Europeans often believe that American motorists lack taste and finesse when it comes to automotive engineering and car buying in general. I don’t agree with that notion at all. Americans know exactly what they want—and they don’t want a Renault or an Alpine masquerading as a Renault.

We’ll keep this short and sweet: the Alpine A390 EV is supposedly built on an “optimised” electric architecture.

It isn’t. That’s just Renault marketing dressing up mediocrity as sophistication.

Renault also claims the 89 kWh battery delivers a 345-mile range. It doesn’t. In the real world—where fairy godmothers don’t exist—the A390 will struggle to do much more than 275 miles.

And outside of motoring journalists and spec-sheet obsessives, nobody cares about steering feel, torque vectoring, handling nuance, or some contrived limited-edition trim.

What people do care about is value—and £61,390 for an underwhelming EV is indefensible when that money could buy a Porsche or serve as a serious house deposit.

The Alpine A390 EV is a failure of European manufacturing. It is overpriced and underwhelming. Alpine was always about lightweight sports cars, and it should have been left unspoiled.

But in the age of EU mandates, Alpine has become just another commodity—part of a product portfolio run by a professional managerial class obsessed with meeting deadlines and cutting budgets.

Good night, happy New Year.