Recently-revived sports car brand Alpine will charge into the electric era with three new cars.
Teased at Renault’s recent strategy event, the heritage-rich Alpine badge will be used on an electric replacement to the current A110 sports car, a hot version of the new Renault 5 EV, and a mysterious crossover.
The former will be built in partnership with British sports car specialists Lotus, using the brand’s new E-Sport electric platform.
The same platform will also be offered to other carmakers keen to build electric sports cars on a known architecture, but forms part of a broader partnership between Lotus and Alpine.
The second model is a hot hatchback built on the just-revealed CMF-BEV electric platform, and will likely be based on the upcoming Renault 5 revival.
A shadowy teaser reveals the racy rival to the Volkswagen ID.3 GTX will have a massive rear wing, boxy proportions, and what look like rally spotlights on its nose.
The CMF-BEV platform is designed for Volkswagen Polo-sized cars (B-segment, or light), and promises to cut the price of new electric cars by one third.
Using the Renault Zoe hatchback as a guide, Renault electric hatches could cost as little as $33,000 if they come to Australia – and below $30,000 when certain state-specific incentives are taken into account.
Range on the tough WLTP test cycle will top out at 400km on the new platform.
How has Renault managed to make the platform so cheap? It shares bits with the CMF-B platform, which underpins the Renault Captur and Nissan Juke crossovers, and will make use of a new nickel-cobalt-manganese battery pack.
Finally, the Alpine crossover is likely to share its bones with the Nissan Ariya.
The most powerful Ariya pairs a 90kWh battery pack with a dual-motor all-wheel drive powertrain making 290kW and 560Nm, good for a 5.1-second sprint to 100km/h.
