Transplanted from Renault’s F1 cars is the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), which temporarily provides a massive boost in power. In the case of the Twizy concept, it increases horsepower sixfold, to almost 100 BHP, giving it the same acceleration as a Mégane Renaultsport 265.

Normally, the Twizy Renault Sport F1 Concept trundles along on the regular car’s 17 HP motor, but when the KERS system is activated, a second motor – which has been gathering up kinetic energy created during braking – kicks in for up to 13 seconds, pushing total power output to 97 HP. Clever synchronization – using the drive gears from an F1 V8 engine – harnesses the two motors together.

Since a normal Twizy doesn’t typically build up sufficient decelerative power to fully juice the KERS up, the F1 and Renault Sport teams came up with a fudge that can temporarily suck energy from the regular motor. In “boost mode”, triggered by a button on the F1-style steering wheel, a rotary control can adjust how much KERS is charged with from the regular drive system; two paddles, when pulled simultaneously, squirt out that energy and send the car hurtling down the road.

Meanwhile, the moon-buggy external looks have been made even more bizarre with the addition of race car wheels, a front splitter, side pods, a rear wing, and a diffuser. Sadly, Renault shows no inclination to actually sell the Twizy Renault Sport F1 Concept, instead using it as an eye-catching proof of concept to highlight its KERS technology.

Renault says that the Twin’Z is a fun, modern, artistic take on a city car that draws inspiration from the Renault 5 and Renault Twingo. The Twin’Z is an all electric city car featuring rear-wheel drive and a rear-mounted electric motor. The car is very small at 3.62 m in length and features 18-inch wheels.

The all-electric rear-wheel drive architecture allowed Renault to push the wheels to the extreme corners of the vehicle for a solid footprint and large platform. Pushing the wheels to the corners the vehicle also allow outstanding cabin space inside the car. One of the most interesting features of the concept car are the doors.

The front doors open forward like traditional doors, but the rear doors are rear hinged allowing the complete interior to be opened up. The vehicle uses LED lighting all around and on the inside. The vehicle is 1705 mm wide and 1506 mm high. The wheelbase is 2495 mm and the vehicle weighs 980 kg. The top speed is 81 mph and the vehicle has a driving range of 100 miles on a charge. The rear-mounted electric motor produces 68 hp. To reduce weight and increase the driving range, the car uses carbon fiber bodywork.

[via Renault]

It’s easy to get distracted by luxury cars and marques coaxing ever more performance from sporty two-seaters, but life at the cheap end of the spectrum can be a lot tougher. Building to a budget isn’t easy, and so Dacia went for a strategy that mimics that of the low-cost airlines: in short, you pay a little bit for everything.

The entry-level Sandero Access comes in white only, with black plastic bumpers and a single engine choice: a 1.2-liter 16V 75bhp borrowed from Renault, with a leisurely 14.5s 0-62mph time and a top speed of 101mph. It’s 5-door only, but when you step inside you could be forgiven for thinking you were stepping back a decade or so. No electric windows, no air conditioning, no central locking, not even a radio (Dacia tells us that a lot of their buyers begrudge paying for something they never end up turning on, though the Access does come pre-wired to fit your own choice of aftermarket stereo).

You won’t mistake it for a BMW, or even a Ford inside. The plastics are sturdy but feel cheap, and there’s a lot of rhino-skin effect plastic and flocked headlining material. Some of the touch points, like the twisting, folding vents in the center console are particularly cheap to the touch, and the switchgear clicks with a crispness we’re not used to now that most car manufacturers go in for more premium-feeling dampening.

Start the Sandero up, though, and your £6k doesn’t seem like such a bad deal. For a start it’s a spacious five-seater, with a large trunk and legitimate room for an all-adult complement of passengers. Dacia purposefully opted to match the sort of dimensions of a car from the class above the price band, and while that means you miss out on some of the darting zeal of a smaller city car, you make up for it in space for people and luggage. It’s also cheap to insure, slotting into group 2.

The petrol engine is actually quite good, too, though it’s best when you wind the Sandero up. It’s a fizzy little thing, preferring to be worked hard else you face that ponderous climb back up to speed again. There’s power steering (along with emergency brake assistance, ABS, stability and traction control, front and side airbags, and all the other safety kit the regulators demand) but it’s not too over-assisted, meaning there’s a fair amount of feel from the road. We had the most fun when we ignored the “change up” indicator which flashed up with miserly regularity by the rev counter, but if you obey the instructions Dacia claims you could see combined fuel consumption of 48.7mpg (Euro).

