New Alpine A390 2025 preview: specs, launch date and prototype review

We’re less than a month away from the world debut of the all-new Alpine A390 on 27 May, as the French performance brand prepares to take on the Porsche Macan Electric with an electric five-seat ‘Sport Fastback’ that it’s promising can deliver the “agility and driving pleasure” of its exceptional featherweight sports car, the A110.

Alpine is also quite boldly calling the A390 a “true five-seater sports car,” and says it’s working to ensure that the electric SUV can deliver the level of performance and sharpness customers will expect from the brand, which until now has focused on sports cars and hot hatches. 

But while we’ve been told the A390 will be quicker than the hardcore A110 R – meaning it’ll do 0-62mph in well under four seconds – Alpine also wants that performance to be accessible and progressive to adapt to the skill of the driver, as well as repeatable. 

The A390 will be available with a tri-motor powertrain – using one motor on the front axle, and two at the rear – that could deliver up to 600bhp, plus all-wheel-drive traction and active torque vectoring to boost agility through the corners. A less potent dual-motor version will be offered as well, we’ve been told.

Alpine has just about wrapped up testing on the A390, which has been taking place in all sorts of conditions, including the freezing cold of Lapland, in the north of Sweden, and more recently at Michelin's Ladoux facility in France for wet-weather testing. 

The two French firms have actually been working together to develop specific tyres for the A390: 20-inch Pilot Sport EVs will be the standard choice and are designed to balance performance, refinement and range, while more performance-focused 21-inch Pilot Sport 4S rubber will be available too.

Alpine has also been refining the A390’s five drive modes, with its Track setting “dedicated to more sporting endeavour” – which is an eloquent way of saying ‘giving it the beans’. Plus the 'Alpine Drive Sound’ system will deliver two unique soundtracks to enhance the driving experience, but without trying to replicate the exhaust note of the A110’s petrol engine. 

The A390 will sit on the AmpR Medium platform (previously known as CMF-EV) – the bespoke EV architecture also used by the Renault Scenic and Nissan Ariya family SUVs. But as well as adding the new tri-motor set-up, Alpine will be making numerous chassis tweaks, not least a wider track and larger brakes.

Alpine A390 design and interior

Alpine is calling the A390 a ‘Sport Fastback’ rather than an SUV, and it’s not hard to see why, given the incredibly athletic silhouette and quite brutish design previewed by the A390_ß concept shown last year. This was very close to the production car’s styling, as we can see from these official pictures of a prototype cutting a rug on the ice.

At the front, the A390 will sport a full-width lightbar that connects two clusters of triangular lights. The brand calls the lighting signature 'Cosmic Dust', because it's supposed to evoke a comet passing through our atmosphere, and the same feature has also been used for the tail-lights. Meanwhile the sharply pointed nose gets Alpine lettering, just like the concept. 

Elsewhere, blades sculpted into the bonnet are designed to improve airflow over the top of the car, and its ‘micro-perforated’ grille should guide air towards the intakes on either side of the bumper to create a curtain of air along the sides.

Alpine has confirmed the A390 will measure 4,615mm long, 1,885mm wide and 1,532mm tall, making it smaller than the Porsche Macan Electric. Instead, the A390 is much closer in size to the Cupra Tavascan, Ford Capri and Kia EV6, but it should provide plenty of space for passengers and luggage alike.

We assume the road-going A390 will feature a very toned-down version of the concept’s interior, but we do know it’ll include a Nappa leather-wrapped steering wheel. This is inspired by the ones on Alpine’s Formula 1 cars, with buttons to switch drive modes, plus others for ‘Overtake’ (OV) and ‘Recharge’ (RCH). Presumably the first provides a short boost of extra power, while the other adjusts the regenerative braking system. 

Alpine A390 prototype drive 

We’ll have to wait a while still to test the A390 in the UK, but our time in a prototype on a frozen lake in Swedish Lapland provides good insight into what to expect. What you certainly shouldn’t expect is a driving experience of the kind offered by the A110, but Alpine is keen to stress that it has made changes to each and every element of the underlying platform to maximise performance and engagement.

Unlike the Nissan Ariya Nismo, a performance EV based on the same AmpR medium platform, the A390 features a total of three electric motors: two at the rear, one at the front. Exact performance figures are still under wraps, but given the additional motor, we can expect the output to exceed the 429bhp of the Ariyra, and it certainly feels that way in reality – Alpine says straight-line performance is equivalent to an A110 R’s.

The steering feel and feedback can’t match that of an A110, but the use of two motors on the rear axle allows for torque vectoring, making the A390 much more capable than its smaller, single-motor A290 relative. We’ll have to see how it translates to British roads, but in these extreme low-limit conditions the A390 is great fun to drive, with near-perfect weight distribution, a low centre of gravity and Alpine-specific suspension all contributing to intuitive handling, with the car’s weight rarely making itself known.

The interior is still under wraps for now, but we do know that the A390’s Normal and Sport drive modes and steering wheel controls are carried across from the A290. What’s new, though, is a dedicated Track mode, which tells the stability systems to step back and let the driver make the decisions; unlike most modes of this kind, it allows for full control over power, making it truly adjustable on the throttle – on ice at least.

One of seven new Alpines on the way

As with Alpine’s other models, the A390 follows a simple naming convention of the letter A followed by three numbers. The first digit refers to the coupe-SUV’s size, compared with the Alpine A290 hot hatch, for instance, while 90 denotes this is one of the brand’s more versatile, everyday models. 

The A390 will be the next addition to Alpine’s “dream garage” of seven brand-new pure-electric cars that it’s hoping to complete by 2030, and has just started to become a reality following the launch of the A290.

Two more SUVs are scheduled to be launched in 2027 and 2028, the largest of which should rival the Porsche Cayenne. Also on the way is the next iteration of the Alpine A110 sports car, which will be followed by a roadster version and a four-seat sports coupé that will bring back the Alpine A310 name from the seventies and eighties. 

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