Alpine A390 GT - long-term review

Alpine quotes a sizeable 345-mile range for its mid-spec A390 GT, which on the face of it sounds like a solid reserve of energy that can be used to enjoy the myriad boons this big blue spaceship offers.

Of course, TopGear.com’s particular A390 GT isn’t really ‘mid-spec’ anymore, because it’s wearing around £11k worth of options pushing its final price to just north of £72k. But we’ll circle back to that. First, we need to test that claim of 345 miles on a single charge. Time for a mediumly-long road trip.

We start, as all days should start, with glorious, unbroken sunshine and two adorably nutty Golden Retrievers being wrestled into the rear seats. The Alpine’s boot has been filled to the brim with assorted paraphernalia related to said Golden Retrievers, along with a sprinkling of human stuff too.

It swallows all this stuff well (it’s a usable, square-ish shape), but why manufacturers insist on putting the charging cable storage beneath the boot floor remains a mystery. What if you need a mid-road-trip charge? You’d have to empty the entire boot, because this Alpine doesn’t have a frunk or froot or whatever awful term describes an EV’s space under the bonnet. Anyway.

After a few miles, it’s easy to see why this A390 is a good ‘un. It’s a joy to steer. The seating position feels spot on, the giant touchscreen [shudders] is actually very responsive, intuitive and easy to use, there are proper buttons on and behind the steering wheel to control stuff on the move (brake regen, music shuffle, volume, cruise control and so on), and the seats are ace.

The ride’s great too – it errs more on the firmer side of things, but the A390’s movements are well controlled without feeling nervous, and it burnishes the majority of terrible bitumen beneath its wheels very well indeed. We’re mostly on a motorway for this one, mind, and yet it doesn’t feel too frenetic, and nor does it feel overly languid. It feels how you’d expect a lardy A110 to feel, and we mean that in a good way.

Unfortunately, the numbers we returned aren't particularly… good. We started our mini odyssey with 100 per cent battery, travelled 144 miles at a very relaxed, motorway pace, took in a few towns and villages with stop start traffic and the obligatory accelerating-back-up-to-national-speed-limits, and ended up at our destination with 43 per cent battery remaining.

So that’s 57 per cent of the A390’s 89kWh battery used, which means an approximate efficiency of just over 2.8mpkwh, and an extrapolated range of around 253 (motorway-ish) miles. And that’s on a blisteringly hot day. Two point eight and 253. Yes, the big caveat here is continued 70mph driving hoovers up energy, so we’ll report back later once we’ve done more town schlepping. (Here’s something to ponder – if it performs better in town and that's where you use it, wouldn’t you be better off… just getting a smaller town car?)

Anyway, about that spec. This GT version – 400bhp, 0-62mph in 4.8s – is packed with options pushing it to £72k. We quickly specced up the range-topping A390 GTS – 464bhp, 0-62mph in sub-four – with a dark blue paintjob (classy), Alcantara/leatherette seats, and bidirectional charging, and the total price came to… £72,040. That’s the same money for a much faster, more powerful car.

Saying that, the GTS offers 20 fewer claimed miles (325) vs the GT, which means even fewer real-world miles.