The 100% electric A110 E-ternité prototype had its world premiere at the French Formula 1 Grand Prix. A rolling laboratory, the A110 E-ternité is an open-top car which maintains Alpine’s agility with a lightness unequalled for an electric car in this segment.

The design goal was to electrify the A110 and to match the performance, balance and agility of the Alpine A110 combustion engine car while capitalizing on the Group's strengths, experience and technologies.

As a Renault Group brand, it was natural for this new project, to look first at the parts and technologies already available in-house. The battery modules are identical to those of the 100% electric Mégane E-Tech. However, to achieve optimum weight distribution and to accommodate the twelve battery modules, it was necessary to design specific battery casings for the A110 and to adapt the internal architecture.

Four modules were therefore placed at the front and eight at the rear. To meet this challenge, the engineers allowed themselves to position these modules in the space in a atypical fashion.

Despite the addition of these twelve modules, the total weight of the Alpine A110 E-ternité remains particularly light with an increase of only 258 kg, thanks to a contained mass for the battery pack (392 kg).

Gearbox. In order to get away from the 0 to 100km/h / top speed trade-off and the constant quest for electric storage that requires large batteries, an innovative gearbox was added to the Group’s “standard” motor.

No gearbox available in-house allowed the Alpine engineers to meet the brief requirements of this A110 E-ternité. The desire was to find a smooth and efficient gearbox without torque breakage, but also light and compact.

A gearbox was studied in-house, with the Alpine gearbox supplier, in double clutch version (DCT) with an electronic control, as on the A110 combustion engine, but with clutches dimensioned to pass high torques. The double clutch solution makes it possible to avoid a break in torque while remaining compact and light.

Electronic system. For the electronic system, the Alpine team mixed two electronic equipment architectures separated by ten years. This innovation provides new opportunities for architecture simplification or continuous improvement throughout the product as it enabled the features of the combustion engine AS1 to be kept while adding new features from the EV sector, as well as others such as the “Overtake” feature or the possibility of enabling communication between two batteries.

A single ECU was installed to ensure communication between the two systems. This innovation brings new opportunities for simplifying architectures or for continuous improvement throughout the product life cycle.

Technical Specifications