Milan, 29 May 2026. We’re here for Alpine’s international press launch of the most powerful production car France has ever built: the A390 GTS.

Personally, this isn’t the kind of car I’d buy. I said as much at the show car reveal (the Alpine A390B), and again when the production version dropped. The body style simply doesn’t do it for me. But I have to admit the car looks far better in the metal than in photos. Its design gives it real presence — you’d recognise it anywhere. Even so, plenty of people will struggle to see an Alpine in it.

Alpine A390 GTS: a design that deserves a second look

There’s still something purposeful about it, with its low stance and swooping profile — like an A110 stretched out. It even looks fairly compact next to the heavyweights of its class.

Speaking of heavyweights, the A390 does belong firmly in that upper bracket at 2.1 tonnes, though it still undercuts a Lotus Eletre or a Macan by a few kilos. Alpine nonetheless promises driving sensations worthy of the badge. François-Xavier had already tried the GT (read it here), so it’s time to find out what the GTS adds to the mix.

The GTS swaps its Polish-built LG battery for a proper French one, made by Verkor at the Dunkirk gigafactory. Capacity stays the same at 89 kWh, but a reworked chemistry allows peak charging at 190 kW. The upshot: 470 bhp and 824 Nm, a jump of 70 bhp and 163 Nm over the GT. On paper, that reads like a straightforward update. Behind the wheel, it’s worth finding out whether it’s a different story altogether.

Design and first impressions

From the outside, the GTS makes no effort to stand apart from the GT. Alpine has kept things understated, with nothing showy about it — and frankly, that’s no bad thing. You might miss an aero kit or a nod or two to the show car’s styling, but Alpine has chosen instead to focus its energy on what you can’t see.

The wheels grow from 20 to 21 inches, shod in Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres: grippier, less efficient, but perfectly in keeping with the GTS spirit. The Sabelt seats, fitted as standard, hug the body more tightly and can even be specified with a carbon-fibre shell. The seating position sits slightly higher than in the GT, a detail that’s been ironed out on customer cars. These seats genuinely add extra support. In short, nothing flashy, but adjustments that matter — and that reveal a clear intent: substance over spectacle.

Alpine A390 GTS: first drive out of Linate

From the car park at Linate, it’s time to set off and get to grips with Alpine’s hot family car. The sat-nav points towards Vairano, and the car threads its way through the morning traffic with an almost ironic composure. Scooters dart in from every direction, red lights are treated as optional, yet the A390 stays utterly unbothered, as if it had already sussed out Milanese chaos.

The cabin borrows the Scénic’s large screens, but the Android interface is surprisingly slick: Google Maps, Waze, Google Play, all built in, no phone-mirroring required. Perceived quality is lifted by the Nappa leather, Alcantara and carbon-fibre trim. There’s no head-up display, no panoramic roof, and the 360-degree camera resolution wouldn’t look out of place on a Dacia. In short, this is an Alpine through and through: no gimmicks, just the essentials.

Those first thirty kilometres are enough to tell you this Alpine will be comfortable, well equipped and pleasant to listen to on a daily basis. Sure, certain trim details and the Renault-sourced dashboard will raise an eyebrow among buyers used to German premium interiors. But does anyone buy an Alpine for its soft-touch plastics? Not really. You buy it for how it makes you feel — and from the very first turns of the wheel, it delivers.

Within the first few corners, it becomes clear that in Italy the highway code
is “more of a set of guidelines really… Welcome to Milan, Mr Cuvillier.”

Sporting DNA, under electric power

A few kilometres onto the tangenziale and the A390 GTS starts throwing its figures at you: three motors, 470 bhp, 824 Nm. These aren’t just numbers on a spec sheet — they’re raw sensation. The torque vectoring works like an invisible hand, shuffling power around in a way that makes the car feel like it’s second-guessing your next move before you’ve made it.

