The original Alpine A110 was an absolute icon of the 1960s and 1970s, and made the French carmaker’s name as the manufacturer of quirky, elegant, fun to drive little sports cars. It even won a few rounds of the World Rally Championship in 1973. 

The 2017 revival had to do the same thing again for a carmaker that hadn’t built a car in over 20 years and succeeded with a lightweight focused approach that set it apart from all of its lardy rivals. 

But Alpine can’t manage the same trick again with an electric sports car, can it? The Renault subsidiary is already modestly referring to its new creation as “the world’s first true EV sports car”, but we’ll be the judge of that. We’re desperate to see an electric car that’s fun to drive, prioritises keeping the weight down and is fun to drive. 

The 'A110 Future' is the car pictured here, a prototype mule of the new car that's used an existing A110 body to test the electric powertrain. It's set to make an appearance at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2026, and here's everything we know about the new car so far. 

What platform will the new A110 use?

Obviously not usually the first question on people’s lips, but it’s interesting here. 

Unlike the A290 (which is a tarted up Renault 5) and the A390 (which shares its underparts with the Nissan Leaf and Renault Megane), the A110 was always intended to be a bit more bespoke. 

Alpine actually started working with Lotus on the project with a view to a replacement Lotus Elise that would help reduce costs, but the two parted ways and Alpine has gone it alone in developing its new Alpine Performance Platform (APP). 

Crucially it has been designed to be lightweight through and through, but it is also modular, so it can support a coupe, convertible or a longer 2+2.  

How far will the Alpine A110 go on a charge?

We have very little information confirmed about the new A110 Electric, but Alpine is believed to be targeting a range of around 350 miles. 

The battery situation is interesting – Alpine’s new platform has been designed to take two battery packs split to help the weight balance. So while it’s complete speculation, the Renault 5’s Urban Range battery is a 40kWh NMC pack… two of those might do nicely. 

The car has been designed from the beginning to take 800V electric tech, which should mean decent charging speeds so you can get back on the B-roads as quickly as possible.

Will the Alpine A110 still be fun to drive? 

Well that’s the aim – Alpine knows how important it is to the appeal of the A110 that it’s both lightweight and lots of fun to steer about the place. 

There are three interesting factors that we’ve heard about so far – the first is that APP engineering that’s focused on keeping the weight down. The platform is made out of aluminium, and it uses innovative techniques to make it thin but strong. 

The second is the drive at the back of the car – the A110 Electric uses two e-motor integrated into the same unit that has a reduction gearbox and a silicon carbide inverter that manages to blend performance and efficiency. Two motors at the back means you can deploy the electric power using torque vectoring to make the car more agile and sporty. 

The third thing is the reason that Alpine has split the batteries up… instead of having all the cells piled in one place, the weight has been distributed for maximum effect. Alpine says that the perfect sports car weight distribution is 40:60 and it has managed to achieve that. 

How much will the new A110 Electric cost? 

The most recent petrol version of the A110 that only just went out of production in the last few weeks started around £55k and topped out around £95k. 

The new electric version of the car isn’t going to increase that by much, and Alpine seems keen on keeping the car relatively affordable. So expect the price to start £60k and run up to about £100k for some more spicy versions of the car. 

When will the A110 Electric go on sale?

We’ll probably see the production version of the car at the Paris motor show in October, ahead of an early 2027 on sale date. 

Other versions of the A110 will follow thanks to the fancy new platform, though likely not until 2028 or later. That means a convertible version and a more practical grand tourer with four seats. 

Alpine sold a 2+2 car in the 1970s that was a rival to the Porsche 911, called the A310. Might we see that name badge resurrected? 

What are the A110’s rivals?

Porsche has been developing a new electric version of the Boxster/Cayman for an incredibly long time, so it’s more of a looming spectre than a direct rival at the moment. It was supposed to launch in 2023, then 2025, then 2026, and now maybe 2028. Yikes. 

The electric version of the Lotus Emira has been canned, so that doesn’t leave many rivals. The MG Cyberster? Not really in the same league when it comes to driving fun, but there are very few proper electric cabrios out there. 

Strangely, the Tesla Model 3 Performance might be the only decent alternative at the moment in terms of money and outright performance. But the Alpine should be the better car to drive…