**First Impressions of the Alpine A290**

The Alpine A290 is a car that I have been eager to drive for quite some time now. My first impression of the car's external aesthetics is that it looks stunning. The way it sits on the road, with its sleek lines and aggressive stance, immediately catches your eye. But it's not just about looks - the interior cabin quality of the A290 is also very impressive. It has a premium feel to it, with high-quality materials and attention to detail throughout.

**Braking Performance**

One aspect that I wanted to check out was the braking performance of the A290. The car comes equipped with various gauges, including front brake caliper temperature, front tire pressure, rear tire pressure, and rear caliper temperature, as well as battery temperature and motor temperature. During a heavy track session, I was able to push the car to its limits, and I was impressed by the braking performance. The front right caliper reached temperatures of up to 550° C without showing any signs of brake fade - it's clear that the A290 is designed with serious braking capabilities in mind.

**Driving Experience**

The driving experience of the A290 is where it truly shines. As a driver's car fan, I love how engaging and communicative the A290 feels when driven. It rewards aggressive driving, allowing you to push the car hard without feeling overwhelmed by its performance. This makes it an ideal choice for those who enjoy driving and want to feel like they're really connecting with their vehicle. Whether on a public road or a track, the A290 delivers a thrilling driving experience that will keep even seasoned drivers on their toes.

**Performance Comparison**

One of the questions I had was whether the 220 horsepower and 300 Newton-meters of torque were sufficient for the A290. My answer is no - it's not about the raw power figures; it's about how they make you feel when driving the car. The A290 is designed to be a driver's car, with an emphasis on engagement and feedback through the steering wheel, seat, and entire body of the vehicle. It's only when you get behind the wheel that you realize just how much potential the 220 horsepower really has.

