Alpine A390 review

New electric crossover is supposed to be an A110 for five. That’s a tough ask

Alpine, in its 21st-century incarnation at least, is still a young brand, but it’s quickly growing up. 

The first step in the masterplan was to make us all take notice with a sports car: the brilliant A110. Then it came up with something more attainable: the Renault 5-based A290 hot hatchback. Now it needs a car for all the family to enjoy. That’ll be the new Alpine A390.

Because it’s 2025, that means it’s electric, and because the batteries need to go in the floor, it’s crossover-shaped. But stick with us, because this isn’t one of those slightly limp Esprit Alpine versions of a Renault: it’s a completely stand-alone Alpine model with a special trick up its sleeve – or rather, three of them.

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DESIGN & STYLING

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This is a slightly difficult story for Alpine to tell, because the brand is all about cars being light, and as an electric crossover, the A390… isn’t that. So supposedly, the A390 is all about creating the A110’s feeling of lightness through the torque vectoring and the careful tuning of the traction control and stability control (ESC) systems.

Deep down, the A390 is related to the Renault Scenic E-Tech, but it isn’t just a Scenic with a sloping roof. It’s clearly trying to emulate the A110 with its curvy bonnet, central spine and visor-shaped rear windscreen. I’m not convinced it has worked, but you’ll be the judge.

Like the Tesla Model S Plaid and Maserati Granturismo Folgore, the A390 has three motors – one at the front, two at the back.

The A390 will come in two versions: GT and GTS. In both cases, there’s an asynchronous motor at the front, and two back-to-back permanent-magnet ones at the rear.

In the GT, they all produce 132bhp each, though the one at the front has more torque, at 176lb ft; the rears have 156lb ft each. The GTS has three 154bhp motors with 221lb ft at the front and 193lb ft each at the back.

That lets it do proper torque vectoring: rather than just brake an inside wheel to encourage the car to turn in, it can overspeed the outside rear. This is electric performance cars coming of age and trying stuff that has no analogue in combustion-engined cars.

Polestar tries to achieve much the same effect with a clutch pack on the rear axle, but according to Alpine that solution is slower to respond. What’s more, two smaller rear motors back-to-back are lower than one big one, thus allowing a lower boot floor.

 

The battery is different from the Scenic, too. This one is a bit bigger and is made in France (down to the cells), and is developed to continuously be able to deliver full power, down to a low state of charge. Unlike the Hyundai Ioniq 5N, it remains just a 400V architecture, though. Then again, the maximum charge rate of 190kW isn’t a million miles from the Hyundai’s.

Speaking of the Hyundai Ioniq 5N, that’s clearly the A390’s chief rival, since they’re only 10cm apart in length (the Hyundai is slightly bigger) and if French pricing is anything to go by, will command a very similar amount of money.

The suspension of the A390 is unusual for a performance car. First off, there are those dual rear motors. Unlike most performance cars with a rear-biased torque distribution, the A390 doesn’t have wider tyres at the back: the fronts and rears are the same size. The engineers say that the wider rear track gives the car all the traction and stability it needs, and having four identical tyres makes sourcing replacements easier. The GT runs on 20in wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport EV tyres; the GTS has 21in wheels with Pilot Sport 4Ss.

Alpine keeps it simple in other areas too: there’s no four-wheel steering and the suspension is passive for the most natural feel (although I imagine that cost plays a part here as well).

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INTERIOR

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The A390’s interior bears a lot of similarities with that of the Renault Scenic. That might be a disappointment for what is supposed to be a bespoke car, but an Ioniq 5N is also fundamentally an Ioniq 5. Alpine has also successfully lifted the A390’s cabin with posher materials and a different steering wheel. The Scenic is already pretty good, and with Alpine’s signature soft blue leather, this environment feels suitably upmarket. The screens are the same as in a Scenic, which is to say: intuitive, quick and full-featured.

The hard-back bucket seats are unique to the Alpine; they’re comfortable enough, but lack a bit of support. More of a problem is just how dark and confined the A390’s interior feels. The beltline is high and the glasshouse low, and that feeling is even worse in the back, where the privacy glass lets in very little light, and the front seats block what’s coming from the front. The kneeroom isn’t stellar, but boot space is usefully up on the Ioniq 5N’s.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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With 395bhp in the GT and 463bhp in the GTS, the A390 is down on power compared to the Ioniq 5N, but the quoted 0-62mph times of 4.8sec and 3.9sec for the two versions are still more than quick enough, so we don’t see this as a downside.

So far, we’ve spent most time in the GTS and found it quick, no doubt, but not explosively fast. That seems like a good place for Alpine, and a sporty electric crossover in general, to be in.