Curiously, though, while the low starting price is working as the initial point of appeal, Dacia says most buyers actually opt to step up through the range. Pay £7,395 ($11,285) and you get the Sandero Ambiance, with a choice of TCe 90 or dCi 90 gas or diesel engines (with frugal ECO modes saving roughly 12-percent in fuel consumption) borrowed from Renault’s swankier 4th-gen Clio, as well as a Bluetooth-equipped radio/CD player, electric windows, body-color bumpers, alloy wheels and central locking. Finally, there’s the £7,995 ($12,200) Sandero Laureate, with the joys of air-con, rear electric windows, cruise control, electric mirrors, and even the unbridled luxury of a leather-wrapped steering wheel and gear knob (there’s no auto option anywhere in the range).

Then there are the options, like £395 ($603) for a 5-year (60,000 mile) warranty, or £850 ($1,450) for 7-years (100,000 miles); Dacia knows that other car companies go for 5- or 7-years as standard, but they also recognize that some of their customers would rather pay less and then run the car into the ground. You can even have leather seats and other luxuries, but we can’t help feel that over-speccing the Sandero starts to blunt its overall purpose.

With that in mind, the TCe 90 and dCi 90 engines, though more refined than the entry-level lump, lack some of the charm. They chug away well, are a little faster, and manage better fuel economy (56.5mph Euro combined for the TCe 90; 74.3mpg Euro combined for the dCi 90), but we’re not convinced the initial extra outlay is worth it. The Sandero makes most sense when you think of it in terms of a washing machine, or a refrigerator: it’s an appliance, not a luxury or a status symbol. That might not appeal to car enthusiasts, but anybody wary of the used car market and simply wanting cheap A-to-B transport should take a look.

The Twizy may be small, but it’s certainly not discrete: expect to be looked at when you’re behind the wheel. The moon-buggy styling, prominent safety-shell cabin design, narrow footprint and comical dimensions add up to a car that gets noticed. Years ago, I used to drive a Smart car, back when they were still an unusual sight on the roads; the Twizy definitely gets the same sort of attention, with other drivers pausing at junctions to gawp, pedestrians stopping still and turning on the spot to watch you zip past, and kids pointing phone cameras at you.

European sales of the Twizy began almost a year ago, though the car is still relatively uncommon. That’s arguably down to the compromises owners have to make: in its base form, the Twizy lacks any sort of doors, for instance. Renault charges £545 ($832) on top of the base £6,795 ($10,370) for the scissor doors, though that still only gets you the side bars and translucent lower sections. In fact, it was only in October last year that Renault relented and offered plastic upper windows as a £295 ($450) add-on.

Even with the “doors” in place, the Twizy’s cabin can be an uncomfortable place to be. There’s no attempt to make it water-tight – there are gaps all around the edges, including huge holes where the scissor bar clicks into the rear locking mechanism that you could easily fit your hand through – and the waterproof seats are sturdy foam rather than something more cosseting. It’s also not a car you’d want to leave your phone or sat-nav in: security is limited to a lockable cubby behind the vestigial rear seat, and since you have to unzip the window from the outside merely to reach through to grab the door-opening switch, anything left in plain view is likely to be snatched.

Renault Twizy first-drive:

If the Tesla Model S’ vast, touchscreen dashboard is one example of EV usability, the Twizy’s console sits at the other extreme. There are the usual indicator, light, and wiper control stalks behind the steering wheel, and a pod binnacle showing speed, range, battery status, and drive status above. A hazard blinkers button is on the left, next to two buttons to select either drive or reverse (pressing them both puts the Twizy into neutral), while under the left hand side of the dash is a parking brake.

No rear view mirror – there’s no rear window, though a clear plastic roof is a £195 ($298) option – and the wing mirrors are manually adjustable. More worrying is the complete lack of heating options: in an effort to save battery power, you don’t get fans or heated seats, and even with the windows zipped up there was plenty of cold air circulating through the cabin. At least the windscreen gets a heating option for quick demisting. Your right foot is kept occupied with two pedals – accelerator and brake – and there are no gears to consider.

