At Goodwood, Alpine will not merely be celebrating its past. The Dieppe marque is preparing to lift the veil on its future by presenting — for the first time in public — the development mule of the next Alpine A110 electric. A loaded appearance for a car that aims to become the first genuine lightweight electric sports car on the market.
The date is set: 9 to 12 July 2026, at the 33rd edition of the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Amid the legends of motorsport and the most spectacular creations the industry has to offer, Alpine will stage one of the most anticipated demonstrations of the year — the first public wheel turns of the development prototype for the third-generation A110.
A page turns for the Alpine A110
This is a historic moment for the marque founded by Jean Rédélé. After the better part of a decade on the road, the current thermal A110 — launched in 2017 — is living out its final months of production. The modern berlinette will cease manufacture for good at the end of July 2026, with a closing limited run of around 1,750 examples built to honour a generation that became an absolute benchmark for agility and driving pleasure.
Its successor will take a radically different path. Fully electric, it will be built around a bespoke architecture developed in-house by Alpine following the collapse of the joint project with Lotus in 2023. The programme, known internally by the codename DR110, marks the opening of an entirely new chapter for the Norman constructor.
At Goodwood, however, this will not yet be the definitive car. The vehicle on show will be a development mule — a camouflaged prototype used by engineers to validate the technologies destined for the production model. The final design remains secret and is expected to be unveiled officially this autumn, most likely at the Paris Motor Show.
The first electric sports car built to think like an Alpine
For months now, Philippe Krief, Alpine’s chief executive, has been hammering home the same message: the next A110 must not simply be a capable electric performance car. It must, above all else, remain an Alpine.
To that end, the engineers have developed the new Alpine Performance Platform (APP) — an architecture conceived exclusively for electric sports cars. Built around an aluminium structure assembled using bonding and riveting techniques borrowed from the aerospace industry, it carries forward the philosophy that made the current A110 what it is: minimise mass rather than compensate for weight with raw power.
One of the most striking technical decisions concerns battery placement. Unlike the overwhelming majority of today’s electric vehicles, Alpine has dispensed with the flat floor-mounted pack. Instead, the cells are distributed across two separate units: a primary pack positioned behind the seats — in the traditional mid-engine location — and a smaller secondary unit at the front.
This arrangement allows for an exceptionally low seating position while replicating a weight distribution close to that of the current A110, with roughly 40 per cent over the front axle and 60 per cent at the rear.
800 volts, twin motors and under 1,500 kg
The future Alpine A110 will also pioneer an 800-volt electrical architecture — a first within the Renault Group. The technology is expected to deliver substantially shorter charging times as well as improved thermal management during sustained track use.
At the rear, the propulsion unit will pair two electric motors with a silicon carbide inverter. The aim is not merely to exceed 450 bhp, but to achieve an exceptionally precise command of the torque delivered to each rear wheel individually.
That task will fall to the Alpine Active Torque Vectoring system, capable of redistributing drive between the rear wheels every ten milliseconds. Overseeing everything is a central control unit called the Alpine Dynamic Model, which simultaneously coordinates the motors, battery, regenerative braking, steering and active aerodynamics.
Despite this considerable technical complexity, Alpine is targeting a kerb weight of around 1,450 kg — a remarkable figure in the electric sports car world, and one that undercuts several thermal benchmarks in the same segment.
A virtual Nürburgring lap under seven minutes
Alpine’s ambitions extend well beyond promising specifications on paper. At the presentation of the Renault Group’s “futuREady” strategy in March 2026, the engineers revealed they had run a full simulation around the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
The figure announced: 6 minutes 59.2 seconds for the future electric A110.
It bears emphasising that this remains an entirely virtual time, produced by computer modelling rather than recorded on the actual circuit. Alpine nonetheless points out that this projected performance would be nearly twenty seconds faster than the simulated lap of the A110 R Ultime — the final expression of the outgoing thermal generation.
Should those projections hold up under real-world testing, the next A110 could well establish itself as an outright benchmark in its class — while making a compelling case that an electric sports car need not be defined by its weight.
Goodwood: the natural stage for a world debut
For Alpine, the Festival of Speed is considerably more than an outdoor motor show on a hillside. The marque will use the occasion to choreograph its entire heritage through an “Alpine Moment” staged during the traditional Brand Parade on Thursday 9 July.
Visitors will be able to watch several generations of the A110 run together: the rally variants that forged the legend in the 1970s, the contemporary road models, and the electric prototype pointing to the future.
The A290 and the recently launched A390 will also be present, illustrating the marque’s expansion strategy at a moment when it is reaching its highest customer base since its revival.
The spectacle will be further enriched by several drivers from the BWT Alpine Formula One Team. Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto will be joined by reserve and Alpine Academy drivers Nina Gademan, Paul Aron and Alex Dunne. A number of demonstration runs are also planned for the Alpine E20, the 2012 Formula One car fitted with its legendary naturally aspirated V8.
The first step in a new generation of Alpine sports cars
The future Alpine A110 is, in reality, only the first building block in a far more ambitious programme. The APP platform has been designed to underpin an entire family of sports models, including a derived roadster and a future 2+2 coupé expected to carry the A310 name.
All will be assembled at the Manufacture Alpine de Dieppe Jean Rédélé, the marque’s historic production site for several decades.
At a time when many manufacturers are still struggling to win over enthusiasts with their electric performance cars, Alpine is preparing to take on one of the most demanding challenges in the automotive industry: preserving the soul of a car that has become a cult object while carrying it fully into the electric era.
The first answers will arrive on Goodwood Hill on 9 July.
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Source: Alpine Cars
