Review: Alpine A390

The A390’s electric motors are manufactured in a dedicated facility in Cléon, the NMC batteries sourced from a company called Verkor, but with modules produced in Dunkirk and assembled in the Renault Group facility in Douai. The chassis, meanwhile, was designed and built at the company’s Le Mans plant.

As with the smaller A290 and indeed with various Renaults (the 4, 5 and incoming Twingo), this is an EV for the committed Francophile. Alpine isn’t just leveraging its quirky past, it’s an avatar for the wider Group’s technical prowess.

The platform is an evolution of the AmpR Medium architecture that’s already in service beneath the Megane E-Tech and Scenic, and Nissan’s Arya and Leaf, a necessary synergy given the vast cost of developing these things. But some notable lengths have been gone to here in order to differentiate the A390 and justify the investment and Porsche-baiting aspirations.

“The driving force behind the A390’s dynamics was to make it as fast and agile as the A110,” Vehicle Projects VP Robert Bonetto says. “To achieve this, we had to eliminate the impact of the battery’s weight with a technical solution to enhance the perceived lightness.”

“Perceived” being the key word here. The A110 is beloved of diehard car fans because it only weighs 1,140 kg, a stellar achievement in this day and age. The A390 is approximately twice that, unavoidable given its mode of propulsion, but sticks as close as possible to Alpine’s primary recipe. The 89 kWh battery uses a new chemistry and cooling system for more sustained power and performance, and more efficient charging and discharging.

The A390 is also unique in this segment by having three motors, a coil one on the front axle and two permanent synchronous ones on each of the rear wheels, for a total power output of 396 bhp in GT guise, rising to 463 bhp in GTS form.