Alpine has presented its 100% electric urban sports model, the A290, which offers two power levels: 180 HP in the GT and GT Premium versions and 220 HP in the GT Performance and GTS versions, with 380 km of autonomy. Both the price and the opening of orders for the new vehicle of the Renault Group sports brand will be announced “during the summer.”
This new sports car 100% electric of Alpine, of which only 1,955 units have been produced in tribute to the year the brand was founded by Jean Rédélé, aims to reach “a new generation of drivers” who also care about the environment, explained the Leader of the Alpine Lifestyle Cars programFabrice Izzillo in the presentation of the model.
The Alpine A290
The A290, in its higher versions, manages to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 6.4 seconds, which places it at the highest level of its category.
Additionally, the steering wheel has an ‘Overtake’ function controlled with a red physical button that provides maximum engine torque and power while pressed for a maximum of 10 seconds.
This function, inspired by Formula 1 controls and video games, requires a 30-second recharge time before it can be fully used again. However, after 15 seconds, it is possible to give a new impulse that will last 5 seconds.
Alpine A290 is equipped as standard with a 52 kWh battery which allows a WLTP autonomy of up to about 380 km (homologation in progress). A heat pump is included that allows you to optimize the temperature of the cabin and preserve autonomy.
Fast direct current recharging 100 kW allows the A290 to go from 15% to 80% charge in 30 minutes or recover up to 150 km WLTP in 15 minutes.
In an alternating current charger, the supported power is 11 kW, allowing a recharge from 50% to 80% in one hour 20 minutes or recovering 70 km WLTP in one hour.
This charger incorporates a bidirectional function that allows you to benefit from V2L (vehicle-to-load) functions to connect a device through the charging socket. V2G (‘vehicle-to-grid’) is also supported.
The electric motor
Another technological advance to which the sports brand has paid attention related to electric motorization is that, in the absence of a combustion engine sound, Alpine has designed a sound that accompanies driving and provides direct information on the use of the mechanics to reinforce sensations and improve the driving experience.
Alpine teams, together with acoustic experts and musicians, have created the ‘Alpine Driving Sound’ feature with two sounds of different frequencies and intensities.
Finally, the vehicle’s exterior acoustic warning system (AVAS), which is mandatory up to 30 km/h to warn pedestrians of the arrival of an electric vehicle, has also been designed with a characteristic sound.
Technology
Inside the vehicle you can also see the technological advances to which Alpine has given detail. It has a box of instruments located after the steering wheelis a 10.25-inch screen, while the central screen of infotainment It is 10.1 inches and is oriented towards the driver.
The instrumentation is oriented in front of the driver and stands out for its graphic codes that move away from round counters to adopt a triangle-shaped theme.
According to the brand, this symbol geometric It allows the level of delivered or recharging power to be displayed in a very legible way on the left, and the speed on the right, including a red line to symbolize the speed limits extracted from the traffic sign reading system.
With this screen, Alpine offers the ‘Alpine Telemetrics’ function, which allows the customer to access three large categories of services related to their A290: ‘Live Data’, ‘Coaching’ and ‘Challenges’.
‘Live Data’ allows visualization of data from driving in agility, power, endurance, lap time, vehicle data (engine and battery temperature, tire pressure and temperature, brake temperature), recording of a video on a mobile phone with display of driving data , among others.
‘Coaching’ allows you to consult recommendations to better understand the vehicle, use the Alpine Telemetrics functions and progress in driving. Ideal for the driver to learn at his own pace to adopt sports driving.
And ‘Challenges’ is a series of challenges based on three themes: agility, power and resistance. It is a very similar approach to video games, and levels to overcome to progress.
Alpine Telemetrics will be updated via Playstore, like a smartphone app, and will provide regular access to new content.
Urban
The exterior design, finally, is that of a small urban car measuring less than 4 meters with a muscular appearance. The AmpR Small e platformIt is a base, reinforced with 60 mm wider tracks to achieve visual solidity.
In this way, A290 offers the behavior of a small athletic sports car ready to hit the road. The standard 19-inch alloy wheels offer two exclusive patterns.
The Iconic wheel model was created to evoke the Alpine A310 wheels, while the ‘Snowflake’ wheels seek to recall the origins of the Alpine name and are offered in a gloss black, semi-diamond black or diamond black finish.
