Alpine is going up against the Porsche Macan Electric and Hyundai Ioniq 5 N with its first SUV, the A390.
The French performance brand’s third model line – joining the A110 coupé and A290 hot hatch – is a sleek, striking crossover-coupé that remains largely true to the A390 Beta concept revealed at the Paris motor show last year.
Due to start from around £60,000 when UK orders open in November, the A390 will play a significant role in broadening the market reach of Alpine’s product portfolio. Its dimensions place it right at the heart of Europe’s most popular car class and it has a more overt focus on daily usability than the brand’s dedicated sports cars.
It measures 4.6m long by 1.5m tall and has a 532-litre boot, which makes it a close match for the likes of the Cupra Tavascan and Tesla Model Y. But with up to 464bhp and a drivetrain that has been engineered with a rigid focus on driver engagement, the A390 is pitched more directly at the dedicated performance SUV segment.
The A390 shares its basic Ampr Medium architecture with the Renault Scenic and Nissan Ariya. However, it uses a bespoke tri-motor powertrain – two at the rear and one at the front – to give rear-biased all-wheel drive and torque vectoring to boost agility and responsiveness.
Alpine CEO Philippe Krief recently told Autocar that this arrangement will play a key role in instilling the A390 with a “perceived lightness” that helps to mitigate the inherent weight penalty associated with an electric SUV.
“You can generate a quite immediate response time. It’s like the behaviour of a light car,” said Krief of the tri-motor powertrain, which is capable of overspeeding the outside wheels in a bend, rather than simply braking the inside wheels. Alpine says this gives a “much smoother, delicate feeling of control”, while also allowing for easily controllable powerslides.
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Much much slower than a Tesla, more expensive, less range, no decent charging infrastructure, no self driving... seems like a miss.
Bore off
This is nothing more than another ugly and generic looking SUV Crossover.
Also, the side profile is even worse because like many car makers they've fallen into the trap of placing the rear door handles near the C-Pillars but having normal ones on the front.
It doesn't make the car look like a rakish three door, it makes it look mismatched, bulky and awkward.