Starting off in the Twizy is an unusual sensation, even if you’re used to driving electric cars. The Renault is pretty much silent initially, and the feeling of openness from the minimal doors makes you feel quite exposed. As the electric motor ramps up (and you suppress the feeling that you really ought to change gear) it starts to work its way up to a heady whine, combining with the whistle of wind noise to make a cabin that you’d struggle to hear the radio in at comfortable levels, if that is Renault actually fitted one.

Then again, perhaps comfort should be left to drivers of $100k Teslas: the Twizy has its own brand of appeal. After the initial disconcert has worn off, you quickly realize that the tiny Renault is in effect a go-kart for grown-ups. The non-power-assisted steering is direct and immediate, and the tiny wheels and minimal seat padding contribute to a ride that tells you everything there is to know about the condition of the road and how much grip you have. Renault quotes a top speed of 50mph (we managed to squeeze out 52mph with the help of a mild slope) but even at sub-30mph rates the Twizy is incredibly fun, demanding you punt it round corners.

Acceleration lacks the instant verve of other EVs we’ve tried, but is perfectly fine for urban use. Less reassuring is the brake, which feels wooden and overly-stiff. Like other electric cars, the Twizy uses regenerative braking to top up its 52V drive battery – stored under the driver’s seat – with graphics on the LCD showing when you’re using power and when you’re creating it. Maximum range is 62 miles, Renault says, but that’s very dependent on driving style and, more pressingly in the 2-degree centigrade conditions we tried the car, temperature. In fact, we never saw more than 38 miles in estimated range on the display, though with the benefit of regenerative braking that didn’t quite drop in parallel with the actual distance we traveled.

A full charge from a 240V European domestic socket takes 3.5hrs, with the Twizy sprouting a curly extension cord from a hatch in its snout. In fact, the sticker price doesn’t actually include the drive battery at all: Renault is instead leasing them to owners, with finance packages depending on estimated usage (from 4,500 to 9,000 miles per year, ample considering this is not a car for the freeway) and length of agreement. For a year’s rental at the minimum mileage, you’re looking at under £0.15 ($0.22) per mile, not including actually charging the Twizy up.

The Twizy is undeniably a silly car. It’s impractical if your travel isn’t limited to urban use, potentially uncomfortable in inclement weather, suffers from limited range (like most small EVs), and is fairly expensive for a supermini once you add in “essentials” like doors and windows. The version we drove came to around £8,500 ($13,000) when you added in the wheels, doors, windows, clear roof, and a Parrot hands-free kit, which is a lot for a city toy.

And yet… there’s something addictive about it. Maybe it’s the purity of the driving experience, or that the bemused and entertained expressions of the people you whiz past can easily distract you from the fact that you’ve had to dig out gloves and a hoodie in order to keep warm. Maybe it’s the fact that you quickly start to believe you’re at the wheel of a lunar rover, or a car from a Gerry Anderson show. Stopping to recharge doesn’t seem like such a chore when you can combine it with warming up again over a coffee, watching pedestrians pause to ogle the Twizy parked outside.

Renault’s ambitions for the Twizy in the UK are conservative: whereas warmer countries on the European continent might be able to ignore the open-air cabin, it’s far less fun in rain and wind. Still, while we can appreciate the efforts of Tesla and the big car companies attempting to make EVs more mainstream, there’s no denying that the ridiculous (and ridiculously good fun) driving experience of the Twizy makes us glad Renault hasn’t gone entirely sensible as it looks beyond gas engines.

Autonomous driving is a big area of interest for many automakers and technology companies around the world. Google is one of the biggest companies in the autonomous driving arena and has perhaps the largest fleet of self-driving vehicles in the world. Autonomous vehicles are able to operate themselves with no input from a human using GPS and an array of sensors.

The new facility that Renault and Nissan are opening is called the Nissan Research Center Silicon Valley. Nissan says that the new center will enhance its global research capability via collaborative partnerships with companies and research institutions. Nissan says that the goal of the research center with autonomous vehicles is to realize the future with safe and stress-free mobility.

Nissan also lists goals of researching connected vehicles to allow them to tap into infrastructure and the Internet to maximize energy and efficiency. Nissan also wants to research the area of the human machine interface to enhance the experience of autonomous and connected vehicles for drivers. The research center will also participate in planning and advanced development of connected vehicle services and designing of user interface systems that are complementary to the research center’s main goals.

[via Nissan]

Fuel-cell electric vehicles, or FCEVs, power their motors by combining hydrogen and oxygen, with water the only physical byproduct. A high-pressure tank contains the hydrogen, while oxygen is extracted from the air.

