Alpine with an electric motor: «Anything is possible»
Renault announced the relaunch of its Alpine brand, in partnership with Caterham. An electric motor version may be in the works even though nothing has been officially announced.
During a Q&A session at the press conference announcing the news, Carlos Ghosn implied that an electric motor could be in development. “Anything is possible” was his response when a question was put to him about an electric version of the Alpine. He did, however, specify that all the choices had not yet been made regarding motor technology.
The CEO expressed his wish to leave the field as wide open as possible for the engineers and designers working on the brand so that they could develop an exceptional car, with a list price that would be more “affordable” than a Mclaren or a Ferrari. At the same time, it would take a stretch of imagination to envision how the Alpine brand could currently compete with either of these two manufacturers.
The ambition of the Renault – Caterham partnership is to be able to use technologies that are developed for the F1 arena in order to relaunch the Alpine. One does wonder whether Carlos Ghosn was truly serious when he implied that an electric version may be on the books for the mythic brand.
In any case, we will need to wait a while before any rumors can be confirmed: the first model of the new Alpine car is expected in 3 to 4 years’ time.
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