A110 E-TERNITE: A 100% ELECTRIC DEMO-CAR AT THE CUTTING EDGE OF ALPINE INNOVATION

This sentence coined by Luca de Meo shortly after hisarrival at Renault Group immediately inspired Laurent Rossi, Alpine CEO, andthe brand's engineers. In less than a year, a team of commandos turned thiscrazy idea into a reality and, to top it all off, even grasped the opportunityto remove the roof.

The A110 E-ternity,100% electric, is the result of this exploratory work. It comes to celebratethe 60^th anniversary. Bridging from a prestigious past to a 100% electricfuture, it illustrates the work which Alpine currently implements to developits range of new models.

AN IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGE?

For more than ten years, RenaultGroup has been a pioneer in the field of electric vehicles and has acquired awealth of valuable experience in all areas of the automotive industry. It istherefore quite natural that the Alpine teams began thinking about the subjectvery early on.

The arrival of Luca de Meoand the announcement of a 100% electric range at Alpine gave a clear directionfor the work of the teams and an opportunity to work on electrics in anexploratory way. In the "restomod" spirit, the A110 has become theideal platform for this research work, a bridge between a prestigious past andan even more ambitious future.

Thus, the target is clear:to electrify the next Alpine vehicles, and why not starting by the A110, aparagon of sportiness known for its light weight and agility, within arealistic budget.

"An unsolvablecontradiction" for some, "achallenge worthy of Alpine" for the passionate teams of the brand.

TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION AT THECORE OF THE PROJECT

The mandate wassimple: electrify the A110 and match the performance, balance and agility ofthe Alpine A110 combustion engine car while capitalizing on the Group'sstrengths, experience and technologies.

To spice up this challenge a little more, Alpine isgoing to add four innovations to the mandate:

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THE CHALLENGES OFTHE DRIVETRAIN

§As a Renault Groupbrand, it was natural, for this new project, to look first at the parts andtechnologies already available in-house. The battery modules are identical tothose of the 100% electric Mégane E-Tech. However, to achieve optimum weightdistribution and to accommodate the twelve battery modules, it was necessary todesign specific battery casings for the A110 and to adapt the internalarchitecture. Four modules were therefore placed at the front and eight at therear. To meet this challenge, the engineers allowed themselves to positionthese modules in the space in a ‘atypical’ fashion.

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

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In order to get awayfrom the 0 to 100kph / top speed trade-off and the constant quest for electric storagethat requires large batteries, an innovative gearbox was added to the Group’s“standard” motor.

No gearbox availablein-house allowed the Alpine engineers to meet the brief requirements of thisA110 E-ternité. The desire was to find a smooth and efficient gearbox withouttorque breakage, but also light and compact.

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

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The Alpine team showedingenuity on the electronic system, mixing two electronic equipmentarchitectures separated by ten years. This innovation provides new opportunities forarchitecture simplification or continuous improvement throughout the product as it enabled the features of the combustionengine AS1 to be kept whilst adding new features from the EV sector, as well asothers such as the “Overtake” feature or the possibility of enablingcommunication between two batteries.

A single ECU was installed toensure communication between the two systems. This innovation brings newopportunities for simplifying architectures or for continuous improvementthroughout the product life cycle.

INNOVATIVE FEATURES

The A110 E-ternité offers even more, with newequipment developed simultaneously by the Alpine engineers.

§For a long time, the demands for aconvertible A110 have been heard. Alpine decided to take on one more challengeat the same time. The difficulty was above all to find the solution to quicklyintegrate a removable roof on the structure of the Alpine A110. The Alpineengineers thus imagined a simple and light solution, without impacting therigidity of the production A110, with two roof shells injected with recycledcarbon. Acomponent designed and built entirely in-house.

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Alpine engineeringhas made it a priority to develop a vehicle that is as beautiful as it isefficient. The cockpit must therefore reflect this as well. The team succeededin combining the design requirements with the electronic architecture ones. Thesolution: the wiring was done directly with the dashboard and the sameinterface computer was used. The result lives up to expectations and also integrates:

- a state-of-the-art audio system with 8 speakersincluding a subwoofer to recreate a surrounding sound.thanks to one central andtwo rear new speakers.

- an innovative multimedia systemusing the driver's personal tablet as the multimedia screen, in order todisplay the usual environment and apps of the user. This solution provides analways up-to-date operating system combined with the latest screentechnologies.