The three companies involved have, they point out, a cumulative total of over 60 years of fuel-cell vehicle development, and more than 6m miles in test driving and demonstration models. Work on the homogenized stack will take place in multiple locations around the world, while teams from the three companies will also look at collaborating on other components FCEVs will require so as to achieve further economy of scale.

Unlike the BMW-Toyota partnership, however, which will take an active role in pushing the development of hydrogen refuelling infrastructure, Ford, Daimler, and Renault-Nissan instead hope that their work “sends a clear signal” to existing hydrogen network stakeholders that they need to pull their finger out and get working.

Still, that focus means today’s deal may result in a workable car – or cars – before BMW and Toyota have something ready for the forecourts. The trio today claim 2017 is the earliest a fuel-cell vehicle may be on the market, whereas BMW and Toyota gave themselves a little more wiggle-room, estimating that they would have something prepared by 2020.

Think serious driver’s car yet without too much compromise or discomfort, however. “It won’t be more hardcore than a Mazda MX-5 [Miata]” Norman said. “What we do will not be soft, but not hardcore like a Peugeot 106 Rallye.” Under the hood will be a roughly 250bhp Renault engine.

Alpine interest surged back in 2012, when Renault revealed the A110-50 concept, a fiftieth-anniversary rethink of the original A110 that proved its merit on an aurally-pleasing lap of the French Alps. The new Renault/Caterham Alpine may not be quite so extreme, however; Norman says it will be priced at under £50,000 ($81,000) and be positioned as a Porsche Boxster or Audi TT rival.

“It’s not a car for dandies, though” Norman says. “We know who the buyer is: he’s either French or a Francophile. And the car has technical innovation as part of its DNA.”

The first Alpine model is unlikely to have the garage to itself for long. “Renault and Caterham will combine their skills to build models in large and small volumes” the two companies said back when the project was revealed.

Qualcomm’s trial scheme – in association with Renault and others – kicks off a two year project in London, UK, to see the feasibility and issues around wireless rather than traditional conductive charging. It’s based on Qualcomm’s Halo technology, which puts special inductive coils in both the road and the chassis underneath your car and, when the two line up, can fire across power with much the same efficiency as a regular cable might deliver.

Inductive systems of this sort aren’t new – in fact, industrial facilities have been using similar technology, running automated machinery around factory floors fueled by powerline tracks embedded in the concrete, for more than two decades now – but they’re yet to spread in any effective way from relatively closed systems.

London’s busy and convoluted streets are anything but a closed, controlled system, but that’s exactly why the city was selected by the Qualcomm-led project. It offers a mixture of road conditions, weather types, and usage scenarios, and a combination of sedans, taxis, vans, and other vehicles are expected to take part over the two year period.

Halo is a big step away from plugging in your EV (electric vehicle) to a mains electric point. Instead, you simply drive up to a power-embedded parking space and – being guided in, either by a dialog on the dashboard display or on your smartphone – roughly line up the coils in order for the electricity to start flowing. Early iterations only supported the sort of power you’d get from a slow, overnight charger – around the 3 KWh point, good for a full charge in around seven hours – but the technology now offers a 3hr charge with 7 KWh versions, and even a 1hr charge with the fastest 20 KWh standard.

Qualcomm Halo and Renault Fluence demo:

Renault is the big partner, or at least the one most likely to be seen on roads, with its specially crafted Fluence EV carrying Halo technology (along with a set of regular charging plugs). Citroen is also taking part, with a compact EV, while the more esoteric Delta E-4 will be a rarer sight though probably more eye-catching thanks to its gullwing doors. The Delta also has the most entertaining dashboard, a Tesla-style full touchscreen for navigating through charging programs and efficiency reports. In contrast, the Renault shifts Halo duties to a smartphone app – which we played with on a Samsung Galaxy S III – which helps position the car over the pad as well as begin, end, and monitor charging. The Citroen has a cutesy pod on the instrument binnacle that shows power status.

Unfortunately, the general public won’t be able to snap up a Halo-enabled car during the trial. Instead, they’ll be limited to select fleet users, including cab company Addison Lee, with a further cab deployment planned for sometime in 2014. In fact, the team behind the trial see cabs as being ideal customers for wireless charging, with each waiting period in a taxi rank the ideal opportunity to top up a battery. Initially, though, partner Chargemaster will be adding Halo to six of its London based privately-run “POLAR” EV charging locations, though the goal is to upgrade all 4,000+ points across the UK.

