Alpine, Lotus sports EVs safe

Plan to co-develop the Elise and A110 EV successors is dead but both cars will live on

Lotus and Alpine recently announced that they would no longer collaborate on the development of an electric sports car platform – but Autocar can reveal that EV replacements for the venerable Lotus Elise and Alpine A110 are still in the works.

The two firms partnered in 2021 to share elements of the development programme for their all-important debut EV sports cars, but they came to the “mutual decision” to end the partnership in June, throwing doubt on the future of the two cars.

However, both companies remain committed to electrifying their core model lines and it is expected the two cars will still arrive in 2026, as previously planned.

Alpine will build its own platform for the EV A110 replacement

BESPOKE PLATFORM FOR ELECTRIC A110

Alpine will now build its own architecture for its electric sports car – with the aim of producing more than one model. Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo revealed to Autocar: “We had a long discussion and finally decided to build our own platform.” He added that Alpine will build more than one car on it. Renault’s decision to go it alone on the platform will increase costs for what will be a niche halo product, designed to take over from the A110 coupé. Building more than one product from the platform will help offset the extra expense, and de Meo even hinted at a halo hypercar. “You never know with me,” he joked. The agreement to end the Lotus collaboration was amicable, said de Meo. “Everybody was feeling like this was the best thing,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we don’t have opportunities to work together again.” Alpine has said it needs to look outside the group platform to build its larger SUVs and Lotus is still in the frame as a possible collaborator.