built in Douai, alongside the Megane E-Tech.
‘Dieppe remains the cradle of the brand. But expansion cannot be here – the site can’t grow. When you cannot expand, you have to think of clever ways to use the space.’ She notes that in the year 2000 the plant produced a total of 25,000 Meganes and Espaces, so it can be done.
‘The transformation is a big challenge, but it means a big future for the plant. We’re aiming to be more efficient but also to go from one to two or three shifts. Producing EVs in Europe is a big challenge and we need to remain competitive [with lower-cost China]. We’re using the best of Renault production techniques, but there are some things only we do, for instance carbonfibre.’
Sovany Ang, Alpine’s vice president for product performance, spells out how this expansion into multiple EVs can maintain a credible connection with the A110.
‘We’re going to roll out the dream garage, starting with the A290. All cars will be boosted with Alpine DNA. Alpine design is going to be outlandish, and we are deploying motorsport tech which allows us to deliver the Alpine driv
