Currently reading: Safety standards to heavily restrict Alpine A110 sales from 2024

New rules have already cut the life of the Toyota GR86 short, and will reduce volumes for its French rival

The European Union’s new ‘General Safety Regulations 2’ homologation rules are set to hurt the commercial success of the critically acclaimed Alpine A110 sports car.

The rules mandate the integration of certain cameras and sensors that enable active safety systems to be fitted on all new models introduced now, and on existing cars from July 2024, and they have already cut short the European-market lifecycle of the Toyota GR86. These regulations won’t drive the A110 out of production entirely, but they will limit European registrations and force Alpine to look to export markets to sustain the car in the last two years of its life.

“Our plan is for the A110 to remain in production until 2026, and at present, there is growing demand for it,” said Robert Bonetto, Alpine's vice president of engineering. “We are still expanding the European dealer network and sold a third more cars in 2022 [some 3500] than we did the year before.

“But the car is not compliant with the new EU GSR2 active safety homologation standards, and so our options for European sales will be limited from July 2024. Fitting the necessary equipment to the car in order to meet the standard would be too expensive, and the costs could not be amortised before the end of production.”

24 Alpine a110 2018 uk review otr front 0 3

However, Alpine looks set to use a special exemption from the rules, intended for low-volume car makers, to keep at least some examples of the A110 on sale in Europe. “The EU is granting a two-year exemption from GSR2 for low-volume car manufacturers who sell fewer than 1500 cars a year here,” Bonetto said.

“We believe we can use that to keep the A110 on sale in its most important European markets until July 2026 and hope to develop our market presence outside of the EU in order to export the balance of our cars, and maintain a viable production volume for the factory.”

France currently represents more than half of Alpine’s sales volume for the A110 and post-2024 could probably account for all of the cars that the company would be allowed to sell within the EU.

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The country’s ‘malus’ CO2-based vehicle purchase tax currently adds nearly €40,000 (roughly £35,200) to the price of an entry-level Porsche 718 Cayman, but only €3000 (£2640) to the price of the lighter and more efficient A110.

With the UK adopting the EU’s GSR2 regulations at the same time as Europe, there will also be no chance of the UK market becoming more important for Alpine, and taking the supply of cars that can’t be sold on the continent.  

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce PhantomTesla RoadsterAriel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren SennaRenault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.

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CleoIyla 30 January 2023

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SCHNICK18 30 January 2023
The UK isn't currently or automatically adopting GSR2, it'll apply to Northern Ireland because of the NI protocol. UK is exempt until the UK decides to introduce it. UK will need to separately explore and implement GSR2.

So GB will be exempt alfrim GSR2 and also excluded from the 1500 sales limit anyway as we're not in the EU

Jeremy 30 January 2023
SCHNICK18 wrote:

The UK isn't currently or automatically adopting GSR2, it'll apply to Northern Ireland because of the NI protocol. UK is exempt until the UK decides to introduce it. UK will need to separately explore and implement GSR2. So GB will be exempt alfrim GSR2 and also excluded from the 1500 sales limit anyway as we're not in the EU

If this is true, this will be the very first Brexit (and possibly last) bonus!

soldi 30 January 2023
SCHNICK18 wrote:

The UK isn't currently or automatically adopting GSR2, it'll apply to Northern Ireland because of the NI protocol. UK is exempt until the UK decides to introduce it. UK will need to separately explore and implement GSR2. So GB will be exempt alfrim GSR2 and also excluded from the 1500 sales limit anyway as we're not in the EU

 

Unfortunately you are wrong. GB still following EU standards.

therexer 30 January 2023
Schnick18 is absolutely correct. The UK/GB is only following EU standards which applied prior to 1 Jan 2021, the end of the Implementation Period. GSR2 applied from 6 July 2022 iirc. The UK DfT are looking at implementing some or all of GSR2, but it won't be legislated for by mid 2024. The Alpine should continue on sale here, hopefully other cars in a similar position too. As noted, a (very rare) Brexit dividend!
Bob Cholmondeley 4 February 2023
therexer wrote:

Schnick18 is absolutely correct. The UK/GB is only following EU standards which applied prior to 1 Jan 2021, the end of the Implementation Period. GSR2 applied from 6 July 2022 iirc. The UK DfT are looking at implementing some or all of GSR2, but it won't be legislated for by mid 2024. The Alpine should continue on sale here, hopefully other cars in a similar position too. As noted, a (very rare) Brexit dividend!

Failure to implement safety regulations is NOT a Brexit bonus, just bloody-minded Tory stupidity.