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In May this year, it became clear that Alpine and Lotus have decided to cancel their partnership on an electric sports car platform on friendly terms. At the time, there were speculations that this would put the French firm’s plans for a performance EV to an end but now it seems that the Renault-owned brand will instead develop its own electric architecture.
Speaking to media representatives during the public debut of the Renault Rafale in Paris yesterday, Luca de Meo, CEO of Renault Group, confirmed Alpine will indeed work on an electric platform in-house. “We had a long discussion and finally decided to build our own platform,” de Meo told Autocar during the Paris air show where the Rafale was unveiled. More about Alpine’s EV plans will be revealed on June 26 during an investor day meeting.
However, de Meo also confirmed there will be more than just one product to be based on this new EV architecture, which makes sense considering the high cost of developing new underpinnings from the ground up and not sharing the expenses with another company. Alpine’s initial plan was to launch the electric sports car in 2026 but it is not clear at the moment if the change in the strategy would result in a delay of the launch.
As a reminder, Alpine and Lotus announced their partnership in 2021, which was supposed to focus on the development of a shared electric sports car. However, Lotus decided not to progress further with the project, though future cooperation is still possible. As for Alpine, it is scheduled to become an EV-only automaker later this decade and should release five new models in the next five years.
In his interview with Autocar, de Meo confirmed Alpine and Lotus parted ways with no bad feelings. “There was no friction with the thing because everybody was feeling like this was the best thing. It doesn’t mean we don’t have opportunities to work together again,” Renault Group’s told the publication, also hinting at potential cooperation between the two firms in the future.
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