Nor will those with existing EVs be likely to see an upgrade. Qualcomm tells us that the cost of retrofitting Halo – as well as the regulatory and safety hurdles – means the relatively small userbase of current drivers isn’t really a target. Instead, the company is aiming for more widespread adoption with OEMs and upcoming models. It’ll also need to convince buyers to tick the EV box at the point of ordering; Renault says it is attempting to price its models at roughly the point of the diesel-powered equivalent, but there’s infrastructure required for the wireless charging pad if you want one for your garage at home, and you can’t simply plug Halo into a regular power socket. That’s currently along the line of roughly £2,500-3,000 ($4,000-4,800), not including the background infrastructure, though to be fair that’s roughly akin to a wired setup.

In the future, though, your Halo-equipped car may not even need to stand still in order to be recharged. Right now, fixed charging points make sense, from a cost-of-infrastructure standpoint as well as given that most cars sit unused overnight and for several hours during the day. However, Qualcomm also envisages a time when dynamic charging is used: Halo embedded in continuous strings along the roadway, with EVs constantly being powered as they drive over them.

Qualcomm Halo official video:

It’s cost not technology holding back such deployment today. In fact, the current Halo pads support dynamic charging already; right now, though, actually ripping up the road to bury them in place is unfeasible. Qualcomm and others will need to successfully position Halo as a standard, too, in order for the technology to be so broadly adopted that ubiquity makes commercial sense. There are more partners in the trial to be announced, the company told us, and other car manufacturers have been invited to take part, but it’s far from an industry standard yet.

The first evidence of that is likely to be in FIA Formula E, the freshly-announced EV racing cousin to F1. Set to begin in May 2014, it will see new EV racetracks in ten cities across the world, with ten teams pitting their all-electric cars against each other. Right now, the plan is for a relay race setup of sorts – each team would have two cars, driving one for roughly 20 minutes, before leaving it in a pit-stop to recharge while a second car was driven for a further 20 minutes, and then finally returning to the first, “refueled” car for the final 20 minute dash – but the closed environment of a racetrack makes it ideal for dynamic installation.

And don’t doubt that EVs can deliver when it comes to high-speed performance. Drayson Racing Technologies showed us its B12/69 EV, a 200mph+ Le Mans style race car equipped with Halo charging and good for a 3.0 second 0-62mph sprint. The racing team used the B12/69 EV as a Halo testbed during the last Goodwood Festival of Speed, setting a new hill climb record back in July and relying solely on the Qualcomm system for recharging during the entire weekend. In fact, the EV version of the car out-performs its predecessor, which hid a 5.5-litre biofuel engine at the rear instead.

In the end, Halo is a play for a growing market: one where EVs are looked upon more favorably by governments and regulators than traditional gas-guzzlers; where the infrastructure and driver-awareness exists to support them; and where consideration for the environment matches enthusiasm for the independence of having a car. Qualcomm and its partners make a pretty convincing argument for the Halo system specifically, however.

Rather than rely on the sluggish improvement in battery efficiency, or trying to squeeze more batteries into a vehicle to increase range, Halo targets ease of use and ubiquity. By topping up your EV multiple times during the day – without having to fiddle with a power cable or in fact do anything more than park on a certain spot – you can extend your range while also trimming the number of heavy batteries you’re carrying. We’ll have to wait to see how the data crunches at the end of the trial to know if the reality matches the Halo hyperbole, but just as smartphone users are being told they should simply drop down their handsets to recharge, so one day might we just park-up to top-up our zero emissions car.

“The future vehicles will be distinctive, differentiated, and carry the respective DNA of Alpine and Caterham Cars” is all the two companies would say today, though it’s clear that this isn’t just a collaboration on a single model. “Renault and Caterham will combine their skills to build models in large and small volumes,” they say, “in order to widen their positioning on the sports car market.”

New models made as part of the partnership will be produced at the Alpine plane in Dieppe, France, saving it from closure. The Caterham Group will also grab a fifty percent share in Automobiles Alpine Renault, which until now is entirely held by Renault SAS.

At present, the Dieppe facility produces Renaultsport cars, the French firm’s niche performance models, and indeed The Société des Automobiles Alpine Caterham will be managed by Bernard Ollivier, who previously led the Renault Sport Technologies team. Since 2011, Ollivier has been VP of Transformation at Renault.

