Alpine will keep A110 Porsche Cayman rival as sales surge

PARIS -- Alpine plans to "maximize" the lifespan of the A110 sports coupe, potentially until the end of 2026, ahead of the introduction of a full-electric successor, CEO Laurent Rossi said.

The A110 has been in production since 2017, when it was launched as the Renault Group sports-car brand’s only model.

"We are in year five of the project, normally you see a decline, but we are increasing sales," Rossi told journalists on Wednesday.

A110 sales were up 33 percent in 2022 to 3,546, mostly in Europe, and much of the 2023 production has already been spoken for, Renault said.

"We will extend the life of the current one as long as possible to amortize the investment and ride on its success as long as we can," Rossi said.

Sales have been "stronger than anticipated," even under previous Renault leadership that approved the project in the mid-2010s, he said.

Volume was highest in 2019 at 4,431 but slumped badly during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. 

Read more: Alpine CEO says U.S. is key to sales, revenue targets

The basic A110 has only slightly changed since its launch, although its 1.8-liter 4-cylinder engine has gained more power. There are now four versions: The base A110 has 252 hp; the A110 GT, S and R versions have 300 hp. Prices range from 62,500 euros to 105,000 euros for the lightweight R variant. 

Its main competitor is the Porsche 718 Cayman, which starts at about 61,000 euros in France. The A110 outsold the Cayman in Europe, 3,260 units to 2,596 units, in 2022, according to figures from Dataforce. The convertible version of the Cayman, the Boxster, registered 2,364 sales. 

The A110 is built at Renault’s factory in Dieppe, which has a capacity of 6,000 vehicles a year. The A110 has an extruded and cast aluminum structure, and most of the attachment points are bonded or riveted rather than welded, to save weight.  

Alpine and Renault have said little about the A110’s successor, which is expected to be developed with Lotus Cars. Lotus is part of the Geely group, which has a manufacturing partnership with Renault in South Korea and will build internal-combustion drivetrains with Renault in a new entity to be named Horse.

Rossi said it would be launched "somewhere in 2026," but that it was largely dependent on how long the current model can be sold.

That is tied to how the coming Euro 7 pollution and GSR2 safety regulations play out, especially with regards to "small batch" constructors like Alpine, he said. The A110 has a nonhybrid gasoline engine, which requires particulate filters and other pollution controls. 

In July 2022 Alpine revealed the E-Ternite (pronounced "Eternity") concept, a full-electric version of the current A110 that Rossi said was a "skunk works" project to prepare for Alpine’s coming EV-only lineup. "We need to prove ourselves in terms of making sporty electric vehicles," he said, "and the best way is to use the car we know, the references we know, in terms of performance, agility and handling."

The car had a 0-100 kph (0-62 mph) time of 4.5 seconds, with a weight penalty of about 250 kg (550 pounds) over the gasoline-engine A110. Range was 420 km (260 miles).

There are no plans to produce the E-Ternite, he said, because "it would not make sense in the face of the future A110."