Alpine may abandon platform partnership with Lotus – report

The all-electric replacement for the Alpine A110 may end up using a bespoke architecture developed in-house by Renault.

As part of Renault’s turnaround plans announce in mid-2021, Alpine was envisioned as both a maker of its own standalone electric cars, and a tuner to turn up the wick on Renault’s offerings.

The hero model in the reborn Alpine range will be an EV successor to the well-regarded, but slow-selling A110 mid-engine coupe.

Alpine is reportedly investigating ways of entering the lucrative US market. To help fund its ambitions, Renault is also considering a partial float of the sporting brand.

Back in 2021 Alpine said it would develop A110 replacement in conjunction with Lotus, and use the British sports car maker’s E-Sport platform, which will also serve as the basis for the successor to the Elise.

Now, though, sources have told Bloomberg that Renault is leaning towards developing its own electric sports car platform for Alpine rather than sourcing one from Lotus, as the French firm now believes it has sufficient EV expertise to go it alone on the project.

The sources don’t believe the change of heart on the Alpine/Lotus collaboration doesn’t indicate a souring in the relationship between Renault and Geely, the Chinese automaker that’s the majority owner of Lotus.

Renault, Alpine’s parent, has a number of wider-ranging partnerships with Geely, including a petrol and hybrid drivetrain production and engineering company.

In addition to this Geely bought a 34 per cent stake in Renault Korea in mid-2022, and soon the the firm once known as Renault Samsung Motors will begin building cars based on the Compact Modular Architecture developed by Geely subsidiary Volvo.

Rumours indicate these Korean-built models will be extensively based on the Lynk & Co range sold in China and parts of Europe.

In China, Geely will engineer and produce cars for Renault to sell in the world’s largest auto market.