And so, Alpine crosses a boundary.
Until now, the revived French sports car maker – long since part of the Renault Group – has been playing on a familiar pitch, making the delectable A110 mid-engined sports car and a heated-up version of Renault’s 5 E-Tech electric hatchback called the A290.
Both of these cars are well inside Alpine’s traditional wheelhouse. The brand got its start making sportier, modified versions of Renault’s 4CV, the French automaker’s rival for the Volkswagen Beetle.
Later it produced the hopelessly pretty original A110, which became a rallying superstar, and then spent the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s trying to create a Porsche 911 rival with a series of fibreglass-bodied, rear-engined four-seaters, latterly using a turbocharged version of Renault’s old V6 engine slung behind the back axle.
Alpine was thought dead in the early 1990s, but Renault threw the shutters back up in 2018 with the retro-look A110 coupe that was sold briefly in Australia, a (largely unsuccessful) entry into Formula 1, and a (slightly more fruitful) return to Alpine’s traditional hunting grounds of sports car racing and the Le Mans 24 Hour.
Now, with the electric revolution upon us, Alpine has set out its stall as Renault’s all-electric, high-performance brand. The A290 electric hot hatch – not currently available in Australia – has become something of a darling among car nuts in Europe, with cool retro-rally styling (complete with built-in spotlights on the bonnet) and steering and suspension to put a VW Golf GTI to shame.
Now, comes this A390 electric fastback SUV, Alpine’s largest, heaviest and most practical car yet, moving the brand into very new territory and taking on the likes of Porsche and Polestar, not to mention BMW, Audi and Mercedes, in the premium electric crossover class.
This is Alpine laying down the gauntlet, creating a self-proclaimed ‘dream garage’ of electric cars, which by the end of 2026 will consist of this A390, the A290, and the upcoming all-electric replacement for the A110 sports car.
The A390 is the first new Alpine to be confirmed for the Australian market, but it will be well into 2026, maybe even early 2027, before it crosses the Indian Ocean. Is it worth holding off on that Porsche Macan Electric purchase? We’ve had a first taste on Spanish roads to find out.
The first, visual, impressions are very good indeed. The A390 mostly abandons the A110’s self-consciously retro looks, and it’s not bound by the existing shape of the Renault 5 as was the case for the A290. So it can be more of its own thing, and it pushes Alpine’s styling language into a new, more modern era while still managing to keep its peripheral vision on the glorious past.
So the styling is quite sharp-edged and very ‘aero’. The traditional Alpine quad-light look is recreated for the 21st century with glowering, ultra-slim LED units just under the leading edge of the nose, and these are augmented by little triangular ‘shards’ of LED lights, which Alpine calls ‘Cosmic Dust’.
There’s an open S-duct-style wing at the front of the nose, not unlike that of the Polestar 3, and that sends air up over the bonnet and to the subtly double-bubbled roof, which looks lower than its 1515mm height.
At the rear, there’s a neat spoiler at the base of the screen, framed by roof pillars which mimic the shape of the A110 coupe’s roofline, and full-width tail-lights with an ‘X’ motif, and the Alpine name lit up in red in the centre.
Set off by slightly garish 21-inch ‘Snowflake’ alloy wheels, with their silver highlights really picking out the shape of a snowflake’s crystalline edges, and red brake calipers (20-inch wheels of similar design are standard), the A390 looks great, and far closer to a slightly raised-up sports sedan than it is a squashed SUV.
The ‘Bleu Alpine Vision’ paint job might be a bit predictable, but it’s also really gorgeous, and pays appropriate homage to classic French racing blue. Hey, if it’s good enough for Bugatti…
How much does the Alpine A390 GT cost?
We simply don’t know yet, but a price tag of €67,000 for the entry-level GT model in Europe suggests it may well be above $80,000 and might even creep close to $100,000 here, certainly for the GTS model, which is going to be a big ask for a brand with which only hardcore car enthusiasts are really familiar.
The Alpine will have its work cut out convincing buyers of high-end German marques to make the switch, and then there’s competition from the likes of Polestar, Ford’s Mustang Mach-E, and the Chinese brands to worry about.
Alpine will have to do a lot of brand-building if it’s to be successful here, but perhaps the badge’s rugged rallying heritage will play a useful part in that.
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What is the Alpine A390 GT like on the inside?
There’s a touch too much similarity to far more humbly priced Renaults about the A390’s cabin when you first sit in it. Indeed, the entire instrument and infotainment setup is lifted – more or less wholesale – from the Renault Scenic, which shares its chassis with the Alpine.