As in the A290, the accelerator is nicely progressive, and there’s a rotary dial on the steering wheel to adjust the level of regenerative braking. What isn’t shared with the hot hatch is the latter’s brake-by-wire system. We liked it on the Renault 5 and A290 for its firm, consistent brake pedal feel, but because the A390 uses a different platform, it would have been too costly and involved to integrate here. As a result, the brake pedal feels a bit soft at the top of its travel, although the brakes have enough bite when you have to lean on them.

Alpine has its own take on EV noises. There are no simulated gears, but the synthetic noise is supposedly inspired by the A110. Like a lot of EVs, it sounds a lot like a tube train. It’s too loud and I turned it off quite quickly.

RIDE & HANDLING

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Does the A390’s chassis shout A110? Not immediately. We first drove the A390 as a prototype on Michelin’s wet handling circuit to explore the car’s various drive modes. These are designed to create distinct experiences but are a world away from the configuration-fest of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N. There are Normal, Sport and Track modes, plus an Individual mode that lets you mix and match a few parameters, but you can’t mess around with the power split or the suspension. The engineers say they would rather give you a handful of good set-ups than infinite bad ones.

Normal mode is very normal. Herein the A390 finds good grip even on the slick surface, and when that runs out, it naturally defaults to mild understeer, with the ESC checking any slides before they have a chance to develop. Sport mode doesn’t change the torque distribution but relaxes the ESC and makes the steering slightly heavier. The difference isn’t huge, and the car will still fight you if you try to misbehave.

Trying both tyre options back-to-back, we did find the front end to be much keener on the Pilot Sport 4S.

Track mode is where things get interesting, with the A390 starting to feel rear-driven. It will rotate on the power, but it’s at its most playful if you pitch it in on the brakes and then get hard on the accelerator. At this stage, you really feel the difference between the tyre options, with the 4S giving much better front-end bite and making those sorts of shenanigans easier.

Trying to provoke the car and seeing what it will let you get away with is certainly good fun, but it never feels completely natural, because even with the ESC disabled (which you can do in any drive mode, using a single physical button), you always have the four-wheel drive system second-guessing you and pulling you out of a slide when you don’t want it to.

We subsequently tried it on the road in Denmark, and on these less-than-inspiring roads, the A390 had more trouble expressing itself. The steering feels Renault rather than Alpine, with a glassy sub-limit feel, and slightly nervous responses off-centre. On the A290 hot hatch, the steering comes alive when you really lean on it, but the A390’s limits are much higher, and it’s a much bigger car, meaning opportunities to do so are rarer.

The triple motors don’t immediately prove their worth, either. Even in the Sport and Track modes (the latter also puts the stability control into a looser setting), the A390 feels neutral at best. It’s nowhere near as playful as an Ioniq 5N.

For all that, it rides reasonably well despite big wheels and passive dampers. It’s slightly busy and wooden, but well within acceptable bounds for a sporting model.

It’s possible that on more varied roads, the A390 will reveal a more layered character. Even if it does, the strength of the Ioniq 5N is that despite its enormous capability, it’s fun at normal speeds, and we were hoping that the A390’s torque vectoring set-up could take that even further.

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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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UK prices haven’t been announced yet, but in France the GT will be a good deal cheaper than the Ioniq 5N (€67,500/£59,000) and the more powerful GTS will cost exactly the same (€78,000 or £68,000). That also means it undercuts the Polestar 3 and equivalent Porsche Macans by quite a bit.

On paper, it should also be more efficient and go further on a charge. The GT is rated for 3.3mpkWh, the GTS for 3.0mpkWh. That gives them 345 and 313 miles of range, respectively. We’d need more testing for a representative real-world figure.

Rapid charging speeds are only OK, at 150kW for the GT, and 190kW for the GTS.

VERDICT

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We like the philosophy of the A390. It doesn’t try to be the fastest, or have the most tech, yet has a dynamic party piece in the form of its torque-vectoring rear end. Despite sharing more than a few parts with a Renault Scenic, the interior feels suitably expensive.

And yet, on our first road drive, it proved a bit too subtle for its own good. With no engine or gearbox, fun EVs need all the help they can get, and the A390 is looking a little tame compared with the Ioniq 5N, with its simulated gears and trigger-happy differential. Hopefully, longer exposure in the UK will reveal hidden depths.

Illya Verpraet

Illya Verpraet Road Tester Autocar
Title: Road Tester

As a road tester, Illya drives everything from superminis to supercars, and writes reviews and comparison tests, while also managing the magazine’s Drives section. Much of his time is spent wrangling the data logger and wielding the tape measure to gather the data for Autocar’s in-depth instrumented road tests.

He loves cars that are fun and usable on the road – whether piston-powered or electric – or just cars that are very fit for purpose. When not in test cars, he drives an R53-generation Mini Cooper S.