Renault is eager to return to the U.S. market, a tough sell as American buyers are still traumatized by Mitterrand-era French cars like MotorTrend‘s 1983 Car of the Year, the Renault Alliance. Renault CEO Luca de Meo thinks Alpine—well known among modern-day car fans for its magnificent A110—might be the gateway for a return to affluent markets like ours. Alpine’s A290_ß concept, shown in these images, previews a small electric hot hatch soon to launch in Europe, but de Leo acknowledges it’s not the right size for America. “We are looking at bigger cars,” he has said, “because we need them to get access to richer markets.” Bigger, in Renault’s definition, means something similar in size to Mercedes’ GLC-Class and GLE-Class but following the same styling theme.
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