This Bonkers New Alpine Is a 730 HP Hydrogen-Powered Supercar
Alpine may be working on an electric supercar, but it hasn’t given up on hydrogen power just yet.
The French automaker has just unveiled the Alpenglow Hy6, the third iteration of a concept it has been fine-tuning over the past two years. This version is easily the most potent yet, with a hydrogen-powered V-6 that makes over 700 hp.
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As much the Alpenglow has evolved since making its debut at the Paris Motor Show in 2022, its design remains much the same. That’s a good thing because the supercar is one of the more visually distinctive concepts that have come out of Europe in recent years. It looks like a futuristic Le Mans racer, with dramatic lighting, a bubble cockpit, and aggressive aerodynamic bits everywhere you look. The big difference between the third concept and its predecessors is a transparent “bonnet” that offers an excellent view of the vehicle’s V-6.
It makes sense that Alpine would want to show off the Hy6’s powertrain because that is where the car differs most from what came before. The new concept is powered by an all-new twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V-6 that took two years to develop and build. The second Alpenglow, which the company called a running prototype, had a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four.
The mid-mounted mill is mated to a six-speed sequential gearbox and is fed by three tanks that hold up to 2.1 kg each hydrogen in gaseous form. This allows the car to run without producing any emissions. Despite that, the mill can still make 730 hp, 568 ft lbs of torque, and redline at 9,000 rpm. That makes it significantly more powerful than the Hy4, which made a comparatively paltry 340 hp. Thanks to all that extra power, Alpine claims the car will be able to reach a top speed of 205 mph.
Earlier this month, Alpine confirmed that it was hard at work on a new supercar. Little is known about the car other than that it will be built at the new Hypertech Alpine R&D center south of Paris. Since the marque announced that the new facility will focus on EV technology, the assumption is that the vehicle will be battery-powered. Still, Alpine’s continual work on the Alpenglow suggests that some sort of hydrogen-powered vehicle, whether for the road or race track, could be on the way as well.
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