Alpine confirms Electric Car Grant for A290

While the news of the Government’s new Electric Car Grant felt like a step in the right direction, it would be fair to say that few of the qualifying cars did much to tickle the enthusiast pickle. They’d need an awful lot more than a bit of money off to really appeal, put it that way. But now Alpine has confirmed that the A290 qualifies for the second tier of Electric Car Grant, and that’s rather more interesting. Because the Alpine is really very good. 

Though a Band 2 ECG sounds like something you’d have done at the hospital, it means there’s £1,500 off the price of every new A290 from today. It doesn’t meet the sustainability criteria for the full £3,750 off RRP, though at the moment we’re yet to hear of any cars that qualify for that. The Grant means the range now kicks off at £32,000 for the 180hp A290 GT, and applies to every model – even the 220hp GTS that was £37,500, and is now £36,000. As for the other two variants, the 180hp GT Premium and 220hp GT Performance are both now £34,500.

While the price drop isn’t drastic, it’s clearly going to be helpful: paint options on an A290 are £700, £1,050, £1,100 or £1,450, so you could go really fancy (Alpine Vision Blue with a black roof) for effectively no extra money. The optional wheels are £550, so buyers could now get a GT Performance with Nival White paint and the snowflake wheels for less than they would have paid for a standard one last week. The Electric Car Grant is in addition to any existing A290 offers, ‘ensuring the full benefit of the grant is passed directly to customers’. It’ll be a good negotiating tool for those secondhand ones already in the classifieds, too… 

Nicola Burnside, Managing Director of Alpine UK, said: “The A290 is a bold new chapter for Alpine, combining performance, fun and emotion with electric power. The Electric Car Grant makes it even more accessible, and we welcome this positive step by the Government to support the transition to electric vehicles. The A290 represents the future of Alpine – and now is the perfect time to discover it.”