Is Alpine headed for DISASTER?

What’s going on with Alpine? They’ve had one car on sale since 2018, the A110, with only a second model appearing a couple of months ago, and that’s a rebadged Renault 5. In 6 years they’ve only sold 19,000 cars. And it’s not they’re selling $1M exotic Bugatti’s, The A110 is sold as a relatively affordable sports car. Alpine’s parent Renault have poured a LOT of cash into the brand, and even more into sponsoring a Formula 1 team, and many other motorsports championships, and all with little to show for it. On the face of it, it seems nonsensical, money thrown down the drain, and that was my opinion until I looked a little into Alpine’s strategy. So, just what’s going on, what’s are its chance of success and with the brand haemorrhaging money, and will Renault wind it up before the strategy has a chance to play out?

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[thembanjoko]

Renault went full GM or Stellantis with how they treated the Alpine brand, it didn't make commercial sense to rebrand the Enstone F1 team from Renault to Alpine where the A110 is the only car in Alpine's line up.

[soonerlon]

I can't believe it, but there was an A110 driving around here in Oklahoma City about 2 months ago. Of course it was Alpine blue - what a beautiful little car. I'd love to get my hands on

[yudhabagaskara]

Unsustainable future in F1
Unsustainable future in auto industry
---
Basically top gear Peugeot meeting in real life

[nknxg]

The Alpine A110 is the sort of small sports car I would have if I were not a family man. Shame it is not selling well, deserved to be a success.

[sambagogo]

>going all EV in 2026
>expects to break even by 2026

Haha.

[pdsnpsnldlqnop]

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

When you look at how competitive European EVs are going to be compared to Chinese models, they are screwed. China has the supply chain and the technology. Europe is suffering with no more cheap gas from Russia, making affordable cars very difficult to make in the heartland. Even VW are preparing to close factories.

Hence Alpine makes a lot of sense. Stick to low production numbers, make them exclusive and profit from each car sold. All they have to do is undercut Porsche.

[Floh]

Alpine is one of those brands you see drive by you on the street and go, "That looks nice, I would like one of those."

And then you buy yourself a Cayman

[bottlely]

The Drive published an article about the Clio RS16; it had the Megane-spec 271 HP motor, manual gearbox, front suspension from the previous-gen Clio RS and the rear axle lifted from a Clio R3T rally car, and even wider fenders. Problem was that the Dieppe factory had limited capacity, so it was canned in favour of the A110.

I feel like it was short-sighted not to use the RS16, or transfer that hardware on the later CMF-B platform Clio V, as a second Alpine rather than waiting 7 years for the electric A290.

Heck, according to Top Gear, Caterham were planning to rebadge and modify the Clio RS and the Captur(!) as mass-produced hot Caterham compacts prior to their partnership with Alpine getting cancelled. Plus, Renault knew about their plans too and were ready to supply them, so it's upsetting that they didn't do it themselves and allow the A110 to remain alone for half a decade

[kfh]

Thank you for this analysis. "Is Jaguar headed for DISASTER?" might be an idea for a video as well.

[endabutler]

Once they said they were going exclusively full electric in the future, all interest was presumably lost.

[bezoekers]

Alpine showed up to the 24 hours of Le Mans with a literal F2 engine that cannot last longer than 6 hours. Absolute joke of a car company.

[aer]

They could go back to making car radios 😂

[miniotgf]

to survive nowadays they need a stupid suv

[christopherdesbaux]

If a European sports car company isn't in financial trouble, it's not trying hard enough 😂

[chrisdavidson]

The problem with tooling up for big sales figures is that it's very expensive to do, you then need big sales figures, and they weren't guaranteed. There was a time when Renault were talking about closing Alpine, and then they changed their mind, deciding to launch 8 more cars.
The factory's at full capacity as it is.

[Searly]

The Renault brand itself has had more motorsports success since the 70s than alpine has. Renault sport road cars are still regarded very highly, some old meganes are 30 grand plus. It really makes no sense why they brought the Alpine brand back

[dubster]

If this was a Stellantis or G.M owned brand I’d agree, however they don’t have De Mayo running the show. I think he knows that if he tries to expand globally without a full product range and some brand recognition, it’s not going to work. Look at the ‘successful’ relaunch of Alfa Romeo in the U.S for proof of that. I also think that there is a wealth of talent within the company, the team that made the Renault Sport Clio and Megane such amazing driving machines must be giving the management some confidence they’re onto something, surely?

[ccooper]

A French car firm in financial trouble ? But that is unpossible !!!!

[johnc]

I loved Alpine and I love the A110, but they shouldn’t dampen down the brand. I’d rather have a hot, fast Renault Sport version of a Renault than a luke warm, gimmicky Alpine that’s ruining the reputation of the A110. It doesn’t make sense to me.

[lovrenault]

Hey, great video as usual. A110 owner here. Just an explanation for the low production : it is basically hand built, they can't really make more than 22ish cars per day unless they reengineer the whole production line. It was conceived to make money with this level of production so I'm pretty confident they are making money out of this model :) Also, note that the A110 isn't compliant with EU GSR2 regulation which means from July of this year, Alpine can only sell 1500 units per year in EU (exception is given for "small production" model). If you add UK/Japan sales, you won't expect much more than 2000 units sold in 2025 and probably similar in 2026 till the new model comes out. Therefore Investing into production just a couple of years before end of life wouldn't make sense. Guillaume