On the road towards Pavia, the shove is instant. There’s no violence to it, just a relentless push that pins you to the seat and tempts your right foot to go further than planned. Because it inspires confidence, you push on. Where other EVs are content simply going fast in a straight line, the A390 plays with its line through a corner. It turns its mass into balance, and that’s where its DNA really shows: an Alpine that lives in the driver’s hands, even when it’s silent.

The stopwatch backs it up: 0–62 mph in 3.9 seconds (against 4.8 for the GT), with top speed raised to 137 mph. The 824 Nm sent through the two rear motors via Active Torque Vectoring isn’t just a figure on paper: out on the road, it translates into propulsion that feels alive and immediate, giving the driver that rare sense of being in constant conversation with the machinery.

Comfort and forgiveness: an Alpine that puts you at ease

Out in Milan’s suburbs, the A390 slips through traffic with an almost unnerving ease. Scooters spring out from every angle, red lights are treated as loose suggestions, but the car remains entirely unfazed, as though it had already got the measure of Italian chaos. The other journalists had already warned us: “comfortable, quiet, but capable of controlled slides in Track mode.” And sure enough, around town it drives like a top-spec Renault — intuitive, reassuring, almost too well-behaved.

The electric silence catches you off guard. You brace yourself for a roar and instead get a car that glides through without a sound. That silence isn’t emptiness, though — it opens up a space where you finally notice the tyres on the cobbles, the wind rushing past on country roads, the weight shifting through roundabouts. It’s a teacherly kind of Alpine, one that reassures the newcomer while still rewarding the initiated with well-judged slides.

One gripe remains: the brakes. The abrupt handover between regenerative and friction braking undermines your confidence, rather like swapping teachers mid-lesson. On the open road, thankfully, the first level of regeneration mimics the engine braking of a petrol A110, and that’s a nice touch. As for the suspension, even without adaptive dampers, it does the job: big compressions are soaked up without drama, though smaller bumps do filter through. Not perfect, but honest — and ultimately true to the Alpine spirit.

An Alpine for family life

Heading out of Milan towards Voghera, the car’s versatility becomes obvious. The 532-litre boot swallows luggage without complaint, all five seats are genuinely usable for passengers and bags alike, and the seating itself is a reminder that this Alpine isn’t purely a track toy.

And yet it’s precisely this versatility that’s saving Alpine. In a market where enthusiasm alone no longer cuts it, the brand has to win people over through everyday usability. An Alpine that does the school run, that heads off for a weekend in Piacenza, that offers comfort without giving up on driving pleasure. Purists will cry sacrilege, but the brand’s survival hinges on this broader appeal. And out on the road, you realise this versatility isn’t a watered-down compromise — it’s an extension of what Alpine stands for, a way of sharing the pleasure rather than keeping it all to yourself. And honestly, this is the first time you can properly share the Alpine experience with a full car of people.

On the numbers, WLTP range is quoted at 313 miles (336 miles on the 20-inch wheels). Fast charging has also improved: 15 to 80% in under 25 minutes, against 29 for the GT. Interior space is decent, though the narrow centre rear seat and the lack of a panoramic roof do limit family-friendliness somewhat. The generous boot makes up for it, and the overall package holds together well for a sporting family car.

Over the course of the full test, indicated range came to 346 miles, with more than 155 miles still showing after a spirited drive of nearly 185 miles through the hills around Milan. Proof that this Alpine can combine driving pleasure with genuine endurance, even when you’re pushing it hard.

On track: the magic of weight transfer

Arriving at the Vairano circuit, the whole setting shifts. The instructors are adamant: “use the weight transfer, just like on an A110 GT.” And sure enough, here’s the surprise: all that mass, considerable as it is, seems to melt away once you get the technique right.

