Alpine A390 prototype review

New electric crossover is supposed to be an A110 for five. That’s a tough ask

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Alpine, in its 21st-century incarnation at least, is still a young brand, but it’s quickly growing up. 

The first step in the masterplan was to make us all take notice with a sports car: the brilliant A110. Then it came up with something more attainable: the Renault 5-based A290 hot hatchback. Now it needs a car for all the family to enjoy. That’ll be the new Alpine A390.

Because it’s 2025, that means it’s electric, and because the batteries need to go in the floor, it’s crossover-shaped. But stick with us, because this isn’t one of those slightly limp Esprit Alpine versions of a Renault: it’s a completely stand-alone Alpine model with a special trick up its sleeve – or rather, three of them.

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DESIGN & STYLING

5 Alpine A390 prototype

Like the Tesla Model S Plaid and Maserati Granturismo Folgore, the A390 has three motors – one at the front, two at the back. That lets it do proper torque vectoring: rather than just brake an inside wheel to encourage the car to turn in, it can overspeed the outside rear. This is electric performance cars coming of age and trying stuff that has no analogue in combustion-engined cars.

Deep down, the A390 is related to the Renault Scenic E-Tech, but it isn’t just a Scenic with a sloping roof. Even through the camouflage, you can see this is a distinct car. It even has a shorter wheelbase. The battery is different too. Alpine isn’t releasing battery capacity or output figures yet, but it’s designed to be able to support the three motors’ power outputs.

This is a slightly difficult story for Alpine to tell, because the brand is all about cars being light, and as an electric crossover, the A390… isn’t that. So supposedly, the A390 is all about creating the A110’s feeling of lightness through the torque vectoring and the careful tuning of the traction control and stability control (ESC) systems.

To that end, the specification of the A390 is unusual for a performance car – with some surprisingly thoughtful nods to practicality.

First off, there are those dual rear motors. Polestar tries to achieve much the same effect with a clutch pack on the rear axle, but according to Alpine that solution is slower to respond. What’s more, two smaller rear motors back-to-back are lower than one big one, thus allowing a lower boot floor.

Unlike most performance cars with a rear-biased torque distribution, the A390 doesn’t have wider tyres at the back: the fronts and rears are the same size. The engineers say that the wider rear track gives the car all the traction and stability it needs, and having four identical tyres makes sourcing replacements easier.

Alpine keeps it simple in other areas too: there’s no four-wheel steering and the suspension is passive for the most natural feel (although I imagine that cost plays a part here as well).

The proper launch of the A390 isn’t due until 2026, so for now I’ve only been given a brief, tantalising glimpse at what it can do on the wet handling circuit of Michelin’s Ladoux proving ground in France. 

I’ve been sworn to secrecy about the interior, but if you’ve seen the interior of the A290 and of the Scenic, you’re free to speculate on what the A390’s might look like.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

3 Alpine A390 prototype

For the time being, we can only make an educated guess of the power and performance figures. I’d put it in the high-400bhp to 500bhp range. It’s quick, no doubt, but not explosively fast. That seems like a good place for Alpine, and a sporty electric crossover in general, to be in.

As in the A290, the accelerator is nicely progressive, and there’s a rotary dial on the steering wheel to adjust the level of regenerative braking. What isn’t shared with the hot hatch is the latter’s brake-by-wire system. We liked it on the Renault 5 and A290 for its firm, consistent brake pedal feel, but because the A390 uses a different platform, it would have been too costly and involved to integrate here. As a result, the brake pedal feels a bit soft at the top of its travel, although the brakes have enough bite when you have to lean on them.

Although the system wasn’t working on the prototype cars, drivers will have the option of synthetic noise under the banner of Alpine Drive Sound that supposedly draws some inspiration from the A110’s snorty intake noise. Alpine isn’t following the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N’s lead with simulated engine noise and fake gearchanges, however. It reckons that sort of fakery isn’t true to its philosophy. Given the positive response Hyundai’s system has had, it feels like a missed opportunity not to include something similar.

RIDE & HANDLING

Alpine A390 prototype interior

Does the A390’s chassis shout A110? Not immediately. Over the handful of gutters I got to run over, the ride felt quite tough, and the body feels more resolutely tied down than in the uniquely supple A110. It feels like a pretty big car too, although not one that seems excessively heavy.

There is a clear family resemblance with the A290, however. The vaguely hexagonal steering wheel is the same and the subtle but clear feel and feedback coming through it is similar too.

The different drive modes are configured to create distinct experiences but are a world away from the configuration-fest of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N. There are Normal, Sport and Track modes, plus an Individual mode that lets you mix and match a few parameters, but you can’t mess around with the power split or the suspension. The engineers say they would rather give you a handful of good set-ups than infinite bad ones.

Normal mode is very normal. Herein the A390 finds good grip even on the slick surface, and when that runs out, it naturally defaults to mild understeer, with the ESC checking any slides before they have a chance to develop. Sport mode doesn’t change the torque distribution but relaxes the ESC and makes the steering slightly heavier. The difference isn’t huge, and the car will still fight you if you try to misbehave.

Depending on the trim, your A390 will have either 20in Michelin Pilot Sport EV or 21in Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres. The latter sacrifice about 10 miles of range but make the front end feel much keener.

Track mode is where things get interesting, with the A390 starting to feel rear-driven. It will rotate on the power, but it’s at its most playful if you pitch it in on the brakes and then get hard on the accelerator. At this stage, you really feel the difference between the tyre options, with the 4S giving much better front-end bite and making those sorts of shenanigans easier.

Trying to provoke the car and seeing what it will let you get away with is certainly good fun, but it never feels completely natural, because even with the ESC disabled (which you can do in any drive mode, using a single physical button), you always have the four-wheel drive system second-guessing you and pulling you out of a slide when you don’t want it to.

VERDICT

8 Alpine A390 prototype

So the A390 isn't an A110, which is no great shocker, but it does manage a certain feeling of lightness in the context of what is presumably a two-tonne car.

The other question is whether the novel mechanical layout lets this car do things that the Ioniq 5 N or an upper-level Polestar 3, with their mere two motors, can’t.

From this very limited taster, I’m not sure it does. I mean that literally: it’s entirely possible and indeed likely that the A390 will reveal further depths when we drive the finished product on the road and on a dry track.

On the wet handling circuit, it’s good, it’s fun, but it’s no dynamic revelation like the first four-wheel-drive M5 or Ioniq 5 N were, with their almost telepathic 4WD systems.

Still, I look forward to trying the real thing and discovering how it compares with the hot Hyundai in more realistic circumstances.

Illya Verpraet

Illya Verpraet Road Tester Autocar
Title: Road Tester

As a road tester, Illya drives everything from superminis to supercars, and writes reviews and comparison tests, while also managing the magazine’s Drives section. Much of his time is spent wrangling the data logger and wielding the tape measure to gather the data for Autocar’s in-depth instrumented road tests.

He loves cars that are fun and usable on the road – whether piston-powered or electric – or just cars that are very fit for purpose. When not in test cars, he drives an R53-generation Mini Cooper S.