Alpine A290 vs Renault 5

The Alpine A290 costs £11,000 more than the Renault 5. For that premium it adds 43 miles more WLTP range and 40 kW more power. On EVcarsguide's combined category scores, the Renault 5 comes out ahead overall.

The Renault 5 is £11,000 cheaper to buy. The Renault 5 is cheaper to charge, roughly £144 a year versus £184 for the Alpine A290, at 8,000 miles on an off-peak home tariff. Add 5 years of charging and the Renault 5 comes out roughly £11,200 cheaper overall. These figures cover list price and home charging only - insurance, servicing, tyres and depreciation will move the real total.

EVcarsguide estimates a real-world motorway range of about 155 miles for the Alpine A290 and 160 miles for the Renault 5 - effectively matched, and both well below their WLTP figures because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. Both rapid-charge to 80% in a similar time, around 30-31 minutes.

The two are within 15 mm on width, so neither is meaningfully easier to thread into a tight space. In a standard 2,400 mm bay that leaves about 592 mm of total clearance for the Renault 5 and about 577 mm of total clearance for the Alpine A290.

Over a 8-year ownership window EVcarsguide's degradation model projects roughly 84% battery health for the Alpine A290 and 84% for the Renault 5. That is close enough that capacity loss should not decide between them. Both use NMC-type cells, so for daily use keep the charge limit near 80% to slow degradation.