New Alpine A290 hot hatch available to order now: all-electric MINI JCW rival starts from £33,500

The Renault 5 finally went on sale in the UK last week, and now it’s the turn of its sportier but no less stylish sister car: the Alpine A290 hot hatch. Prices start from £33,500, or £345 per month on finance, and the first cars should start arriving with customers in April.

France’s response to the MINI JCW should help bring performance brand Alpine into the mainstream, as it goes from being the maker of one lightweight sports car – the sensational Alpine A110 – to offering a range of no fewer than seven models. That’s all still to come, however. 

The Alpine A290 is available to order in five trim levels – GT, GT Premium, GT Performance, GTS, and Launch Edition – and two states of tune, with either 178bhp or 217bhp sent to the front wheels, in traditional hot hatchback fashion.

Customers who placed a deposit so they could get one of the first A290s are also eligible for three years free servicing, plus a ‘VIP Alpine experience’ including track driving or access and hospitality to some big events.

Specs and prices

Standard equipment with base GT trim includes 19-inch alloy wheels, a 10.3-inch digital driver’s display, a 10.1-inch central touchscreen with Google apps built-in, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a wireless smartphone charging pad, a heated steering wheel, heated seats, LED headlights and adaptive cruise control.

Upgrading to GT Premium (+£2,500) gets you two-tone Nappa leather upholstery, a premium sound system by specialists Devialet, a two-tone roof design, blue brake calipers and auto-folding exterior mirrors. 

Alternatively, for the same £36,000 you can get a GT Performance model, which comes with the more powerful e-motor, plus Michelin Pilot Sport 5S tyres, telematics to track driver performance and red brake calipers. The A290 GTS gets all the same kit, but adds Lumbar seat adjustment and black wheels for its £37,500 price tag.

Finally there’s the Premier Edition models, just 1,955 examples of which will be made, that are available from £38,500. Buyers get a choice of four unique liveries that add different wheel designs and graphics, including ‘Beta’ which is based on the A290 Beta Concept car.

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Range-topping limited edition models are also fitted with the Safety Pack that includes active safety systems like blind spot monitoring and safe exit alert, as well as the Driving Pack, which includes handsfree parking tech and ‘active driver assist’.

Powertrain and performance

It may share much of its technical layout with the Renault 5, but Alpine has swapped that car’s electric motor for the more potent unit found in the larger Megane E-Tech. The quickest A290 will sprint from 0-62mph in 6.4 seconds, which is slightly slower than the electric MINI JCW’s time of 5.9 seconds. 

The MINI does produce almost 40bhp more, but weighs in at 1,725kg, compared to the A290’s comparatively light weight figure of 1,479kg. 

But to appease those who might be worried that this is nothing more than a modified Renault 5, Alpine has gone to some extensive lengths in the development of the car’s chassis. This includes the use of a new front cradle for the electric motor, plus comprehensively redesigned suspension that supports a 60mm wider track. 

Some of that extra width comes from the wider 19-inch wheels, but most is derived from the suspension itself, which has redesigned knuckles, plus new spring and damper rates. It also features stiffer anti-roll bars, and the same clever hydraulic bump-stops that were introduced in the Renaultsport Megane. 

The multi-link rear suspension is toughened and updated, and engineers say it could one day be adapted to fit a second motor. For now, though, the A290 will remain front-engined and front-wheel driven, with a 57:43 weight distribution front-to-rear. 

There’s no form of mechanical differential, unlike in cars like the new Abarth 600e or Alfa Romeo Junior, yet Alpine has developed software that is able to quell excess wheelspin from the inside wheel before the traditional traction control needs to be called in. 

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As with all modern EVs, there are various drive modes to choose between in the Alpine A290, with a further Boost mode activated via a button on the steering wheel. With this button held down, the A290 is able to produce its maximum power and torque on a more aggressive throttle map, giving the feeling of more performance regardless of the pedal position.

There’s also adjustable regeneration from the brakes, with the strength able to be actively tweaked via a rotary switch on the steering wheel. All but the base Alpine A290 model feature a set of 320mm front brake discs with four-piston Brembo calipers - incidentally the same as found on most Alpine A110 derivatives. 

Every A290 is powered by a 52kWh battery pack that Alpine says is good for up to 236 miles; down from up to 253 miles in the Renault 5 fitted with the same battery. Peak charging speeds are capped at 100kW on a rapid fast charger, and it’ll top up from 10 to 80 per cent in around 30 minutes. Also like the R5, the A290 features bi-directional charging and Vehicle-to-Grid, which can sell energy stored in the car’s battery back to the grid during high-demand periods of the day.

Exterior and interior design

As alluring as the performance is, though, the Alpina A290’s appeal is just as centred on its unique design. Alpine’s head of design, Antony Villain, mentioned: “This for us was all about fun, and we could go a little bit crazy with lots of elements. We made lots of little and impactful decisions, like the unique rear doors which are meant to reference the R5 Turbo. We could do this as it's just a standard R5 door with an extra pressing or two, so the doors didn’t need to be made bespoke.”

The extra 60mm of width doesn’t go unnoticed, either, with flared arches and aggressive lower bumpers that all look more track focused and aggressive. Villain went on to say: “Unlike the R5 which is a little meek, we were able to just go for it, and we think it looks great, like a concept car.”

This extends to the interior, too, with retro-styled seats finished in a variety of leather or technical fabrics, but always featuring blue highlights and contrasting materials. The centre console is new and vastly different to the Renault, featuring the same gear selector as the A110 mounted on a similarly designed console. 

Also unique to the A290 is a new sound system engineered in collaboration with French hifi brand Devialet. As well as acting as normal speakers for the familiar touchscreen-driven sound features, it is also responsible for playing one of two different augmented engine notes that the driver can choose between. It works in a similar way to the setup found in the Abarth, but changes pitch and volume based on road speed, acceleration and load. This should make it sound much more natural than the somewhat one-dimensional Abarth.

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