Hypertech Alpine Will Birth A New Supercar
It’s finally official: French automaker Alpine will produce a supercar. Over the course of this year, we’ve covered various developments affecting the Alpine Alpenglow hydrogen-powered hypercar, which is looking more realistic with each revision and which may eventually be available with a V6 power plant. However, that doesn’t seem to be what Alpine is talking about in its latest announcement, which coincides with its withdrawal from Formula 1 as an engine supplier.
In fact, hydrogen is not mentioned anywhere in the release, although the automaker does say that its new state-of-the-art engineering center, dubbed Hypertech Alpine, will contribute to “innovations in cutting edge technologies.” So what can we expect?
Alpine
The Alpine car marque was established in 1954 and has become world-famous for its outstanding sports cars and varied racing exploits, many of which were highly successful. Its competition department merged with Renault Sport in 1976, an era during which it was winning rallies for fun (see WRC 1973). In the 1980s, Alpine began producing more luxurious and more powerful coupes. It was also responsible for building the spectacular R5 Turbo hyper hatchbacks, but the Alpine name was abandoned by Renault in 1995. After a brief Alpine partnership with Caterham, Renault reacquired the branding under the stewardship of Carlos Ghosn in the mid-2010s, with the modern A110 arriving in 2017.
Future Alpine Supercar
Alpine didn’t provide a name for the car that will sit above the A110 sports car, only confirming that the Viry-Châtillon-based center will “step up development of the future Alpine supercar.” We suspect that, like the rest of its US-bound lineup, this will be electric. Hypertech Alpine will handle the automaker’s sports cars’ “short- to medium-term battery development,” which will influence the cars we’ll get on American soil, but like the rest of the automotive industry, Alpine also intends to focus its efforts on “ultra-high energy density cells, in particular with solid-state battery technology, in extreme operating conditions for supercar-type applications.”
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Renault’s Ampere EV and software unit, which is supported by Nissan, will work on new electric motor technologies, and the automaker intends to continue its motorsport activities in the World Endurance Championship, Formula E, Rally-Raid, and customer racing. What of the Formula One staff? While some power unit employees are likely to take positions at rival F1 teams, each person involved with the engine project will be offered a new position.
F1 Tech Could Come To Future Alpine Sports Cars
Alpine is establishing a new F1 monitoring unit that will seek to “maintain employees’ knowledge and skills in the sport and remain at the forefront of innovation for Hypertech Alpine’s various projects.” This may sound like an abstruse decision given that the Alpine F1 racing team will make use of powertrains from another supplier (likely Mercedes), but it’s a good idea. Maserati’s understanding of the turbulent jet ignition pre-chamber combustion system that allowed Mercedes to become a dominant force in F1 in the turbo-hybrid era enabled the powerful and efficient design of the Nettuno V6 in the Maserati MC20.
F1 is pushing to run 100% sustainable fuels in 2026, and it makes sense for Alpine to stay abreast of developments in the field. Who knows? Perhaps hydrogen won’t be the only alternative fuel that Alpine innovates with in the future; plenty of F1 tech has reached production cars in the past. The transformation of the facility from an F1 hub will take place by the end of the year.