**Challenges and Competition**

While the Alpine A290 is certainly a capable car, it's unlikely to appeal to everyone. One of its biggest challenges will be competition from established models like the Mini Electric. However, I think the A290 has a unique selling point - its focus on lightness and agility. Weighing 200 kilos less than the Mini Electric, the A290 is an EV car that truly prioritizes driving experience over other considerations. This makes it an exciting prospect for those who want to experience the thrill of electric driving without sacrificing too much performance.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, my experience with the Alpine A290 has been overwhelmingly positive. From its stunning aesthetics and premium interior, to its exceptional braking performance and engaging driving experience, this car truly checks all the right boxes. While it may not be the most powerful car on paper, it's clear that the A290 is designed to reward driving and provide a unique connection with the driver. Whether you're a seasoned enthusiast or just looking for a fun and engaging drive, I would highly recommend giving the A290 a try.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys and welcome to petrop ped and welcome to the beautiful island of mayorca and the brand new Alpine a 290 we're going to be driving this car on some of the best roads on the island and also on track been dying to drive this car for about the last 4 months it really is great to see this car out in the wild having seen it in the garage studio in Paris a few months ago when I did my first view video to see it out in the wild in the daylight it really is a special thing and it has a great purpose and a great presence around it now if you haven't seen that first video I'm going to put a link in the top right hand corner of this video and and in the description below head over and have a look at that cuz I'm going to try and not overlap too much with this video today today is all about finally driving this car and we're lucky enough to be able to drive it both on some of the most amazing roads here in mayorca but also later on today we'll be driving it on track but I think the first thing to say is clearly this car is based on the Renault R5 however there's a lot of differences the first thing is it's got a 6 cm wider track and that means this car just sits so nicely I know it's maybe a car guy thing to say but I think the way a car sits it stance the the wheel Arch Gap just the the track of a car makes such an important difference this car with its 6 cm wider track these flared wheel arches the wheel and tire package the way it just sits on its suspension makes it look ready to go this is a hot hatch it's an all El electric platform it's lightweight for an electric car sub 1500 kilos front-wheel drive and it's not about about the numbers and I think one of the things we need to explore today is to really get our heads around that because I think we've been we've gone down this simple easy road with a lot of performance EVS it's all about the outright horsepower it's all about the 0 to 60 figure and that's not what this car is about at all I think the front end of the car you're either going to love it or not it has a nod to the Alpine family with the four lights these two Central what look like fog lamps are just daytime running lights and then this X on here is a nod to the old Alpine rally cars where that would be Scotch tape to prevent the lenses from shattering um and so on now this is one of the limited Premier Edition cars they're only making 1,955 of these and they're at a 1,000 premium on top of the top speec GTS they do them in four colors this is in the blue which is a new blue for A2 90 they do a white one called the beta which is a tribute to the the Prototype car and also they do it in a frozen gray we're actually going to be driving a white GTS in the video but I wanted to shoot with this car cuz it's a beautiful backdrop let's just very briefly talk numbers so there are two power outputs for a290 180 horsepower and 220 horsepower we'll be driving the 220 horsepower GTS and that has 300 Newton M of torque now instantly you're going to look at that and go so that doesn't sound very much but you need to couple that with relative lightweight 1,500 kilos for an EV but it's the way this car has been set up the way the throttle and torque mappings have been done the way the power comes in the performance in terms of suspension there's a new subframe to lower the motor in the car compared with R5 the motor's actually from a Cleo ech so it's a different motor than R5 it's the same 52 kwh battery pack so you got different weight distribution it's it's still front bias weight distribution but a lot less than if there was an internal combustion engine under the Bonnet um so it's a little bit more playful at the back you've got uprated brake package basically the calipers are from the A110 so a completely different brake feel I can't wait to try that once we're out on the road and it's all about what happens when you get to a corner it's not an outright 0 to 60 car it's not an outright top speed car it's having fun on the public road without going too fast so outside wise I'm I'm mildly in love with the looks of this car I just think it looks incredible but the interior is quite special as well now in the GTS version you get Napa leather everywhere these seats are actually the same frame as R5 but different bolstering and padding and then this beautiful Nappa leather Nappa leather down the center um console there's Nappa leather on the dash Nappa leather on the steering wheel it's a very special place in here and then the headlining is this lovely kind of quilted headlining steering wheel is the main focal point and there's lots of cool stuff in here derived from the Alpine Formula 1 program there's a couple of an buttons on here there's an OV which stands for overtake button that gives you a boost we'll play with that when we're out driving but it's