Alpine A290_β "100% electric sports show car" will be unveiled on May 9

If you thought Toyota's naming convention for its EVs was absolutely bonkers, get ready to reconsider - compared to what Alpine has cooking, Toyota is quite tame. The French company has just announced that it will unveil a new car on May 9.

So far, so good. The car's name? It's the A290_β, of course - and yes, that's how you spell it. The "β" is supposed to stand for "beta", get it?

The unveiling of this "100% electric sports show car" in Alpine's words will take place in Bristol, UK. The Beta will anticipate "the future 100% electric urban sports car" that will be introduced in 2024. In other words, this is a concept car, but apparently Alpine is allergic to that particular c-word.

Instead, it refers to it as a "show car". Its "worldwide presentation" will be live streamed on May 9 at 10:30 PM CET at this link. From today and until the end of this week, you can win a chance to discover the A290_β by flashing its QR code during the racing weekend in both Formula 1 and Endurance racing. The QR code in question is found on the Alpine A523s engaged in the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Azerbaijan, and the Alpine A470s doing the 6 hours of endurance at Spa.

The final production car based on the A290_β will be an electric hot hatch, "ready to reinvent sportiness" by being "purposefully electric and sporty". If you were wondering about the model number, A is for Alpine, 2 is for the size of the vehicle (although we're not told what the scale is, presumably a 3 would be bigger and so on), and "90" is specific to the brand's multi-purpose sports vehicles, "known as life-style", whereas a "10" would signify a "purely sports" vehicle.