Alpine Alpenglow Hy4 Debuts as Brand’s First Hydrogen Supercar

The all-new Alpine Alpenglow Hy4 breaks cover as the French marque’s first-ever hydrogen-powered supercar.

French sportscar marque Alpine has unveiled the all-new Alpine Alpenglow Hy4 today—the brand’s first-ever hydrogen-powered supercar. Based on the manic Alpenglow concept revealed two years ago, the Alpenglow Hy4 will be used as a lab rat for the development of future hydrogen-powered road and track cars by the brand.

The Alpenglow Hy4 is powered by a 2.0-litre 4-cyl hydrogen ICE rated at 335 HP.

Unlike its concept twin, the Alpenglow Hy4 gets an ICE-based hydrogen powertrain setup comprising a 2.0-litre 4-cyl mill that is said to bear no ties with the one used on the A110 sportscar. Alpine claims that the four-banger unit used on the Alpenglow Hy4 can rev at up to 7,000 RPM, making it 200 RPM higher than the unit used on the A110. As a result, this hydrogen powertrain setup boasts a respectable total system output of 335 HP.

Said mill runs on hydrogen fuels, which are drawn from three hydrogen tanks, each carrying 2.1 KG of hydrogen gas at 700 bar pressure. To make space for these hydrogen tanks and occupants alike, Alpine engineers have tweaked the Alpenglow Hy4’s design from its concept base, and the sportscar now sits higher from the ground.

The Alpenglow Hy4 will make its way in several high-profile racing events around the world as part of its development program.

Alpine plans to take the new Alpenglow Hy4 on a globe-trotting tour, with the hydrogen supercar poised to carry out demonstration runs at several high-profile racing events around the world. These runs will prove to be important for the Alpenglow Hy4 and Alpine in general, as any results gained from them will be used to develop new hydrogen powertrain setups that will be used for both road and track applications.

On top of that, Alpine is also in the midst of developing a new V6-based hydrogen powertrain setup, which will replace the current four-pot unit used on the Alpenglow Hy4 in the near future. More importantly, this new V6 setup will probably end up in one of Alpine’s future Le Mans prototypes, as the impending 2027 regulation for the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race will allow entrants from hydrogen-combustion race cars.6

Although Alpine has yet to confirm this plan, the automaker said that it is “paying close attention” to such regulation changes across all motorsport events it partakes in.

Besides the current four-pot mill, the Alpenglow Hy4 might also come with a more potent V6 version.

As for the road cars, this upcoming V6 hydrogen powertrain may also end up in future Alpine models. Speaking to Autocar UK, Alpine Motorsport vice president Bruno Famin said, “As part of our active participation in decarbonising motorsports, we see the hydrogen internal combustion engine as an extremely promising solution.”

“We know that hydrogen will be an essential step in decarbonising the next generations of endurance cars and could also be for Formula 1 cars, particularly by switching to liquid storage for greater compactness and performance,” the VP added.