Renault’s revived sports car brand Alpine could make a huge resurgence this decade through ambitious production and sales goals under the marque’s CEO Laurent Rossi. Rossi sees the US as a crucial market in reaching its sales targets and intends to bring two bespoke Alpine EVs to the US market that will be positioned similarly to Porsche’s two SUV models. It may take a few years though.
Although Alpine sits as a relatively small name today, its history dates all the way back to 1954, when it began building racing and sports cars in France following WWII. The automaker worked closely with fellow French company Renault, which ended up buying Alpine in the early ’70s.
Alpine focused primarily on branded competition cars for Renault before eventually ceasing production in 1995. From that point on, the Alpine badge collected dust on Renault’s shelf until the late 2000s when rumors started to swirl about an Alpine revival (without any mentions of EVs at this time of course).
A few Alpine concepts emerged through the mid-2000s before infamous Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn announced in 2017 that Alpine would officially be revived alongside its famed A110 model. Ghosn would be ousted, but his plans for Alpine would carry on. Alpine was spun out into its own business unit in 2021 and signed a memorandum of understanding with Lotus Cars to develop EVs.
Today Alpine is still working to deliver its second model beyond the A110, while shifting toward becoming Renault’s sporty, all-EV brand. While Alpine is developing multiple EVs for Europe as we speak, the brand’s current CEO believes the two electric SUVs it has planned for the US will really put the company back on the map.
Alpine is developing EVs to entice SUV customers in the US
Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo has set tremendous goals for Alpine, which is still only delivering one model that sold approximately 3,500 units in 2022. De Meo has tasked Alpine with a sales target of 8 billion euros by 2030, a number equating to over 150,000 units.
Current Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi is up to the task, but recently told reporters that the US will be crucial to hitting those sales targets. This strategy includes plans to sell two EV models best suited for the US market – a midsize SUV and an even larger model. But US consumers likely won’t see these Alpine EVs until 2027 or 2028.
Alpine’s immediate focus is on its first EV, the Renault 5 Alpine “hot hatch” (seen above). Even so, that model isn’t expected to arrive in Europe until the second half of 2024. Alpine’s EV momentum should carry from there however, promising a bespoke, all-electric compact SUV in 2025, tentatively called the GT.
Rossi said these two EV models are expected to increase Alpine sales to approximately 35,000 annual units by 2025, but that’s still a far cry from de Meo’s proposed targets. The last non-US model in the works will be an EV successor to the Alpine A110 scheduled for early 2027. Next will come the two electric SUVs for the US, described by Rossi:
We want to go to the US, which will create the bulk of the extra volume above and beyond the hot hatch and sporty car we are launching in 2025, and the successor to the A110.
Rossi went on to describe both upcoming SUVs as roughly similar to the Porsche Macan and Cayenne Coupe positioning-wise, adding that the electric models were being designed for both the US and European markets.
Alpine has not shared what platform technology the two larger EVs will sit upon, but Renault currently has relationships with both Nissan and Lotus Cars that it can lean on if need be. Rossi added that Alpine was not ruling out collaborations with other automakers either. He went on:
It’s quite early days, because we are talking about cars that will be released around 2027 or 2028, so we can really take our time in exploring the best solutions and best collaborations.
This will be a company to keep an eye on the next several years.
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