Vauxhall/Opel Ampera - GM's hybrid for Europe

Ampera: GM’s hybrid electric car for Europe

The Ampera was unveiled at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show, badged Vauxhall in the UK and Opel in the rest of Europe. It’s a four seater, five door, hatchback family car with a hybrid, petrol/electric propulsion system. The Ampera is designed as an everyday mainstream car rather than an ‘urban runabout’.

Extended range electric car

Based directly on the Chevrolet Volt’s drivertrain, the Ampera has a lithium-ion battery pack with a 1.4 litre petrol range-extending engine that drives a generator to provide electric power when the car is driven beyond the 40-mile battery range. Its total range is over 300 miles and the batteries can be recharged using a normal household mains supply socket. The Ampera is a plug-in series hybrid or, as General Motors would have us call it ‘an E-REV – Extended-Range Electric Vehicle with a Voltec electric propulsion system.’

With this extended range, the Ampera scores heavily over pure electric cars with a quoted range of 100 miles (depending on how you drive). It does a great deal to lessen the ‘range anxiety’ typical of electric cars.

Euro American electric car

Although the drivetrain comes from the American Volt, the exterior and interior design of the car is European. The most obvious change is to the front-end of the vehicle which reflects Vauxhall / Opel’s current approach to airflow management.
All electric motors develop full torque from a standing start and the Ampera performs more like a V6 turbodiesel from 0 to 40 mph. GM people claim that it’s smooth, fun to drive and very similar to driving a conventional automatic.

Production plans

The turmoil over ownership of Vauxhall /Opel left GM’s production plans in some disarray. At first, it seemed likely that GM would build the Vauxhall Ampera at the Ellesmere Port production plant in Cheshire, home of the Astra. Production would commence in 2011 / 2012, using the Volt powertrain. Gordon Brown had a mission to build the Ampera at Ellesmere Port, thereby ensuring that the plant had a certain future and the workers’ jobs were assured.

But the government has now changed and new Business Secretary Vince Cable has stated that he ‘is not going round with an open cheque book’ and ‘the days of handouts to individual companies in the automotive industry are over’. He has intimated that building the Ampera at Ellesmere Port makes sound business sense for GM and there is therefore no need for government support.

Nick Reilly, president of GM Europe and now chief executive of Opel and Vauxhall, is in favour of building the Ampera at Ellesmere Port. And the pressure is on Vince Cable to do a u-turn and provide the £30m funding that will secure Ellesmere Port as the European Ampera production plant. Not only will it create around 2,000 more jobs in the North West, but Cable needs to be seen as consistent in his approach to the automotive industry. He has confirmed Nissan’s funding of £20m and a significant loan to Ford, so why not Vauxhall?

It is believed that Nick Reilly will meet Vince Cable before the end of July 2010 to discuss the £30m deal. Reilly will also ask Cable to confirm the previous government’s plan to subsidise electric car buyers by up to £5,000 – he will argue that it is essential if the first electric cars are to be priced at a level that customers can afford. He is aiming at a price of £25,000 for the Ampera after government incentives. The launch date is sometime in 2012.

Electra and Ampera electric car models?

It is thought that GM will introduce the Chevrolet Volt into European markets some time after its launch in the US in late 2010. GM obviously considers that the Volt and Ampera are sufficiently different visually, and can be separated in price and specification levels, so that both models have individual sales potential. Maximising the usage of the Volt drivetrain has obvious benefits for GM. But will GM use the name ‘Volt’ in Europe? The company may adopt a more ‘European’ model name – ‘Electra’ is one possibility. By 2012 we could be seeing a Chevrolet Electra and the Vauxhall Ampera competing head to head in the UK market.