Tag Archives: Alpine

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Alpine delays new model launches until 2030

Alpine is preparing a six-car range, but the French performance brand will not introduce any additional models after the upcoming electric A110 until at least 2030, according to CEO Philippe Krief.

The announcement marks a significant shift in Alpine’s growth strategy. While many premium carmakers are chasing higher production volumes, Alpine is positioning itself as a niche performance manufacturer focused on exclusivity and profitability rather than rapid expansion.

The timing is particularly notable because Alpine has only recently broadened its lineup with the new A390 electric crossover and the A290 hot hatch. Both models are built on Renault Group platforms and represent the first major step in Alpine’s transition to an all-electric future.

Alpine targets Ferrari-style exclusivity, not Porsche-scale sales

Speaking about Alpine’s long-term ambitions, Philippe Krief made it clear that the brand is deliberately limiting its scale.

“We are more on the Ferrari side in terms of volume than Porsche,” Krief explained, indicating annual sales of roughly 15,000 vehicles.

He added:

“We are not Ferrari, of course, and we are not aiming to be Porsche. We aim to be more niche than Porsche. We want to preserve the exclusivity and the profitability for our models.”

That statement offers one of the clearest indications yet of Alpine’s intended market position. Rather than competing directly with Porsche’s broad portfolio, Alpine wants to occupy a smaller, more specialized corner of the premium performance market.

Current Alpine lineup shrinks after A110 retirement

The retirement of the petrol-powered A110 has temporarily reduced Alpine’s range to just two production models:

  • Alpine A290 electric hot hatch
  • Alpine A390 electric crossover

The brand’s next major launch will be the electric Alpine A110, which is expected to remain the company’s flagship sports car and the spiritual successor to the outgoing combustion model.

However, buyers hoping for a rapid expansion of the range may need to be patient. When asked about additional models, Krief responded bluntly:

“Not in the next four or five years.”

That means no new Alpine beyond the electric A110 is expected before 2030 at the earliest.

Six-car Alpine lineup still planned for the future

Although Alpine is pausing new model introductions for several years, the company has not abandoned its broader ambitions.

Krief confirmed that once the new A110 coupé and its planned 2+2 variant are launched, Alpine will eventually require “models five and six” to complete its intended six-car portfolio.

For now, however, management believes the priority is not product proliferation but geographic expansion.

Alpine focuses on Europe first, then North America

Alpine’s immediate strategy centers on strengthening its presence across Europe before entering North America.

According to Krief, Alpine plans to launch in Canada near the end of the decade, with a US launch to follow.

The North American sports car market remains a key attraction.

“The sports car market has been 350,000 cars a year for the past 30 years, and half are in the US,” Krief said.

That statistic underlines why Alpine sees the United States as essential for its long-term growth, even if the company is approaching the market cautiously.

Large Alpine SUV project canceled

One of the most surprising revelations is that Alpine has abandoned plans for a large SUV that had previously been considered a central part of its US market strategy.

Krief did not completely rule out a future SUV, but he acknowledged that Alpine currently lacks the necessary architecture within the Renault Group.

“We currently don’t have the platform,” he said.

The decision suggests Alpine is unwilling to compromise its product identity simply to accelerate its American expansion.

Why Alpine is slowing down its model rollout

From an automotive industry perspective, Alpine’s approach is unusually conservative. Many premium manufacturers are introducing new electric models at a rapid pace, yet Alpine is effectively freezing major product expansion for much of the next decade.

Several factors appear to be driving the strategy:

  • Maintaining low production volumes
  • Protecting pricing power
  • Ensuring strong margins on each model
  • Avoiding excessive platform investment
  • Preserving a distinct performance-oriented brand identity

In other words, Alpine is prioritizing sustainable profitability over headline-grabbing growth.

What this means for sports car buyers

For enthusiasts, the electric A110 will become the brand’s most important model of the decade. Its success will likely determine how quickly Alpine can proceed with the remaining vehicles in its planned six-car lineup.

The company’s challenge is significant: it must convince traditional sports car buyers that an electric A110 can deliver the lightweight, agile driving experience that made the original model so highly regarded.

At the same time, the A290 and A390 must broaden Alpine’s customer base without diluting the brand’s sporting credentials.