Okay, so the A390 has bespoke graphics, and a clever telemetry recording system which syncs with your phone and ensures that nobody will want to talk to you at parties, but Alpine needs to have interiors that are more bespoke at this price level. Thankfully, for future models, the brand seems to have gotten that message.
There are some specifically Alpine highlights, however. The three-spoke steering wheel is lifted from the A290 hot hatch, and while it might be fanciful for Alpine to say that it’s inspired by its eponymous F1 car, there are some really neat touches beyond the soft leather wrapping around the wheel rim.
There are three buttons attached to the wheel and these are mostly great to use. The top right button, a small metal tab, painted red with the letters OV for ‘overtake’ printed in white is the push-to-pass button. In any driving mode, press this and you get maximum attack from the A390’s electric motors for 10 seconds at a time. You don’t technically need it as you can have the same effect by pressing the accelerator to the floor, but it’s a neat bit of theatre, and the OV button also activates launch control.
The button at the bottom left is marked RCH, for ‘Recharge’, and it’s a delightfully tactile rotary switch, whose springy action turns it into a Francophone version of Ferrari’s ‘Manettino’. It controls the level of regenerative braking, from fully freewheeling to one-pedal driving for in town.
Finally, at the bottom right, there’s a simple driving mode button, which you just press to call up Normal, Sport, Save, or Track modes, and which feels a bit lacking in the theatre of the other switchgear.
The big 12-inch touchscreen in the centre of the dash, angled towards the driver, is good to use thanks to Google-based software, and it’s backed up – thankfully – by physical buttons which control most of the heating and air-conditioning functions.
The rest of the cabin is largely swathed in a mixture of pale grey Nappa leather and mid-blue Alcantara suede, including the excellent front bucket seats (a set of full-Nappa buckets, by race car supplier Sabelt, is optionally available) and overall quality is pretty good. It’s just a shame that the A390 uses the same cheap plastic start/stop button as every other Renault, which detracts from the image a bit.
Storage space up front is okay, although the door bins and the box under the split armrest are both narrow. There is open storage under the centre console, but the glovebox is pretty hopeless.
In the back, space is closer to adequate than generous, although I – at 185cm – was able to fit comfortably behind my own driving position. The rear seat is supportive, but there’s no realistic space in the centre, and the roofline is quite low, so if you’re tall you might struggle for headroom.
Boot space is decent – 532 litres is more than you get in the new BMW iX3, for instance – but there’s a deep loading lip, and the swoopy bodywork at the rear will make loading anything too boxy pretty tricky. Still, it’s definitely the most practical car Alpine has ever built, so that’s something.
| Dimensions | Alpine A390 GT |
|---|---|
| Length | 4615mm |
| Width | 2005mm |
| Height | 1525mm |
| Wheelbase | 2708mm |
| Cargo capacity | 532L (behind rear seats) 1643L (behind front seats) |
What’s under the bonnet?
Alpine has given the A390 a unique – well, unique within its price range anyway – three-motor layout, with two motors at the rear, one each for the rear wheels. There’s a third motor at the front, and all three share the same 98.3kW peak power output, at least in the GT variant, for a combined 295kW of power and 661Nm of torque.
| Specifications | Alpine A390 GT |
|---|---|
| Drivetrain | Tri-motor electric |
| Battery | 89kWh nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) |
| Power | 295kW |
| Torque | 661Nm |
| Drive type | All-wheel drive |
| Weight | 2124kg |
| 0-100km/h (claimed) | 4.8 seconds |
| Energy consumption (claimed) | 18.7kWh/100km |
| Energy consumption (as tested) | 22.0-25.0kWh/100km |
| Claimed range | 557km |
| Max AC charge rate | 11kW (22kW optional) |
| Max DC charge rate | 150kW |
That’s enough for a very rapid 4.8-second 0-100km/h time, but there is an upgrade for the GTS flagship, with 345kW and a massive 824Nm of torque, which will do the same sprint in just 3.9 seconds (both are claimed times).
Both A390s use a 89kWh nickel-manganese-cobalt battery, but the GTS gets subtly different battery chemistry, which allows it to have a higher sustained power output, and also to charge more quickly.
The official range is 557km for the GT running on the entry-level 20-inch alloy wheels, with bespoke Michelin Pilot tyres, or 503km for the more powerful GTS, running 21-inch alloys with a more aggressive version of the same tyre.