for overtaking and it's also how you engage launch control there's an rch button which stands for recharge that's your three different levels of regenerative braking and then a little drive mode to go through normal Sport and then there's an eco mode in the car and a personal mode that you can set up individually and then you've got two screens the main binle in front and then the main infotainment screen just here and then the central console again very different from R5 this is taken pretty much out of the A110 you've got the DNR buttons there for drive neutral and reverse little place to put your key a wireless charge matap just there and then just in terms of getting into a nice driving position you got nice adjustment in both rake and tilt interestingly this seats all the way back and I feel a little bit far from the car so even though I'm 6' 3 with very long legs I really need to bring my seat forward to get into a good driving position but I think the best way to describe this car and to share it with you after all this is a driving video so I suggest we go and find the white car that we're in today and take it for a drive and go and find some amazing aoran roads and then later on we'll get to have a play on track now one of the nice things about coming to mayorca is we're not short of lovely roads to drive on although the cyclist In Me Is wishing I have my bike with me cuz it is truly magnificent so let's talk about the range so as I mentioned in my Paris video there are two 180 horsepower variants the GT and the GT premium now they're going to start from £ 332,000 or £ 362,000 but if you want the sporty nature of the car in its truest form you really need the 220 horsepower version so we are in the GTS and that's going to be 38,000 and in here you get beautiful Nappa leather seats Nappa leather all over the dash it's a very special place in here but I think that price point is pretty special there's also going to be a limited edition version which is £39,000 but they're only going to do I think it's $1,955 of those so first things first as soon as you get this car onto some twisty roads it starts to become playful it starts to do what it's meant to be doing on the main highway on a dual carriageway it doesn't really feel that quick it doesn't really really feel I'm not going to say that special because the interior is lovely but this car is made for the twisties now because this is the same family as Renault and dater there is a little button here if I push that twice I can turn on what's called my safety Puro and that basically is a way for you to customize all the ad Das systems and turns off turn off the things you don't want so uh speed warning alert Lane departure assistance you can turn those things off it's a legal requirement for them to be in the car but Annoying so you can just turn them off two pushes of that button and away we go so the a290 comes with a 52 kilowatt battery the downside of that is the wltp range figure which the last time I was with the car was still being tested that's 236 Mi wltp so I think a couple of hundred miles of range and some of you might think that's not enough it will do up to 100 KW DC charging and that means that you can get from kind of 15% to 80% in probably about half an hour and easily overcharge charge overnight on an AC charger the upside of that battery pack being on the smaller side is weight this car is UN under 1,500 kilos I think it's, 1475 and that is exactly what you want on a road like this for handling for that that that feel to take away the the heavy nature of an EV we' become quite attuned to having electric vehicles that just weigh a lot you know 2.2 2.3 2.4 tons this is under 1 and 1/2 tons and that makes a huge difference when it starts to become a fun bit of road like this look at that absolutely stunning scenery lots of pedestrians though okay as we come out of this most beautiful Village let me just talk through the driving modes that you would use on the road so we've got the little rch recharge button here at the moment I've got that on its minimum setting and it doesn't give a great deal of regen at all it has three stages as you click up basically you get more and more regen and it's very top setting it's not one pedal driving it won't bring you to a complete stop it cuts off I think at 8 km an hour I'm going to leave that off because I want to push on a little bit up this bit of twisty Road and the other thing I've got is the drive mode button so in normal driving normal mode would be fine certainly in town driving and that kind of thing I'm going to stick it up into sport mode what I would say is it it is a more aggressive feel to the throttle you can feel more power but it's not a car that you get in and you you instant think oh wow this is a quick car however don't let that put you off let's let's start just pushing on a little bit through some some twisties so first thing you'll be able to hear is the sound that Alpine have engineered into this car it's a combination of electric motors and it does sound pretty cool you have to be really careful along this bit of road because there's lots of cyclists lots of tourists just stood in the middle of the road taking a picture of a bus so you do have to be a little bit careful as we come along this Coast Road but how beautiful but when the road's clear you can push on there's a a feeling of a bit of Torx steer just on the early phases of acceleration it's a bit minique in a way I always like that about a mini it just makes you feel a little bit like you're alive like the car it's not trying to fight you but you you just have to pay attention but there a new subframe on this car that's different to Rena 5 to make the motor in a better place for handling it's got completely unique dampers and geometry it's got a 6 mm wider track so I haven't driven the standard R5 but so far so good in this little a290 this is the most beautiful bit of tarmac a nice bit of twisty Road paying caution to the cyclists let's just so for