After abandoning earlier plans to collaborate with Lotus on an electrical sports activities automobile platform, Alpine will proceed to develop its personal structure for an electrical A110 successor.
In response to Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo, the platform can be constructed with the goal of underpinning greater than only one mannequin.
Talking to Autocar, De Meo mentioned: “We had an extended dialogue and eventually determined to construct our personal platform.”
Whereas it’s unclear if the electrical structure will enterprise past sports activities automobiles into different segments, optimising the platform to help a number of automobiles will assist Alpine recoup the prices beforehand shared with Lotus.
De Meo reportedly hinted at the potential for a halo hypercar using on the platform, telling reporters, “You by no means know.”
Initially, Alpine deliberate to make use of Lotus’s E-Sport platform to underpin the A110 substitute.
Now that the A110 substitute will experience on a bespoke EV sports activities automobile platform developed in-house by Renault, it’s unclear if it would nonetheless make its supposed 2026 debut.
Alpine will maintain an investor day on July 26 to disclose its future lineup and plans for electrification.
De Meo maintained the dismantling of the partnership with Lotus was amicable.
“There was no friction with the factor as a result of all people was feeling like this was one of the best factor,” mentioned De Meo.
The Renault Group seems to have left the door open for potential future collaboration, with De Meo saying, “It doesn’t imply we don’t have alternatives to work collectively once more.”
Talking beforehand to Autocar, Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi mentioned “Lotus and us share the identical preoccupation, which is making an attempt to make gentle, agile sports activities automobiles whereas clearly including weight and electrifying.”
Final month’s joint assertion by the manufacturers reads: “Lotus and Alpine have been collaborating on a future EV sports activities automobile imaginative and prescient for greater than two years, throughout which era a robust relationship between the 2 firms has developed.”
“Now we have determined to not progress with the joint growth of a sports activities automobile for Alpine. It is a mutual resolution reached amicably, and we’ll proceed to debate different future alternatives,” it provides.
It’s unclear what the dissolution of the partnership means for Lotus’s Elise successor, codenamed Sort 135, which was additionally deliberate to run on the platform.
Alpine goals to provide solely electrical automobiles from 2026, with plans to launch 5 new EVs inside the subsequent 5 years.
The Lotus-based A110 successor was meant to be the third new automobile within the reimagined Alpine vary, coming after the A290 hatch primarily based on the upcoming retro-influenced Renault 5 on the CMF-BEV platform, and the GT X-Over crossover anticipated to make use of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi CMF-EV structure.
Alpine has reportedly thought of finishing the five-car lineup with two bigger SUV fashions, the structure for which may also require collaboration with an out of doors agency.
