DeLorean Alpha V — everything we know so far

The original DeLorean DMC-12 was, by all accounts, a pretty rubbish car. It had some cool features, like the gull-wing doors, but had it not been for an appearance in Back to the Future then it likely would have been largely forgotten by the masses. 

History had other ideas, though, and that means a new all-electric DeLorean is coming.

It’s called the DeLorean Alpha V, and it marks DeLorean finally making good on its teases that the now-iconic brand could make an all-electric comeback. The car is coming in 2024, and will sport a brand new design, with a few touches that call back to the original DeLorean from the ‘80s. 

Here’s everything you need to know about the DeLorean Alpha V.

DeLorean Alpha V: Price speculation and availability

The DeLorean Alpha V is set to arrive sometime in 2024, though the company hasn’t been any more specific than that. This model is also only going to be available in limited numbers, with DeLorean announcing that just 9,531 cars will be made. That’s one more than the DMC-12’s production run.

It’s also equally unclear how much the Alpha V will cost, though we’re not expecting a luxury-looking electric sports car to be particularly cheap. — especially not with such a limited production run. CNET estimates the car will cost in the region of $125,000, which is Tesla Model S pricing territory, while Motortrend is placing odds on the price being $145,000. 

DeLorean has expressed its intention to compete with the likes of Tesla, Lucid and Mercedes, all of whom have luxury sport cars well in excess of $100,000. So it’s not unreasonable to expect pricing to be in a similar region — especially given the battery and performance specs on the Alpha V.

DeLorean Alpha V: Design and interior

The most notable thing about the Alpha V’s design is that it does not attempt to recreate the classic DeLorean look. The DMC-12 was very firmly an ‘80s sports car, albeit rather an odd-looking one, and that would look even more out of place in the mid-2020s.

That said there are some DeLorean-centric touches in there, including the iconic gull-wing doors, which you’d also find on a Tesla Model X, and the louvred rear-window. Beyond that, the only real way to identify this as a follow-up to the DMC-12 is from the name badge. The Alpha V is a sleek shiny-looking car that wouldn’t look out of place among any number of electric sports cars. 

Other touches on the exterior include a full-width rear light strip, an illuminated DeLorean logo, and plenty more accent lightning in and around the car.

Inside, you have four seats, though there doesn’t appear to be much room at the back. So you better offer your tallest passenger the shotgun seat, for the sake of their comfort more than anything else. The front seems a lot more spacious, especially with the gap under the center console offering a slightly more open feel to things.

You also have two separate displays: one behind the steering wheel and another that rises up with the center console. It’s not clear how big these screens are, or what sort of features we can expect, since DeLorean hasn't told us a great deal about them. The center is likely a touchscreen, and the driver display will no doubt include everything you’d find in a traditional gauge cluster.

The concept images also appear to show a temperature dial on the driver’s side, suggesting that the Alpha V won’t put all its controls behind the smooth touchscreen display — something we’d like to see more of in other cars.

DeLorean Alpha V: Battery and range

Fortunately the DeLorean Alpha V will not need a 1.21 GW charger to travel the roads. A flux capacitor may need that much juice, but the Alpha V has a pretty-typical 100 kWh battery to work with. 

DeLorean is aiming for this to offer at least 300 miles of range, though opting to drive at top performance will cause that figure to dwindle considerably. It’s not clear how fast the car will be able to charge at this point, but you won’t be needing a Mr Fusion to get yourself going.

The absolute bare minimum DeLorean could offer is 100kW DC rapid charging, though that would be incredibly disappointing for a high-performance sports car. 150kW would be a little more palatable, but we hope that DeLorean will take things even further. Tesla Supercharger-rivalling 250 kW charging speeds would be ideal, but we’d settle for somewhere around 200 kW if necessary.

DeLorean Alpha V: Performance

The Alpha V is set to have a top speed of 155 miles per hour, and a 0-60 time of 2.99 seconds. Both stats put the car firmly on the list of the fastest electric cars, with faster acceleration than the Performance Tesla Model 3, Mercedes AMG EQS and others. The top speed is on par with the Performance Tesla Model Y.

The Alpha V will also be able to hit 88 miles per hour in just 4.35 seconds, which is perfect for those all those times a van packed with terrorists is chasing you across deserted mall parking lots in the middle of the night.

DeLorean Alpha V: Technology and other features

Beyond the gullwing doors, and the dual displays, we don’t know a great deal about what the DeLorean Alpha V will actually include. There’s been no word on what driver assistance features, if any, will be available, or the kind of features we can expect on the car’s displays.

We’d hope that there’s some kind of autonomous driving, with lane-centering technology to ease the burden on long drives. Similarly, there should be some sort of system that stops you opening the gull-wing doors if it isn’t safe to do so — be it because of oncoming traffic or some sort of obstacle. 

What we do know is that the first 88 Alpha Vs will also have an associated NFT that will be useful for whatever NFTs are useful for. They also won’t be street legal, which is another matter entirely. It’s not exactly clear why this is the case.

DeLorean Alpha V: Outlook

The thing about this new interaction of the DeLorean Motor Company is that they don’t seem interested in developing cars for the everyday user. The DeLorean Alpha V is a high-performance sports car, while future endeavours have been confirmed to include a V8 sports coupé and a hydrogen-powered sports SUV, the latter of which will be impossible to use outside California or Honolulu.

It’s unclear what DeLorean’s long term plans are, but it won’t happen if the DeLorean Alpha V is dead on arrival. While there’s an immense amount of pressure on the car to succeed, it does, on paper at least, look like a quality vehicle. Sleek and sporty, with high performance and some solid range, the DeLorean Alpha V may not be breaking any records, but we’re still looking at what promises to be a great start to the future of the DeLorean brand.