The car steps out, gathers itself back up, and reminds you that an electric car can still be playful. The A390 GTS doesn’t defy the laws of physics so much as bend them to its will. The weight is still there, but it becomes a variable you can control. The driver rediscovers that rare feeling of placing the car exactly where they want it, of feeling it come alive, of watching it react the way an Alpine ought to. On track, the thrill of cornering is very much present, just transposed into a new register: one of silence and electronic precision. You sense it’s not entirely in its natural habitat, yet driven well it could put plenty of more overtly sporty machinery to shame.

The steering is razor-sharp, the front end responsive, and the lack of inertia when changing direction is startling for something weighing over two tonnes. The A390 shows a willingness to swing its tail that recalls the A110 — an elegant slide, so long as it stays within limits. Countersteer, though, and everything shuts down abruptly: a deliberately cautious calibration designed to keep the car safe. The engineers openly stand by this choice, driven by a desire to keep the car’s responses natural and, above all, reassuring for less experienced drivers.

There are limits too: torque to the outer rear wheel cuts out if the slide becomes too generous, which will frustrate anyone chasing more dramatic drifts. The A390 GTS could really do with a Drift mode, or at the very least a “Play” setting, to make the most of its balance on corner exit. The brakes, meanwhile, remain powerful but still suffer from that abrupt handover between regenerative and friction braking, which chips away at both precision and confidence.

In short, out at Vairano, the A390 GTS proves it can be a proper Alpine: a heavy electric car, certainly, but one capable of turning its bulk into agility, and of leaving the driver wanting to go round again — and again.

Alpine identity: gimmick or heritage?

Which brings us to the question of identity. Can Alpine still call itself Alpine when it’s projecting a light-up logo onto the ground and pumping out an artificial soundtrack called Alpine Drive Sound? Sceptics will call it a gimmick; others will see it as a modern attempt to recreate the imagined roar of a combustion engine, translated into electro-acoustic frequencies.

But that’s not really where it matters. Alpine’s identity isn’t defined by these flourishes — it’s defined by how the car drives. The synthetic sound isn’t some magic trick, but it does give you feedback, a sense of presence. The projected logo isn’t essential, but it does create a small ritual. These are details, attempts to plug a sensory gap.

The real question is whether the Alpine soul is still in there. Personally, I’ll always take analogue over digital. I’d rather hear tyres scrubbing on tarmac and wind whistling past the mirrors than any artificial soundtrack piped into the cabin. An Alpine should speak through the way it takes a corner, not through its speakers.

The Alpinistes haven’t changed

So some of you will say: “this is nonsense, not for me,” and so on. And you’d be partly right — it isn’t for you. It’s for the people who aren’t you. For a new generation of Alpinistes.

Because the truth is, the Alpinistes themselves haven’t changed. They’re still chasing the limit, still after that feeling of the car unloading through a bend, still trying to convince themselves that physics can be tamed. What’s changed is the playing field: less fuel, more data; less nostalgia, more pragmatism.

The mountain hasn’t moved, but the climb is now a silent one. Today’s Alpinistes no longer roar, they glide. They no longer burn through litres of fuel, they count kilowatt-hours instead. But the spirit hasn’t changed one bit: chasing the limit, playing with gravity, turning constraint into pleasure.

The Alpine A390 GTS: a different kind of Alpine, but an Alpine all the same

The Alpine A390 GTS is something of a paradox. It’s an Alpine that reassures as much as it surprises, equally at home doing the school run or sliding around a circuit. It carries its weight, no question, but it hasn’t lost its sporting DNA. It no longer roars, it whistles. It’s no longer about solitary pleasure alone, it’s opened itself up to versatility. And perhaps that’s its real gamble: proving that the Alpine spirit can survive going electric, provided you accept that the mountain is now climbed in silence.

The GTS badge finally gives the Alpine A390 the sporting edge that the “sport-fastback” tag always promised but the GT never quite delivered. It’s a genuine step up, one that fixes the original version’s lack of character. Which naturally leaves one question hanging: if the GTS is already capable of this… what on earth would an R version bring to the table?

Photo © Alpine and Les Alpinistes