Alpine A290 prototype

Later this year, Alpine's switch to an electric line-up will begin with the arrival of a Renault 5-based hot hatch. We get an early taste

- JAMES TAYLOR

POWER UNIT ENGINEER ALEXANDRE DE Sousa has just asked me to put my foot to the floor from a standing start, in a prototype Alpine A290. We are on polished sheet ice, on the surface of a frozen lake in northern Sweden. The accelerator pedal hits the stop and the front Michelins - conventional winter tyres, without studs - slip a little, grip a little, smoothly metering out the power and allowing the electric hot hatch to gather pace swiftly. Then we hit the brakes just as hard, on a split surface - polished ice under the right-hand wheels and graded, grippier ice beneath the left - and the A290 stops equally undramatically, ABS and electronic brake distribution working away in the background to keep its path straight and true.

This is the kind of development work the vast majority of new cars undergo, of course. Numerous other automotive industry winter test bases neighbour Alpine's centre, just inside the Arctic Circle. And no doubt other camouflaged prototypes are carrying out similar tests at this very moment. But the Alpine A290 prototypes we're driving today bring their own, unique challenges. Taming the instant torque of an electric motor is no easy task; this car needs to be easy and intuitive to drive, enough so to make it a cornerstone of Alpine's new era as an EV brand, selling cars with wider appeal than the A110 sports car. It also needs to be rewarding enough to live up to Alpine's heritage and, perhaps hardest of all, to appeal to enthusiasts such as you and I.