me this car is about having fun on a road like this without going silly fast it's only got 220 horsepower and when we had all the technical briefings when I first saw the car the first question I asked to the chassis guys was why didn't you give it more power and their answer was drive it first it's been set up for driving feel and driving pleasure for this kind of road where you can you can push on but not really feel like you're going to be breaking too many speed limits where you going to be putting yourself into too much harm the road surface now is just a little bit damp there's a tiny bit of water in the air a little bit of I don't know whether that's rain or just spray from a sprinkler we've just driven past but yeah it's definitely rain we're in meor and it's raining people so having done a few of these twisties now first things first the brakes on the car are really strong and have a really nice feel to them they're four pot brembos off of the Ed 110 so they're going to certainly be up for it I've got the regen on the minimum setting but you know whenever you push your foot on the brake some of that retardation will be coming from the motor and you're going to recuperate some of that energy back into the battery pack some of it's going to be from the Piston biting onto the brake disc the front end is nice and precise I haven't felt a huge amount of under steer yet this wider track the geometry that's just set up just to throw it around it's a great little car to Chuck around on a nice bit of road like this this Road's almost perfect it's what it was designed for nice brakes turning on the power a little bit of under steer it's just digging down now in sport mode it just backs the traction control off a little bit if you want to turn the traction control fully off there is a button just just to my left which you can use but I think the best place to do that the best place to put this car really through its paces and see what it's really like on the limit especially with the traction control turned off is a racetrack and luckily there's one of them here in mayorca and that's where we're going next welcome to the Circuit mayorca we have beautiful sunshine here and I'm not so sure what the collective noun is for a group of a 290s but we've got plenty of of them to have fun with now this is a sports car for the road it's not designed as a track car but there's only so many things you can do on the public highway to really get your head around handling characteristics so we've got some track time this afternoon but before we get on track I want to talk tires now all the variants of the a290 are on a 19-in wheel with a 225 section and I think that contributes a great deal to the Aesthetics and The Stance of the car but Alpine and michan have worked together for 2 years to develop three different tires that are bespoke to a290 they're actually marked a29 now the first up is what we've been driving so far in this video and what I'll be driving on track and they're the tires that are on the 220 horsepower variant of the a290 and that's a Michelin Pilot Sport S5 now that's a relatively new tire for michelan and so far the OEM versions of that tire you've only really seen on very high-end sports cars like as Martins and so on so it's great to see it on the Alpine if you go for the 180 horsepower variant then they come on a Michelin Pilot Sport EV Tire which doesn't quite have the kind of highspeed performance and grip that you would get from the S5 but it does have maybe a little bit more efficiency and economy and then finally for winry conditions there's an Alpin 5 which can be put on any variant of the a290 and the final thing I think for this car because it's on the S5 they do have the sexiest sidewall ever and that just adds to the aesthetic of the car so it's a beautiful sunny day we have a racetrack behind me I think it's about time we put these tires in this car to the test okay here we are a couple of laps of the circuit mayorca I'm in sport mode I've got traction control turned fully off let's see how this car handles around this quite technical little circuit it's got a fantastic brake feel let the steering lock unwind before you get on the power it doesn't have the most gigantic amount of power Feld coming out the corners but when you tuck it into this is quite a high-s speed Corner this one it's got a really nice balance through the highs speeded Corners then onto the straight straight are where you do feel it's only got 220 brake but then anyone can drive fast in a straight line it's very very bumpy in that braking area there turn the S back in unwind the the lock get a bit of curb it's just got a very playful feel to the car under 1500 kilos braking on here turning in here yeah it's it's everything you want a hot hatch to be so far I've had a few laps of this circuit already the way that the power and torque delivery has been programmed you don't get that bite of torque you know in some EVS where you kind of stamp on the on the throttle and your head hits the headrest you don't get that it's a progressive linear delivery of torque into the car but I've got to say these brakes are absolutely Mega like really Mega little bit of rotation at the back got a really nice brake feel they're very powerful on the road they're a little bit sharp and bitey to start with but the way they bleed regenerative braking into pad and disc bite is really very very clever indeed just dug down a little bit there on the exit you need to carry momentum in this car it's a car that rewards smooth driving let's tip it in here little bit quicker grab some Apex power on the outside yes it it rewards smooth driving carrying momentum getting nice lines it's a driver's car and it's an EV let's get these brakes a look at that it is a car that stops really really well the nice thing is I'm driving an EV and I don't feel overwhelmed by its mass it's a for EVS anyway very lightweight car really and you don't feel it a great amount of weight in the car just got on