The news cycle is full of EV failures. Brands are retreating. Consumers are confused. So when a tiny automaker named Alpine announces its next sports car will run on electricity, you have to wonder. Is this another brave move? Or a grave mistake?
Phillippe Krief, Alpine’s CEO, isn’t sweating the stats. Not even a little bit.
He spoke at Goodwood. He looked right at the Evo team and dismissed the comparison to Porsche. You see Porsche is drowning in transition pains. Alpine isn’t. Krief claims his volume game looks more like Ferrari’s niche dominance than Porsche’s mass-market struggles. He thinks people get it wrong.
Not A Rescue Mission
“This is not a de-risking plan,” he said. “It’s an opportunity.”
That distinction matters. Most big automakers push EVs to save the company. They hedge their bets. Krief says Alpine isn’t afraid to fail. That’s rare.
The current A110 uses a mid-mounted turbo four. It’s loud. It’s light. People like it. The new one—the third generation coming next year—changes the recipe completely. Two electric motors in the rear. No gasoline engine in the primary design.
Krief mentioned the A290 and the A390 earlier. Those were street cred cars. They put the brand in people’s garages. Now the focus is on the new platform. The Alpine Performance Platform, or APP. It isn’t just for this one shot. He hinted at more cars coming from this backbone.
The Porsche Comparison
Here’s where the tension lives. Porsche delayed its electric 710 project. Demand was too low. Costs are rising. Reports suggest they might scrap it entirely. That leaves a huge gap in their lineup below the 911
Alpine doesn’t see itself in the same boat. Krief admits the platform can technically fit an internal combustion engine if customers revolt against electric. He’ll know by late 2026 if they need to push that button. But he doesn’t expect it. He trusts the market enough to bet on voltage.
Why do he think he can ignore the industry headwinds? Weight. Balance. Fun.
Performance Over Pragmatism
The goal is simple. The car has to be fast. It has to be fun.
Krief is obsessed with the feeling of the cockpit. He wants it to feel timeless. He wants extreme personalization. Bespoke stuff. But the hardware has to support the vibe. He sized the battery specifically for track use. The goal? Twenty minutes of full power driving before thermal limits kick in.
“This will make the car at least as best,” he insisted, “and I believe even better than the last A11.”
Think about that. An electric sports car aimed at beating the internal combustion predecessor. On the track. Where heat buildup kills EV performance. Ambition? Arrogance? Hard to say yet.
There are rumors of a bigger sibling too. The APP could spawn a three-motor beast. Something to rival the 911 directly. Imagine an Alpine larger than the A110, still lightweight, still aggressive. It could change the entire landscape for small European brands.
Will It Work?
The US market never saw the original A110 for various import hurdles. Being electric removes those regulatory headaches. So there is a chance. A real chance, that this generation arrives in North America.
But it comes down to the feel. Electric cars are silent. Sports cars are supposed to scream. Can Alpine add drama with sound design? Can they simulate the shift points convincingly? If the weight balance is perfect, the silence might not matter. The physics will do the talking.
Or they could fail spectacularly. Krief said they aren’t afraid of failure. That sounds confident until the sales numbers drop in Q4 2028. Then it sounds reckless.
Time will tell if Alpine is a Ferrari-light or a cautionary tale. Right now they’re driving straight off the edge anyway. Let’s see if they have the parachute.
