“I want to make Alpine electric so that its name will last forever.” This is what Luca de Meo said when he first got to Renault Group. The Alpine CEO, Laurent Rossi, and the engineers were moved by what he said. In less than a year, their team turned this crazy idea into a reality and, to top it all off, even took off the roof. Follow Stoptechy
The A110 E-ternite is all electric and uses no gas. The battery modules are the same as those in the Megane E-Tech. But to get the best weight distribution and make room for the twelve battery modules, the A110’s battery casings had to be designed and the internal architecture had to be changed. So, four modules were put in the front and eight were put in the back. In order to solve this problem, the engineers gave themselves permission to put these modules in the space in a “unusual” way.
Specification
Even with the addition of these twelve modules, the Alpine A110 E-total ternite’s weight has only gone up by 258 kg. This is because the battery pack’s weight is contained (392kg). Engineers at Alpine couldn’t come up with a gearbox that was both light and small and worked well because they didn’t have one in-house. So, a gearbox was studied in-house with the Alpine gearbox supplier in a double clutch (DCT) version with an electronic control, just like the combustion engine on the A110, but with clutches that could handle high torques. With a double clutch, there is no break in torque, and the car can still be small and light.