Source: Alpine

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2027 Alpine A110 EV Prototype Previews an Electric Sports Car That Refuses to Forget What Made the Original Great

The gasoline-powered Alpine A110 has taken its final bow. After eight years in production and 28,701 examples built, the lightweight French coupe has officially rolled off the assembly line in Dieppe for the last time, bringing the second-generation model to a close. But Alpine isn’t letting its most celebrated nameplate fade into history.

Instead, it’s reinventing it.

Meet the A110 Future—a development prototype that previews the third-generation A110 due to arrive in 2027. While it wears familiar bodywork, this isn’t simply yesterday’s sports car with a battery stuffed where the engine used to live. Underneath, Alpine has started with a clean sheet of paper, developing an entirely new electric sports car around its dedicated Alpine Performance Platform (APP).

And unlike many manufacturers making the leap to electrification, Alpine insists it isn’t willing to sacrifice the characteristics that made the A110 such a standout in the first place.

At first glance, the prototype doesn’t appear radically different from the outgoing coupe. That’s intentional. Like many early test mules, it combines existing body panels with new hardware hidden beneath. Look closer, though, and the changes become obvious. Wider fenders hint at substantially broader front and rear tracks, while the familiar rear-mounted 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder—an engine whose roots trace back to the Renault Megane RS—has disappeared entirely.

In its place are two electric motors driving the rear wheels.

Keeping rear-wheel drive rather than adopting the increasingly common all-wheel-drive layout suggests Alpine remains committed to preserving the playful handling balance that has defined the A110 since its revival in 2017. The dual-motor setup promises significantly more torque than the outgoing gasoline model, although Alpine has yet to reveal power figures.

The real engineering story, however, lies beneath the floor.

Rather than installing a conventional skateboard battery stretching from axle to axle, Alpine has developed a split battery arrangement positioned toward the rear of the chassis. The goal is to achieve a 40:60 front-to-rear weight distribution, helping the electric coupe maintain the agility expected of a proper driver’s car.

Weight, of course, remains the elephant in every EV sports car discussion.

The outgoing A110 tipped the scales at just 1,102 kilograms (2,430 pounds), making it one of the lightest sports cars on sale. Matching that figure with a battery-powered replacement borders on impossible, but Alpine appears determined to keep the increase under control. The company says the battery uses high-energy-density cells combined with a cell-to-pack design that integrates the cells directly into the battery structure, reducing unnecessary mass and improving packaging efficiency.

The platform itself also relies heavily on aluminum, while an all-aluminum suspension is designed to trim every unnecessary kilogram.

Efficiency has received equal attention. Alpine confirms the A110 Future uses a silicon carbide (SiC) inverter, allowing greater power density while reducing electrical losses and weight. An 800-volt electrical architecture also forms part of the package, promising the kind of ultra-fast DC charging increasingly becoming standard among high-performance EVs.

If Alpine’s engineering ambitions sound lofty, its marketing claims go even further.

The company describes the upcoming A110 as “the world’s first true electric sports car” and says it will possess everything necessary to outperform today’s finest internal-combustion sports cars. Those are bold promises in a segment populated by machines with decades of development behind them, but Alpine has built its reputation on prioritizing handling finesse over outright horsepower.

If it can translate that philosophy into the electric era, the new A110 could become one of the few EVs that enthusiasts genuinely want to drive rather than simply admire on a specification sheet.

The production model remains several years away, and Alpine continues to keep most of the technical details under wraps. Exact output, battery capacity, driving range, acceleration figures, and curb weight all remain unanswered questions.

Still, the direction is becoming clear.

The next A110 won’t attempt to imitate its predecessor by pretending batteries don’t exist. Instead, Alpine is embracing electrification while engineering around its biggest compromises. Rear-wheel drive, careful weight distribution, lightweight materials, and chassis-first development suggest the company understands that sports cars are defined by feel as much as speed.

The A110 Future will make its public debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed next week before evolving into the production model scheduled to reach customers in 2027. Beyond that, Alpine has already confirmed plans for a larger 2+2 electric sports coupe that will revive the A310 name for the first time since 1984.

For a company built on lightweight driving machines, the electric era represents its biggest challenge yet. Whether the next A110 becomes the benchmark Alpine promises remains to be seen—but at least it appears determined to tackle that challenge on its own terms.