Renault Alpine A110-50 concept:

If the first Alpine-branded car is anything like the A110-50 concept Renault showed off earlier this year, the two companies could be on to a winner. Channeling the original Alpine A110 “Berlinette” of fifty years previous, the concept borrowed F1 transmission and aerodynamics expertise for a car that – as Renault’s Alps assault proved - was as good on the road as it was on the car show stand.

Renault previously offered a lower-door add-on, which blocked up the bottom half of the gap, but this new accessory provides full coverage. The system is in two parts, firstly a metal frame which clips on to the door-bar, and then a transparent panel which zips into place.

If you’re thinking this all sounds a bit like the hood you might find on a children’s stroller, you’re not alone; we thought that too. The advantage, Renault says, is that the whole thing can be fitted or removed without tools, and without affecting the standard bodywork. When the weather starts to get better – or when you decide it’s easier to drive while wearing a wetsuit and earmuffs- then you can whip it all off again in short order.

There’s a gap for access to the door handles and vents to prevent everything from misting up inside, and the whole kit will come in at £295 ($473) when it goes on sale at the end of November. Until then, we recommend gloves and a wooly hat.

Technical details on the new engine are scant so far. Described as a 4-cylinder gasoline unit, with direct-injection and a turbocharger, it will supposedly be “compact” and show up in the first cars from all firms in 2016 at the earliest.

Meanwhile, Nissan has also grabbed a license to manufacture automatic transmissions using Daimler technology, which Nissan has said will take place in Mexico. Daimler gearboxes already help waft-friendly autobahn cruisers like Mercedes’ sedans shuttle through eight gears, and Nissan’s versions will use “park and shift by wire” and “start and stop” tech the German firm has developed.

The new ‘boxes will be used in both Nissan and Infiniti models, also from 2016, likely tuned for various degrees of efficiency, smoothness, and performance, depending on the specific vehicle and target audience.

Daimler and Renault-Nissan are still in discussions regarding fuel-cell powertrains, the companies confirmed, as well as a cross-supply program for battery and powertrain components for zero-emission compact models. City-car manufacturer and Daimler subsidiary smart showed off a concept all-electric model, the forstars, last week at the Paris Auto Show, which pairs battery power with smartphone remote control and an integrated projector for impromptu movie screenings.

At the wheel of the new car is Jean Ragnotti, who has been racing for Renault on and off since 1973. Renault’s ploy with the video is to pretend that he’s competing against his younger self in the original A110, though in reality it’s Erik Comas behind the wheel for the external shots.

The concept has been given a few visual clues to link it to the original Alpine, including echoing the hood-mounted lights only now brought bang up to date with yellow LED rings. The blue is a new shade, again inspired by the original, while inside there’s a Formula Renault 3.5 steering wheel with an integrated LCD screen.

Renault Alpine A110-50 Design:

As for the engine feeding those flame-spitting tailpipes, it’s a Renault V4Y engine block, a 3.5 litre 24-valve 400hp V6 mounted in a mid-rear position and with custom crankcase (semi-wet), moving parts (pistons, connecting rods, crankshaft), valve train (camshafts and valve springs) and exhaust system. It’s paired with an F1-style semi-automatic six-speed sequential gearbox, with paddle shift and a twin-plate clutch.

Sadly Renault isn’t talking about the possibility of a production version, which is a shame since we reckon Ferrari, Lamborghini and the other supercar companies could do with a swift kick, Alpine-style.

Renault Alpine A110-50 – The movie with Jean Ragnotti:

[via Chris DiBona]

Renault say the all that power is sent to the back wheels using a sequential gearbox with six stages, similar to an F1 racer. The car uses a flappy-paddle gearbox as opposed to a traditional stick shift. A limited slip-differential is also onboard, but the car doesn’t feature an Advanced Brake System or Electronic Stability Program. The car is 170-inches long, 48-inches tall, and 77-inches wide, and weighs around 1,940 lbs.

The concept car was designed as a celebration of the Alpine A110’s 50th birthday. That doesn’t necessarily the sports car of yesterday will make an appearance, with a spokesperson for Renault saying that it wouldn’t really be financially justifiable unless it was sold in the United States and China. Still, the company is still mulling things over, and a final decision to bring back the Alpine brand will be made towards the end of this year.

[via Left Lane]