That’s right, a new electric car revealed by French manufacturer, Alpine will be unveiled next month and it’s called the A290_β.

Now, it’s not named after the road that links Canterbury and Whitstable. Well, I don’t think it is, as that would be weird. It’s not, the A290_β (pronounced A290 Beta) does actually have a naming convention. According to Alpine, ‘The first number refers to the size of the vehicle. The “90” is specific to the brand’s multi-purpose sports vehicles, known as “life-style”, while the purely sports vehicles have the number “10”.’

This does actually make some sense, as the A110 is a small, pure sports car. Whereas this new A290 is bigger. In fact, it’s a hatchback. Without wanting to speculate too much, we do know Alpine is owned by Renault, and that they are introducing the new all-electric 5 soon. With Alpine being the sporty brand for the French firm, it could be likely that this is a quick version of that car. It could however, be its own thing entirely.

There have been virtually no specs listed for it, apart from the fact it will come out in 2024 and will be revealed via livestream on 9th May. If you do want to watch that, you can do that by clicking these red letters. What we can see though, is a very pronounced spoiler with a sporty roofline. What looks like either a bulge in the bonnet or an air scoop(?) with big protruding bumpers.

If you can’t be bothered to watch a livestream, you can also scan a QR code on the side of the Alpine A523 F1 cars this weekend or on their World Endurance Championship A470s during the 6 hours of Spa. Scanning this will enter you into a competition to be invited to the official launch event to check out the new Alpine electric car.

Should be an interesting car, we’ll wait to hear more.