Source: Alpine

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Alpine’s Supercar Dreams Are Real—Just Not Ready Yet

When Alpine rolled the Alpenglow concept onto the stand at the 2022 Paris Motor Show, it felt like one of those moments—headphones out, conversation stopped, phones raised. This was Alpine, the brand best known for featherweight sports cars and rally-bred attitude, suddenly flirting with hypercar theater. Then, in 2024, Alpine doubled down with the Alpenglow Hy4, a fully functional hydrogen-powered prototype. Naturally, the internet jumped to the obvious conclusion: production Alpine supercar incoming.

Not so fast.

According to Alpine CEO Philippe Krief, the idea is very much alive—but deliberately parked a few corners down the road. And if anyone knows what it takes to bring a halo car to life, it’s Krief. Before taking the reins at Alpine, he cut his teeth at Ferrari, working on cars like the 458 Speciale—the swan song of the naturally aspirated mid-engine V-8—and the 296 GTB, Ferrari’s pivot into V-6 hybrid territory. He understands both the romance and the reality of supercars.

“The purpose of a supercar is to build awareness for a brand, explore new technologies that can feed back into the brand, and make some money,” Krief said at the launch of Alpine’s new A390 coupe-SUV in Spain. That last part—making money—is where things get complicated.

Krief is refreshingly honest about the challenges. Could Alpine build a supercar with its relatively small team? Yes. Could it make money doing so right now? Probably not. The engineering might be achievable, but the surrounding ecosystem—sales, service, customer experience—is just as critical, especially when buyers are dropping Ferrari money and expecting Ferrari-level treatment.

That’s where the Alpenglow fits in. For now, it’s a rolling manifesto rather than a pre-production promise. Alpine will continue to use it as a communications tool and, more importantly, as a laboratory for new ideas. Before taking the “last step” into a full-fledged supercar, Krief wants Alpine to grow as a brand and ensure it can deliver the kind of end-to-end experience supercar customers take for granted.

Still, don’t mistake patience for hesitation. The Alpenglow is already shaping Alpine’s future—just not in the way you might expect.

Look closely at the brand’s upcoming road cars and the influence is obvious. The next-generation electric A110 and the forthcoming A310 coupe and convertible will borrow heavily from the concept’s design language, especially up front. The sharp V-shaped nose and intricate lighting signatures have already begun filtering into production metal, most notably on the A390.

Underneath, Alpine’s future rides on the Alpine Performance Platform (APP), a modular, lightweight architecture designed to underpin the brand’s next wave of sports cars. While Alpine’s immediate focus is electric, APP is flexible enough to support hybrid powertrains—and Krief’s background suggests that capability isn’t accidental.

Back in May 2025, Krief tipped his hand on what a future Alpine halo car might look like mechanically. A pure EV? Not likely. Instead, he favors a hybrid setup centered around a V-6 engine. Not a plug-in hybrid, but something lighter and more focused—hybridized for performance rather than efficiency. More power without betraying Alpine’s core philosophy.

That philosophy becomes even clearer when Krief talks inspiration. Rather than chasing a modern Ferrari 296 head-on, his dream points backward. Way backward.

“My dream is rather a modern Alpine interpretation of the Dino,” he said—referencing Ferrari’s compact, lightweight V-6 sports car from the late ’60s and early ’70s. Not a fire-breathing hypercar, but a balanced, driver-focused machine. Less about headline horsepower, more about feel. In other words, very Alpine.

For now, no final decisions have been locked in. Alpine has a packed four-year product roadmap to get through, and Krief is careful not to overpromise. But one idea clearly excites him: using the APP platform to do “extreme things.” That means limited-run, high-impact models that go beyond styling exercises and deliver genuine engineering substance.

Think along the lines of the A110 R Ultime, launched in 2024 with a staggering £267,000 price tag. Financially, that car already lives in supercar territory. Philosophically, it serves as a template—low volume, high ambition, and designed to elevate the entire brand rather than simply pad a balance sheet.

“A halo model for Alpine is a model for the whole organisation,” Krief explained. The goal isn’t to sell tens of thousands of units. It’s to push technology, raise execution standards, and create a new benchmark for what Alpine can deliver—while quietly boosting the appeal of its more attainable models.

And yes, profitability still matters. Krief has seen it done at the highest level, and he knows it’s possible to build exotic cars that both market a brand and make money. But timing, as he stresses, is everything.

So if you’re waiting for an Alpine supercar to take on Ferrari and McLaren tomorrow, keep waiting. But if you’re watching a brand carefully lay the groundwork for something lighter, sharper, and unmistakably Alpine, pay attention. The dream is real. Alpine just wants to make sure it gets it right.

Source: Alpine