Actual range? It depends on how you drive, of course, but from our test drive in the GT we’d suggest a worst-case scenario of 350km if you’re pressing on, and up to 450km if you’re taking things a touch easier. That’s adequate, rather than truly impressive, but taken in the context of the A390’s performance and sporting remit, it’s not too bad.
How does the Alpine A390 GT drive?
The worry here was that Alpine’s character – derived from ultra-light sports cars – would get smothered, almost literally, by the weight and bulk of a crossover body and a large-capacity EV battery. However, taken against rivals – such as the Polestar 4 or the Porsche Macan Electric – the Alpine is actually 200kg lighter, even if its 2124kg kerb weight won’t make happy reading for sports car enthusiasts.
Alpine was clearly wise to the issue, though, hence the three-motor layout which allows incredibly accurate torque control and delivery for each rear wheel. This allows the A390 to over-speed the outside rear wheel when you’re cornering, effectively steering the car from the rear, and allowing you to tuck the nose tight into an apex.
This ‘torque-vectoring’ system works brilliantly, with an obvious sense that the rear-end is helping balance and turn the whole car, yet without any sensation of the nervousness that you might get with four-wheel steering.
Speaking of which, the A390 has wonderfully balanced steering, which doesn’t resort to faux-sporty excessive weight (it’s quite light, actually) but which delivers plenty of genuine road feel. It’s kind of astonishing how the A390 – with its motors, Michelin tyres, and sweet steering – manages to resist the sort of dogged understeer that usually blights heavy, fast EVs.
It helps that the ride quality is good too, with hydraulic bump-stops taking the sting out of big lumps, even though the A390 is stiff enough to remain nicely level under hard cornering.
It’s also impressive that Alpine’s engineers have managed to do this – create an agile, fun and yet smooth car – without recourse to adaptive dampers nor air suspension. This is just good old-fashioned spring and damper tuning, and it’s all the better for it.
Does the A390 truly disguise its weight? No, you’re always aware that there’s a lot of mass to control, although the way the A390 avoids feeling unstable under heavy braking is another impressive note, tipping a hat to the six-piston monobloc front calipers.
What do you get?
In Europe at least, the Alpine A390 will be offered in GT and GTS variants.
2026 Alpine A390 equipment highlights:
- 12-inch touchscreen
- Smartphone mirroring
- LED headlights and tail-lights
- Digital instrument panel
- Heat pump
- Dual-zone climate control
- Adaptive cruise control
- 12-speaker Devialet stereo
- Heated front seats and steering wheel
- Wireless phone charging
- On-board telemetry
- Alcantara and Nappa leather trim
- 20-inch alloy wheels
Is the Alpine A390 GT safe?
It certainly ought to be – the A390 hasn’t yet been tested by either ANCAP or Euro NCAP, but it’s based on the same platform as the ultra-safe Renault Scenic, and shares all of that car’s active and passive safety features. That said, it’s a shame that, even at this price level, Alpine asks you to dip into the options list to get items such as lane-centring and hands-free parking.
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Standard safety equipment includes:
- Forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking
- Speed limit warning
- Lane keeping
- Traffic sign recognition
- Front and rear parking sensors and 360-degree camera
- Driver attention warning
- Adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go
- Blind spot monitor
How much does the Alpine A390 GT cost to run?
On our test, the A390 wavered between energy consumption of 22kWh per 100km and 25kWh/100km, so you will have to charge up frequently, even with that big battery capacity.
At 16c per kWh on a good night rate, a 10-100 per cent charge will cost $12.81, which seems none too shabby considering the performance on offer, and how much fuel an equivalent petrol-engined car would consume to deliver the same performance.
We’re awaiting final details, but it looks like Alpine will follow Renault Australia’s lead with a five-year/100,000km warranty as is included with the Renault Megane E-Tech, including roadside assistance, and one-year servicing intervals with inclusive servicing plans available.
CarExpert’s Take on the Alpine A390 GT
It’s often a bad idea to venture too far beyond your core competency, but the Alpine A390 manages to move the goalposts for the brand as a whole.
Alpine’s first try at a practical electric family car is hugely successful, combining handsome looks with exceptional performance and handling, alongside a sense of fun, enjoyment and character that’s too often lacking these days, even from premium-badge rivals.
Alpine will have to work hard to convince Aussie buyers who simply don’t know the brand well, but for those prepared to take a chance, the rewards are manifest.
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