the brakes bleed the brakes off a little bit of under steer there terrible lines there Peter absolutely terrible lines now I'm not suggesting I don't think many a290 owners are probably going to take it to a track to be honest but if you do it's safe to say you're going to have a lot of fun Boo there's me checker flag you can Chuck this car around and have some fun you really can I think it's only when you get it on on just just the back of that back of the car is just so playful it's really good fun wow oh theyve been picked up by the pace car so quick conclusions of that so this car's all about cornering and handling and Driver engagement and feel it's not about outright Pace we were told that from the start and I now get it you feel it on the road but on the road the nice thing is you can drive really really hard on the road and never feel like you're going to get yourself into a massive amount of danger losing your license and the challenge with the road especially yesterday we had other cars and pedestrians and cyclists and things so you always have to be a little bit more careful when you're on a track and you know you can really push hard you can push the car to its limits you can feel what it's like at the limit in Corners what its stability is like the weight center of gravity is so low you don't feel a lot of body roll in the car as you go through the corners it just its leg a little bit but for me the outstanding thing about this car are the brakes they're very powerful but they have a lovely feel to them and you really trust them you can go down that straight leave your braking really late get on it even in the UN bumpy uneven braking Zone that we have there you can still feel like the car is going to stop and that for me is a very very important thing but yeah on track this thing absolutely Mega and what a lovely little circuit that is I love this display after track driving so you've basically got your front brake caliper temperature and front tire pressure rear tire pressure and rear caliper temperature and then battery temperature and motor temperature in the middle uh on our on a heavy track session I've just got the front right caliper up to 550° C but yeah very very good no breake fade even at that temperature so at the end of a busy couple of days here in mayorca driving the a290 what are my final impressions well it's a car I've been looking forward to drive for a long time I love the external Aesthetics I love the way it sits and the interior cabin quality is right up there but I think there's a trap you can fall into with this car and I did the myself you look at the performance on a piece of paper 220 horsepower 300 Newton m a 0 to 60 time that's not going to set the world on fire and you might discount the car you might say it needs more power interestingly I asked the question why didn't it get more power there's a couple of reasons the 52 kwh battery pack firstly if you gave the motor more power first the the battery pack that they use can't actually give more power than it's giving anyway then you'd have a detrimental effect on range and it starts to snowball and then You' say well I need a bigger battery pack then it needs more weight and then that goes against the whole design philosophy of the car so that's why that 220 number was chosen but it's not about the power it's not about the torque figure it's not about the N to 60 time it's about how it makes you feel when you drive the car I'm a driver's car fan I love that engaging feel when you when you're pushing down a road or you're on a track and you feel the car moving around underneath you and you can feel the car communicating to you you through the steering wheel through your seat through your whole body and that's what the a290 does it's a driver's car it rewards driving what I love about it the most is on a public road down a b road you can really push the car you can use all of the throttle you can push the car into Corners you can heavy brake and you're not going ridiculously quick you're still getting all of that driving engagement so many cars with four or five or 600 horsepower you never tap into that you never actually exploit all the performance of the car with a290 you feel like you can you feel like can really push to the envelope and then coming on track this afternoon it's fascinating to get the car in a position where you probably never never put it into that position on the road where it's right on the limit of grip and you can start to just feel the the especially the light rear the just rotation at the back and it just gives all of the fires off all of my driving car signals and it it delivered exactly what the Alpine team said it would do they said it's a driver's car it's not that fast in a straight line it's not that fast off the mark But when you get to a corner when you turn in it rewards the drive and that for me is its Forte I think its biggest challenge is likely to be a lot of people will look at the R5 and say well why would I spend £10,000 more than an R5 and if you're just doing City driving and and want a nice car to look cool get the R5 If you're a driver if you want that little bit more engagement if you want that little bit more of a sports car feel then that's where this car comes into its own it's certainly going to be interesting looking at the competition putting it up against something like mini electric it's 200 kilos lighter than mini electric it is great to see an EV car where lightess is at the Forefront of what it's designed to be and you feel it you feel it on the road you feel it on the track and I love that about the a290 anyway please in the comments your thoughts on the car which color would you go for what trim level would you go for is there such a thing as not enough power or too much power I'd love to know your feedback anyway if you enjoyed that give me a thumbs up don't forget please subscribe to peted for plenty more content to come and I'll see you guys on the next film you take care drive safe ah\n"